Marc Andreesen on Charlie Rose. Something for everyone here.(video.google.com)
video.google.com
Marc Andreesen on Charlie Rose. Something for everyone here.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3628271656800759125&hl=en
20 comments
> Interesting video. This makes me wonder what the next truly disruptive technology will be.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law of Prediction
I believe when/if we get to the point that mobile electronics are disposable and/or able to be personally fabricated in a couple minutes that will be a stepping stone (e.g. personal technology no longer a commodity but close to free.). And, add in the matrix (e.g. blending virtual reality with reality [augmented reality] and or redefining reality [the Meta-verse from [Stephenson's Snow Crash"]) and we will be close to living in a world we can only imagine now.
I recommend MIT's Technology Review. I was a long-time subscriber but just let it run out.
http://technologyreview.com/
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd law of Prediction
I believe when/if we get to the point that mobile electronics are disposable and/or able to be personally fabricated in a couple minutes that will be a stepping stone (e.g. personal technology no longer a commodity but close to free.). And, add in the matrix (e.g. blending virtual reality with reality [augmented reality] and or redefining reality [the Meta-verse from [Stephenson's Snow Crash"]) and we will be close to living in a world we can only imagine now.
I recommend MIT's Technology Review. I was a long-time subscriber but just let it run out.
http://technologyreview.com/
Marc Andreesen said that Facebook doesn't run brand advertising by design. Anyone know why this is the case?
Even though I don't like advertising generally, I'd much rather look at a well-crafted Nike / Apple creative than the weight loss / degree mill tribal fusionish junk they run now.
Even though I don't like advertising generally, I'd much rather look at a well-crafted Nike / Apple creative than the weight loss / degree mill tribal fusionish junk they run now.
The name of the game at Facebook is building a giant company over the course of a decade. They're looking to get billions using facebook. So, any user that quits facebook now, taking into account that the growth is based on the current number of users, actually means that many more users won't join in the future. If you're planning things around a decade of growth, then you come to think of one user leaving facebook now as 10-100 users leaving facebook by a decade from now.
My guess is the ad system they have now is just to test the waters... get the team learning the ins and outs, improving the system's algorithms and reporting capabilities, etc. Running branded ads is much more of a significant move: they're clearly ads, and not so much some sort of pseudo-relevant text ad. In other words, branded ads are much harder (as a user) to ignore, and would lead to a stifle in growth -- the absolute last thing that Facebook wants.
My guess is the ad system they have now is just to test the waters... get the team learning the ins and outs, improving the system's algorithms and reporting capabilities, etc. Running branded ads is much more of a significant move: they're clearly ads, and not so much some sort of pseudo-relevant text ad. In other words, branded ads are much harder (as a user) to ignore, and would lead to a stifle in growth -- the absolute last thing that Facebook wants.
Building the company long term does appear to be their strategy. But their ads are so low quality that they are, in fact, distracting. Surely running some nice creatives would be better?
At risk of criticizing an industry legend, "If they don't make money today, they easily could," rings false. My guess would be that Facebook will acquire Ning long before this happens.
Andreesen lives in a billionaire fantasy world where the normal rules that apply to you and I when accepting VC money just don't apply. They can look 'to the horizon' for their revenue model while we have to have it baked in from day 1. He's earned it, so good for him, but I wouldn't start taking any lessons from what he says to Charlie for your own startup.
The fact that Facebook doesn't consider 175 million users to be a sufficient audience for revenu should tell you something about the scale of company they (believe) are running and funding.
The fact that Facebook doesn't consider 175 million users to be a sufficient audience for revenu should tell you something about the scale of company they (believe) are running and funding.
You really believe that "Facebook doesn't consider 175 million users"?
He's not making an aggressive claim here. He's just saying, if they sold ads on the home page they would be profitable. That's a pretty straightforward calculation.
He said (paraphrasing) they could make money today, but they are opting for building a longterm-business (read: big thing like Intel, not somewhat big thing like Blogger).
If you take his qualifier into account, yeah, maybe he could be right.
If you take his qualifier into account, yeah, maybe he could be right.
why does it have to be mutually exclusive? why can't they do both?
They could easily be profitable immediately if they put big ads on the homepage. But that would hurt the experience. As long as they don't need the money, they want to keep the user experience as good as possible. The hope is that they will develop a less intrusive, more targeted form of advertising that is still effective.
Two observations about his investment thesis:
1. He says you can build companies with "almost no money": $100k - $1M, if I recall correctly.
2. He says you can delay profi^H^H^H^H^H revenue almost indefinitely by looking out on the horizon.
So given these two facts, when exactly do the founders/managers/employees (all of which are young kids by his own admission) start getting paid real money, like the amount required to buy a house in the Santa Clara valley?
Is payoff 100% contingent on a liquidity event and/or perpetual venture capitalization, thereby diluting founders' capital stock further and further? Are his venture founders supposed to continue living in apartments indefinitely while he looks on from his mansion in Atherton and architects the final vision to be realized a decade or more from assignment of preferred stock?
His whole management vision starts to look more and more like serfdom the longer you think about it. The immediate analog that springs to mind is the A&R practices of the music industry in which they sign young, naive bands to contracts that essentially bind them into a period of servitude under the guise of a promise of fame and fortune (to be realized in spades at a later date TBD, just trust us guys, you're gonna be rich and famous!!!) while paying for their operating costs with a future claim on earnings.
This comparison only gets stronger than it already is when you realize that most financially successful musicians make their money from touring and merchandising - realizing their own revenue in small, and sometimes incremental ways until they get a successful fan/customer base.
I mean the whole analogy seems rather obvious to me, and I believe we as (young entrepreneurs of) an industry should learn the lessons of the music/entertainment industry - am I totally wrong here?
I see no difference between Marc Andreesen and David Geffen. Except one lives in SF and one lives in LA.
1. He says you can build companies with "almost no money": $100k - $1M, if I recall correctly.
2. He says you can delay profi^H^H^H^H^H revenue almost indefinitely by looking out on the horizon.
So given these two facts, when exactly do the founders/managers/employees (all of which are young kids by his own admission) start getting paid real money, like the amount required to buy a house in the Santa Clara valley?
Is payoff 100% contingent on a liquidity event and/or perpetual venture capitalization, thereby diluting founders' capital stock further and further? Are his venture founders supposed to continue living in apartments indefinitely while he looks on from his mansion in Atherton and architects the final vision to be realized a decade or more from assignment of preferred stock?
His whole management vision starts to look more and more like serfdom the longer you think about it. The immediate analog that springs to mind is the A&R practices of the music industry in which they sign young, naive bands to contracts that essentially bind them into a period of servitude under the guise of a promise of fame and fortune (to be realized in spades at a later date TBD, just trust us guys, you're gonna be rich and famous!!!) while paying for their operating costs with a future claim on earnings.
This comparison only gets stronger than it already is when you realize that most financially successful musicians make their money from touring and merchandising - realizing their own revenue in small, and sometimes incremental ways until they get a successful fan/customer base.
I mean the whole analogy seems rather obvious to me, and I believe we as (young entrepreneurs of) an industry should learn the lessons of the music/entertainment industry - am I totally wrong here?
I see no difference between Marc Andreesen and David Geffen. Except one lives in SF and one lives in LA.
First of all, there's a supply/demand issue here. There are a gazillion kids looking to A) break into the music business and B) spin up their own consumer software startup. Guess what? As a result, you don't get to live really well unless you make it.
Making it obviously includes a liquidity even, but it can also include great success pre-revenue and/or pre-profit. How do you think senior management at Ning is doing, salary-wise? Howabout Twitter? Digg?
The serfdom remark is just wrong. It's not serfdom-- it's sharing risk. He's risking a pile of (admittedly someone else's) money. You're risking... absolutely nothing if you're getting paid close to market rates. The closer you get to a sure thing that everyone is going to get rich (or at least get all of their cash back), the more entitled you are a market rate salary.
No one is forcing you to accept his terms. You lose nothing by punting your own startup a few years into it and getting a job at any time-- except whatever you haven't vested.
Making it obviously includes a liquidity even, but it can also include great success pre-revenue and/or pre-profit. How do you think senior management at Ning is doing, salary-wise? Howabout Twitter? Digg?
The serfdom remark is just wrong. It's not serfdom-- it's sharing risk. He's risking a pile of (admittedly someone else's) money. You're risking... absolutely nothing if you're getting paid close to market rates. The closer you get to a sure thing that everyone is going to get rich (or at least get all of their cash back), the more entitled you are a market rate salary.
No one is forcing you to accept his terms. You lose nothing by punting your own startup a few years into it and getting a job at any time-- except whatever you haven't vested.
Yeah, that's kind of my point, which is to find a way to do it on your own terms instead of accepting "almost no money" for what is most certainly going to be a significant equity concession in your company.
A VC contract does not "bind you into a period of servitude." You can always walk away and start a different company. The fact that Andreessen will support businesses that can't make money in the first 10 years is a good thing, not a bad thing. I'm sure he will also support business that make the founders rich immediately.
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As a materials scientist, I have to wonder whether the next disruptive force will come from something in the physical form or take a virtual form. Of course these things are impossible to predict, but its fascinating to look at how technology is innovating within my field.
For example, one idea that I hear often is a shift from the printing paper industry (which I agree is a dead industry) to a printing electronics industry. There is no reason why this technology cannot be re-used to innovate another industry that is taking another form. There is huge potential in organic electronics and printable displays.
Similarly, I believe optics are poised for an "it works" button, as Andreesen says. We've already seen the benefits of fiber optics as tremendously fast information travel, but we're ready to see optical computing and other advanced imaging techniques come into the mainstream.
Lastly, we're going to see much more intelligent applications of past ideas. In the past, people would keep to their respective disciplines and innovate within them. Now, everyone is adopting multiple disciplines. We're seeing people who use quantum chemistry to make new materials, intelligent computing and statistics to organize information, and old materials techniques to revolutionize medicine.
If you don't re-train in multiple fields, you will be left in the dust. This is how innovation will continue in the future.