Stocktwits Interview
I did a Skype interview with Howard Lindzon last week. They put it up last night on Stocktwits.tv.
I was tired, particularly at the start, and it shows. The whole thing is just under 20 mins. We talked about “the web is dead” and some other things.
Comments (Archived):
I like the long hair style you had in that Wallstrip interview.You didn’t seem that tired and I also liked the fact that you were more relaxed and jokey (hard not to be with Howard), you’re usually so guarded in interviews.
Howard is a good friend. Hard to be guarded with him
01:49 that’s damn tired !! LOL
You perked up after a few minutes. Great interview – can’t wait to see Seth’s and then mine. I’ll probably blog all four once the series runs. After listening to Chris Dixon, I’m expecting a pretty useful range of views on the question, and then lots of good rambling.Howard gives good interview.
I was thinking the same thing on my bike ride today. I want to watch all ofthem
too kind. the next few series we are creating will be more creative and cool extensions. we are figuring this out where angels and VC’s help people make daily decisions in markets.
With all the new social sites, I’m waiting on the “give Howard and Fred your homework” site.Quora already has Mark Suster answering all my questions. Formspring got plenty of answers out of Chris Dixon.You guys should all get together and do an Angel/VC startup con that charges attendees 10% of their company value if they’re funded while there. Have it at the same time as TED and call it D$BT
i would do it but fred is too nice.
seth’s is today, yours tomorrow, egosha from intel friday. next week it continues
i call dibs the next time howard passes on an investment you offer him
you are now in charge of reviewing all plans that fred sends to me.
you know how much this pains him, right?
Credit to you that in the interview you took pains to rationalise his decision to make him feel better.Lesser people would rib him about it no end.
I will read the article – it’s a thought provoking idea. Seems like the “web” is a good on-ramp for digital services that the “internet” enables.In most cases, the “web” is a good way to deliver and organize text, photos, audio and video … I wonder if “post web” digital services will be indexable and searchable in the same way as the traditional web.
Any interesting piece that I’m sure your counterparts in the industry would appreciate is the lack of sleep VC’s get.
tell me about it
Great start with an intro from Band of Horses. Hope the rest of the video can stack up!
Hey Howard. I’ll give you 10% of MY company for $100,000 and take your guidance along the way. Bring it!! http://www.skyranksystem.com. Let me know if you want our exec summary. Cool new direction. BTW, great video — loving stocktwits.tv –> thanks @cdixon for the heads-up. thanks @fredwilson for your wise insights. thanks @howard for being entertaining. Will check stocktwits.tv alot more, and also explore feeding these videos into my blog.
Hi Joe – good hustle
I don’t quite get how Twitter keeps Facebook in check? I know a heck of a lot more people who are frequent users of $FBOOK and don’t use $TWIT at all.
it is the only other social platform of scale on the webtake a look at most content sitesthey support sharing on bothif facebook was the only one out there, they could wreak havoc
Ok, the scale argument makes sense to me. Thanks for clarifying. I agree that monopolies are no good. (unless you own them).
and though facebook does have a lot more users, comscore has twitter atsomething like 120mm users worldwide and that is just for twitter.com, itdoesn’t include sms or mobile appsit is more widely used in a number of countries than facebook and is growingfaster in some segments of the US population than facebookthey are not the same thing eitherfacebook is for friends and familytwitter is for everyone elsei think they are more complimentary than competitive for most usersbut all that said, i also think having twitter around is a good thing formost people who rely on social media for distribution because withouttwitter, facebook would be the only game in town
Brazil is probably the most important example of a place where Twitter is huge but Facebook is still trying to really penetrate the market (seems like Asia as well, but I am intimately familiar with Latin America) One reason why I’m currently doing a Portuguese lesson. :)I think at one point Fred added a waffle word to Twitter being a FB checkpoint. It could be, it all depends on how the web and each service evolve. While Twitter seems quite distinct at first when you compare T and FB, when you think about where Facebook appears to be headed, they’re making themselves alot more like a Twitter/Foursquare hybrid.
japan is the most important examplecomscore has twitter.com at 12.2 million UVs/month in Japan and Facebook at4.2 millionthat data may be a month old by now
darnit, i guessed wrong.
The web is not dead.Nearly all sites deploy a Model-View-Controller Design Pattern. With the advents of apps, you’re simply coding a new View Layer. If anything this new layer is extending the web. So the entire argument of whether the web is dead is moot.
Another classic interview from Howard. And as usual, Fred nails the central issues all of us face. Great stuff. I noticed Howard that you didn’t ask him about porn like you did me – seems unfair 🙂
we had to censor that moment 🙂
Insightful interview.Three things that struck me:1. Obama is harder to predict than Facebook or 4sq.2. In order to sell something to a national broadcast you need more hair.3. Apparently there is a benefit that Twitter and ZInga weren’t offered to me: I could not pass them.:)
i like my haor and non mainstreamishness of it. mainstream is not fun or cool. edge, nicje and quality of life ARE
I like your non mainstreamishness too, it’s more honest, open and relevant.I meant that Fred had more hair on the Wallstrip interview 🙂
i cringed when i saw that haircut
long
reminded me of when i was 18
think of it this way- you looked “in” at the time. Fyi, nice shirt, stick with more color.
Great great conversation!I remember watching this Wallstrip episode when it came out but forgot about the haircut. Oh wait, but that was Lindsay, so distractions have to be allowed.
shhh
You had a sort of Colin Firth look.
I suggest keeping the hair, and getting darker glasses. You got the eye and skin color for it.
i agree. check me next time 🙂
rebel
I am long on Obama. http://democracyforum.blogs…
I was watching and enjoying this inside my RSS reader and noticed that the ad playing below was to buy firearm accessories from Brownells. Slight moment of cognitive dissonance there.Anyhow, I liked the Manichean dichotomy you propose between open/closed. I heard Ballmer say something similar a few years ago, but he was shouting at someone so it had less impact on me. I think the easy camaraderie you guys have is helpful to the listener.-XC
Awesome conversation guys, every web entrepreneur should watch this! Howard, I loved your live presentation in Toronto at Startup Empire in 2008, and I enjoy your speaking and humor even more now. And Fred I love how you analyze deals and the infrastructures for your deals (the web, app platforms). Here’s to hoping that the Internet doesn’t ever get overly controlled by the governments, or by the largest companies who have the most to gain (or lose).
I tried to add this to my Boxee cue but it didn’t work… hmm.
me tooboxee hasn’t figured out how do deal with their player yet
People like simplicity because they know what to do with it. Developers like simplicity, they know what to do with. It’s balancing the in between.Never been discussed here- does windows mobile 7 have a chance from coming in from behind, and pull an x-box?Where is internet advertising going next if google stays bleh for a decade? Display?
short windows 7short display
🙂 Windows 7 I understandWhy display?
Love it.Great topics and discussion, and it’s clear tell you and Howard are buds. Listening felt like eavesdropping on a personal conversation.
that’s a great thingi’d like to do more things like thati am sure we could have a similar conversation darynover a great meal, hopefully
Hope we can make that happen one of these days.
I tend to agree with you on open vs. closed, but did I miss something since the iPhone 4 announcement? I thought Apple said they were publishing FaceTime as an open protocol. It seemed then like it was only a matter of time before Skype and FaceTime interoperate.
that will be great
Great insights as usual. It was tough to stop the video once started.Howard- I like your furniture. Just curious- is that a home office or ST office?
our office is in coronado and 50 yeards from our home. its both 🙂 and ellen decorated so she will be happy. cheap.
A few thoughts, although I’ve now missed most people ever reading this:1. Long/short really got Fred animated.2. Fred, you equivocated on whether you think Obama will be re-elected. Intrade currently has Obama at 60% likely to win re-election. I don’t suppose you’d like to bet $1k at 58% on Obama’s re-election? 😉 I take +EV bets whenever I can find them.3. You mentioned things you worried about on the web, and predominant among those seemed to be ‘net neutrality.’ This might be a little outside your expertise, but it’d be interesting to hear your comments on LightSquared/SkyTerra and Phil Falcone. http://www.reuters.com/arti…4. I can’t wait until someone ends a conversation with me with “You’re the man. Go invest in something.”
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
i don’t bet on politics or sportsi do bet on business and technology
Given your tone in the interview, it didn’t sound like you’d take Obama at even money either, but I figured I’d give it a shot. 🙂
that’s a bit of a Matthew Broderick look you had going on there Fred in 2006.Great point about Skype being the largest telephone company in the world. I love Skype and there’s plenty more to come from them methinks.
Great interview, Fred, as always. I did not think you looked tired. I thought you looked pensive and wise.
About the open vs closed platforms: The irony is that Microsoft (80s, 90s) was/is more open than current web technologies and we are in the 21st century.Microsoft doesn’t prohibit installing any software, and if you can’t find some APIs is up to you (and your capabilities) to reverse engineer the whole OS.In the web world if an API doesn’t exist you can’t go anywhere (except some slow web scrapping and trying to guess captchas). For example Google eliminated their search api a few years ago leaving applications in the limbo, they have now what’s is call “Google AJAX Search API” but doesn’t work in the same way (you must be in the browser or simulating a browser with a crawler supporting Javascript).So, the web “open” APIs is a dangerous world, and [again] building your business around a third party API without a long term SLA is a risky move.
Nice. You guys should do it more often.
i don’t like how they behave as a companythey are managed incredibly well against that behavior though
Your comparison of them to liquor and gambling companies made me perk up. Interesting.
Does it go beyond just having a closed system? The entire app development market for the iPhone and iPad was a huge departure from prior strategy. Has that not been a positive influence on the market?
great answer charlie
“They take 30% of a developers earnings–pretty onerous given the amount of labor and innovation coming from devs”Reminds me of a good saying: When the customer bitches loudly, but still buys, you know you’ve found market price.
i don’t think it is the market pricei think it is monoply rent
A pretty good amount of labor and innovation came from Apple’s devs when they _made the iPhone_.