Posts from China

Jan 31, 2012

Understanding Twitter

Twitter is one of the most misunderstood companies I've ever worked with. When you are in the inside, or close to the inside, and you see what people write, it makes you shake your head.

Yesterday Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, was interviewed by Peter Kafka on stage at the D: Dive Into Media conference. Here's a 13 minute edit of that interview that I watched this morning. I think Dick does a great job of addressing much of the misinformation that has been written about Twitter this past few weeks.

I've worked with Dick since he was the co-founder and CEO of our former portfolio company Feedburner. I worked closely with Ev Williams to convince Dick to join Twitter and I am incredibly happy and also quite proud to see how good of a job he is doing running Twitter.

#Web/Tech

Dec 24, 2011

Where To Find Your Future Customers/Users

Our portfolio company Flurry is the leading provider of mobile analytics. They have analytics installed in over 140,000 mobile apps running worldwide. Through this global reach, they have a lot of data on how many iOS and Android devices are in operation throughout the world.

They wrote a blog post yesterday laying out this data and some analysis they did on it and this graph jumped out at me.

These are the numbers of future potential users of mobile apps worldwide based on total market size, ability to afford smartphones, and the current penetration of each market.

Beyond the US, mobile developers should focus on the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) plus Japan and then western europe.

And if you believe that mobile will be the dominant platform for all web/internet activity going forward (as Marc Andreessen hints at in this interview), then web developers may want to focus on these markets as well.

#mobile #Web/Tech

Jan 14, 2010

The Founder Factor

I've long noticed that the most innovative, decisive, and risk taking companies are led by founders or at a minimum have their founders actively engaged in all key strategic decisions. There are many examples. One could point to Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, and Rupert Murdoch. It's also noteworthy to look at the difference between Microsoft when Bill Gates was highly engaged and since he's largely moved on.

I was thinking of that today as I was reading Jessica Vascellaro's account of Google's decision making on the China situation. According to Jessica, Eric Schmidt prefers to see Google stay in China. And Sergey Brin prefers to see Google leave.

Google's statement on China is pretty extraordinary. That they are even considering leaving the largest growth market in the world is a stunning revelation. And it is unlikely that hired and professional management would make such a decision. Management's primary job is to build value for shareholders and it would seem that leaving the largest growth market in the world is not in the shareholder's interest.

However, when the largest shareholders happen to be the founders, such decisions take on a different light. And it may well be that leaving China is the best thing for Google, its employees, its customers and users, and its shareholders. Only time will tell what Google will do and what impact it will have on the company.

I am very impressed with Google and have been for a long time. I think that many of the reasons it is such an amazing company result from having its founders engaged and involved in the key strategic decisions the business faces. The founder factor is a huge intangible force in companies and is most often for the best.

#VC & Technology