Tag: chris dixon

Podcast notes – How the internet happened – Chris Dixon (a16z) and Brian McCullough (author)

Host: Chris Dixon, a16z partner
Guest: Brian McCullough, author and podcaster

Just published the book “How the Internet Happened, From Netscape to the iPhone” (Amazon)
covers Netscape (1993-ish) to announcement of first iPhone (~2007)
2007-today is the smartphone era

Technology infiltrated every facet of our lives

Bad idea cards – “internet grocery delivery”, “pet foods” – almost every bad idea later became a huge company

Dot com bust was like the meteor hit, the dinosaurs died, but then it all came roaring back

In early 2000s, general sentiment was that internet was cool, useful, but you couldn’t really make money – until the Google IPO, which shocked everyone how profitable they were

In early days, there was a centralized version of the internet called the “Information Superhighway” being pushed by large companies like Disney, Microsoft, etc
The decentralized / distributed network was the underdog
The centralized version / participants thought they had more time, but they lost. What’s the lesson?
“Just good enough technology IS good enough”
Need to excite enough people, reach critical mass
Lots of them were developers who could build
HTML was simple enough, lowered barriers to entry – launch of Mosaic browser
Bill Gates had the vision, but bet on the wrong horse (the centralized version)

eBay – they were one of the most influential early products, even though they aren’t as massive today
1. trained normies to trust strangers online
2. power of self organizing masses to build reputation and relationships
Omidyar didn’t want to settle the disputes between users, so built a reputation and ratings system to let users self organize
“Our business model is whatever our users are doing on our platform”

Napster – today media world is unlimited selection + instant gratification – Napster built that in 1999, but picked fight with wrong industry (music industry literally had mob ties)
turns out key value prop was the convenience, not the price
can’t convince an industry at height of its success to change

Google’s business model was 2 miracles
1. The search engine
2. Overture’s ad model (which Google acquired)
As advertiser, you pay LESS per click the better (more relevant) your ad!
Users actually PREFER having ads
Before that it was all banner ads
Larry & Sergey stuck to principles, were betting that a biz model would come
Initially tried to sell a box for Google Enterprise Search

Turns out on-demand delivery needed smartphones – which came later
Smartphone is perfect for both creation and consumption

We’re in a lull today
No new “wow factor”
Lot of low hanging fruit has been picked by mobile + social
To become the new IG, need to create a qualitatively better experience
Can’t just show up and acquire 1B users

Tech is interplay of infrastructure + applications
iPhone + App Store was infra unlock, which lead to explosion of apps
what’s next infra wave? or are we at end of history?

Founders doing same playbook as 2004
Maybe need new builders to have cultural shift / strategic shift

Is it dangerous because the top companies today have become too big, and just buy the small innovative cos?
Alex Rampell – startups try to find distribution faster than incumbents try to find innovation
Snapchat is great example – invented new media type (vertical short video, ephemeral messaging) – but growth was limited by FB / IG copying
Etsy – Amazon copies them
Tivo – great idea, but Comcast eventually copied it (took 5 years)

PC industry was literally created by hobbyists
Find the spaces where people do it for fun
Most businesses operate on a quarterly or yearly cycle
No one invests in 10 year cycle except maybe academics and hobbyists – which is why often the breakthru innovations comes from these sources

So much of it is just feeling around in dark, fake it til you make it
Even Bezos, Amazon was a test to prove it to himself – once he proved it, then he went all in
Even FB, Zuckerberg thought Wirehog would be bigger, took others to tell him to believe in FB and double down on it

Random Quotes: “The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried” – Stephen McCranie

Recent favorite:

Education perverts the mind since we are directly opposing the natural development of our mind by obtaining ideas first and observations last. This is why so few men of learning have such sound common sense as is quite common among the illiterate – Arthur Schopenhauer

This changed how I think about negative advertising:

Do you know why McDonald’s never ran a negative ad against Burger King, saying their burgers were all full of maggots? It might have worked for a year or two but then no one would have ever eaten another hamburger. – advertising exec in Tom Friedman’s That Used To Be Us

Others:

For warriors in particular, if you calm your own mind and discern the inner minds of others, that may be called the foremost art of war – Shiba Yoshimasa

Meditation is a powerful tool for calming your own mind. When I get in my 10-15 minutes a day, it makes a real difference (especially in the morning). And sometimes on weekends, I try to meditate for longer – 30 minutes to an hour. Often I fall asleep.

Work saves us from 3 great evils: boredom, vice and need – Voltaire

Greed does not have a memory – an economist on Planet Money

Human memory sucks. It is constantly deleted, edited, and curated. While we are willing to believe that such things happen, we forget that they happen to us, too.

Each of you has an economic pie over your heads that represents the value you’ve lost because you haven’t negotiated. You need to stop that pie from growing – bschool professor

Thanks to Medrano for the above.

Money is nothing more than neutral proof that you’re adding value to people’s lives. – Derek Sivers

Thanks to Cal Newport for the above.

Real cultures are built over time. They’re the result of action, reaction, and truth. They are nuanced, beautiful, and authentic. Real culture is patina. – Jason Fried

A perpetual favorite for startups. Thanks to Matt for the above.

The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried. – Stephen McCranie

Reminds me of this Chris Dixon post. If you like Chris Dixon, here are my notes from his talk on why good ideas often seem like bad ideas.

Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority – Lord Acton

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something – Thomas Huxley

The first hour of the morning is the rudder of the day – Henry Ward Beecher

An analogue could be, “the last hour of today is the springboard for tomorrow.”

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win – Mahatma Gandhi