But Of Course

Analysis: Yahoo CEO's comeback plan homes in on technology, not media

Her hires, acquisition musings, and other early moves hint at an ambitious, technology-driven comeback plan designed to revitalize aging but well-trafficked properties such as Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports..... Mayer, 37, wants to make Yahoo's properties much more interactive, on PCs and on mobile devices, using social media tools to personalize the user experience and new technology to boost advertising sales. Her well-known focus on user design is expected to result in a simpler, less-cluttered email and home page .... positions Yahoo squarely against Facebook Inc and Google .... Two types of deals are under consideration: companies that will increase user engagement, including on mobile, and those that will boost advertising returns ..... She's spending almost all her time with the product folks ..... Yahoo's advertising technology products, headed for the auction block before Mayer's arrival, are back in favor. De Castro, her highest-profile hire, is known for a deep-understanding of the complex advertising landscape, where dozens of businesses and technology providers are interlinked. ..... Right Media, an automated exchange that allows marketers to blast ads across a network of websites. ..... Roughly 700 million users visit a Yahoo website every month - putting it in the top ranks globally. But the amount of activity people engage in on many sites is steadily declining, and its smartphone offerings are deemed lackluster. .... "The largest change is to be deadly serious about mobile" ..... Facebook and Google, two companies that have taken consumers' time, engineering talent and market value from Yahoo. They are also trying to make the transition to mobile, but it has been difficult

Her mere appointment told me Yahoo now means to do technology, it will no longer aspire to be some kind of a media property. This writer has taken a few months to come to the same conclusion.

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Dorsey's Second Snub At Twitter?

I was slightly amused reading this. Maybe Dorsey is no Steve Jobs either. For one, Steve Jobs was not trying to be anybody. Dorsey is trying to be Steve Jobs. That is a no no. You have to try to be yourself.

Perhaps Dorsey is a visionary and an innovator who just does not have Jobs' CEO muscles.

NY Times: Jack Dorsey Role At Twitter Reduced Because He’s “Difficult” And Indecisive

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A Stealing Kind Of App

Русский: Планшет (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For all intents and purposes your mobile operating system should be more infected than Windows. If it is not it is because the bad guys simply have not had the time to zero in.

There is much more room for mischief in the mobile space.

Google Approves an App that Steals All Your Data

an app that stealthily steals personal data such as photos and contacts ..... Google needs to improve both its app-scanning system and its Android operating system. ...... SMS Bloxor was finally pulled from the store after the researchers uploaded a version that continuously sent all the data from a device back to the app's creators, without ever stopping. ..... app stores will soon be subject to significant criminal efforts .... the coming wave. ..... most examples of mobile malware consist of targeted attacks against individuals, such as CEOs that might have access to valuable corporate data. "Round the corner is going to be some more widespread catastrophe that's could hit tens of thousands or millions of users."

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The Movie Industry's Non Innovation

Image via WikipediaSteve Blank has a great blog post cross posted on ReadWriteWeb.

Why The Movie Industry Can’t Innovate and the Result is SOPA

This year the movie industry made $30 billion (a third of it in the U.S.) from box-office revenue. But the total movie industry revenue was $87 billion. Where did the other $57 billion come from? ..... From sources that the studios at one time claimed would put them out of business: Pay-per view TV, cable and satellite channels, video rentals, DVD sales, online subscriptions and digital downloads. ..... Today it's the Internet that's going to put the studios out of business. Sound familiar? ..... Why was the movie industry consistently wrong? And why do they continue to fight new technology? ........ But why does the movie business think their solution is in Washington and legislation? History and success. ...... when they hired Jack Valenti, who ran the studios' lobbying efforts for the next 38 years. Ironically, it was Valenti's skill in hobbling competitive innovation that negated any need for studios to develop agility, vision and technology leadership. ....... The incumbents tend to have short-sighted goals and often fail to recognize that more money can be made on new platforms and distribution channels. ...... Ironically, the six major movie studios have a great technology lab in Silicon Valley with projects in streaming rights, Video On Demand, Ultraviolet, etc. But lacking the support from the studio CEOs or boards, the lab languishes in the backwaters of the studios' strategy. Instead of leading with new technology, the studios lead with litigation, legislation and lobbying. (Imagine if the $110 million/year spent on lobbying went to disruptive innovation.) ......... The fact is piracy is rampant in all forms of commerce. ..... Grocery and retail stores euphemistically call it shrinkage. ...... SOPA gives corporations unprecedented power to censor almost any site on the Internet. ...... What the music and movie industry should be doing in Washington is promoting legislation to adapt copyright law to new technology- and then leading the transition to the new platforms. ..... Studios are run by financial managers who have no corporate DNA to exploit disruptive innovation

I think of the Internet as one big farm. It is the farm that feeds you mindfood. Movies are mindfood. Of all technologies that were ever invented for the creation and consumption of mindfood, the Internet is the best by a wide margin. The movie executives fighting the Internet is farmers saying keep me away from the farm. What kind of farmers are these people?

Android Has To Be Kept Free

Microsoft making money from Android is criminal behavior. Oracle attempting to make money from Android is criminal behavior. This has to stop. Android has to be kept free. These attempts by PC era companies is the non innovative way to go after Android. Oracle does not even exist in the smartphone space, but I guess the Oracle CEO's best friend does. That is taking friendship too far. Microsoft is a distant also ran in the smartphone space, and so it has decided to play foul.

Microsoft And Oracle Misbehaving On Android



Android being free is fundamental to what Android is all about. Charging for Android from the back door would be a major setback to the Android phenomenon.

Considering the smartphone is how the vast majority of humanity will come online, it can be argued this is to be the Android century. Android is robust and it is free. It is as good as any in performance and it is free. If it is no longer free, that takes away from the shine of Android.

To You I Offer Buddhism And Yoga

Image via WikipediaMinority Majority Nation?
Gender Talk And Pragmatism

TechCrunch: What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology.: By far the most difficult skill for me to learn as CEO was the ability to manage my own psychology. Organizational design, process design, metrics, hiring and firing were all relatively straightforward skills to master compared to keeping my mind in check. Over the years, I’ve spoken to hundreds of CEOs all with the same experience. Nonetheless, very few people talk about it, and I have never read anything on the topic. It’s like the fight club of management: The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don’t talk about the psychological meltdown. ....... this is the most personal and important battle that any CEO will face. ..... no CEO ever has a smooth path to a great company. Along the way, many things go wrong and all of them could have and should have been avoided. ..... If CEOs were graded on a curve, the mean on the test would be 22 out of a 100. This kind of mean can be psychologically challenging for a straight A student. It is particularly challenging, because nobody tells you that the mean is 22. ...... At a certain size, your company will do things that are so bad that you never imagined that you’d be associated with that kind of incompetence. Seeing people fritter away money, waste each other’s time, and do sloppy work can make you feel bad. If you are the CEO, it may well make you sick. ....... Every problem in the company was indeed my fault. ....... Being responsible for everything and getting a 22 on the test starts to weigh on your consciousness. ....... CEOs often make the one of the following two mistakes: 1. They take things too personally 2. They do not take things personally enough ...... Ideally, the CEO will be urgent yet not insane. She will move aggressively and decisively without feeling emotionally culpable. If she can separate the importance of the issues from how she feels about them, she will avoid demonizing her employees or herself. ...... In your darkest moments as CEO, discussing fundamental questions about the viability of your company with your employees can have obvious negative consequences. On the other hand, talking to your board and outside advisors can be fruitless. The knowledge gap between you and them is so vast that you cannot actually bring them fully up to speed in a manner that’s useful in making the decision. You are all alone. ....... asking oneself anything 3,000 times turns out to be a bad idea ...... if you don’t like choosing between horrible and cataclysmic, don’t become CEO ...... Make some friends ..... it is extremely useful from a psychological perspective to talk to people who have been through similarly challenging decisions. ...... Get it out of your head and onto paper ..... I wrote down a detailed explanation of my logic ...... Focus on the road not the wall—When they train racecar drivers, one of the first lessons is when you are going around a curve at 200 MPH, do not focus on the wall; focus on the road. ........ A Final Word of Advice – Don’t Punk Out and Don’t Quit As CEO, there will be many times when you feel like quitting. I have seen CEOs try to cope with the stress by drinking heavily, checking out, and even quitting. In each case, the CEO has a marvelous rationalization why it was OK for him to punk out or quit, but none them will every be great CEOs. Great CEOs face the pain. They deal with the sleepless nights, the cold sweat, and what my friend the great Alfred Chuang (legendary founder and CEO of BEA Systems) calls “the torture.” Whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say: “I didn’t quit.”

Is It A Bubble?

Image via WikipediaThis bubble talk/debate could last for the rest of the year. It might even spill into 2012. Because the craze is just beginning. My take has been that some real wealth is being created, but there sure is some accompanying froth. That is not something to complain about. On the cutting edge there are hits and misses. To expect for all hits is highly unrealistic. It just never has happened.

But the debate is robust and very real. Everybody who is a somebody has an opinion.

A Mini Bubble Burst In Three Years
Bubble, Boom Or Froth?
Bubble Talk Goes On: It's An Overshoot

Larry Page At The Helm

Image via Wikipedia

"I was talking to Larry on Saturday," says Nikesh Arora, Google's chief business officer, when we sit down to talk the following Tuesday. "I told him that I'd gotten back from nine cities in 12 days -- Munich, Copenhagen, Davos, Zurich, New Delhi, Bombay, London, San Francisco. There's a silence for five seconds. And then he's like, 'That's only eight.' "

I have been explicit in my preference for the Founder CEO. I have maintained that Eric Schmidt should have been brought in as COO, Chief Operating Officer, at the outset. That he was brought in as CEO tells me VCs have more power than they should have. Or at least that was the case over a decade ago. In John Doerr vs. Larry Page, I am with Larry Page. John Doerr made a big mistake.

Larry Page had Google work on Android and Chrome behind Eric Schmidt's back. Google not "getting" Facebook is not a big problem, but if Google did not have Android and Chrome today, it would have become an old company by now. Android and Chrome are fundamental to Google doing well in the 2010s, crucial to Google staying relevant and on the edge. And Larry Page gets primary credit.

How Steve Jobs Gets Things Done

I found this amazing article in a tweet by angel investor and entrepreneur Hiten Shah. I follow The Angel List on Twitter. Go read the full article.

Who Owns The Company?

Image via WikipediaI have been meaning to write this blog post for a while now, months, possibly over a year. Finally I am getting around to it. It has become urgent. I have a pre-launch startup.

For conventional wisdom I am going to refer to this, but later.

Mark Peter Davis: Entrepreneur's Guide To Raising Venture Capital

I do know Mark, but that is not why. And this might or might not be the best guide out there to venture capital. But I expect it to be sufficiently good to provide me with the framework of the venture capital business as it stands today. But I have made a point not to read through his posts. I want to express my thoughts before I get corrupted by conventional wisdom.

So who owns the company? Just like I have a bias for Founder CEOs, I have a bias for startups that will go IPO. And it is those two scenarios that I have in mind. So my thoughts might not resonate with startups with other kinds of exits, which ends up being most startups.

I Will Not Miss Eric

Image via CrunchBaseI am a big believer in the idea of the Founder CEO, and I will not miss Eric.

New York Times: Shake-Up at Google as Co-Founder Takes Over: Mr. Schmidt said Mr. Page would “merge Google’s technology and business vision,” while he would focus on external issues, like “deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships.” .... “I don’t think he was pushed aside, but he may have been nudged,” he said, adding that between the two founders, Mr. Page always appeared more interested in eventually becoming chief executive. ..... In the unusual management “troika,” Mr. Auletta said, Mr. Page’s voice always carried the most weight.

Also, the cofounder thing is a myth. Larry Page was always the senior among the two founders. I admire Sergey plenty, but credit is where credit is due.

$1 Trillion In Savings

Image via Wikipedia

CNet: Tech CEOs find $1 trillion in government savings: save $1 trillion over the next decade.

When I read this headline I thought someone came up with an app that will help people lose weight, because if America could somehow go to its 1980 obesity levels - which was bad enough - America would save $1 trillion in health care costs. But no, these tech CEOs have something else on mind.

This headline also made me think that although Obama 08 did a great job of grassroots campaigning, it pretty much wrote the book on it, we are not there yet when it comes to grassroots governing where everybody is involved. Just like Dean 2004 was not there yet when it came to grassroots campaigning, Obama 08 is not there yet when it comes to grassroots governing.

CNet: Tech CEOs find $1 trillion in government savings: First off, the organization believes the federal government should consolidate its many data centers to reduce IT overhead.

No kidding.

CNet: Tech CEOs find $1 trillion in government savings: Secondly, the organization contends that the U.S. government should "streamline" its supply chain and make goods-and-service procurement more standardized.

Talk about business sense.

CNet: Tech CEOs find $1 trillion in government savings: $200 billion could be saved over the next 10 years by analyzing payments being disbursed through Medicare, federal grants, and tax refunds. ..... the government should rely on "electronic self-service" to save $50 billion; sell or auction off many of the "14,000 excess, and 55,000 underutilized buildings in the federal inventory" for a $150 billion savings; cut down on energy use to save $20 billion; and migrate to more shared services for another $50 billion in savings.

The best part of these suggestions might not be that they are totally doable, and they will save a ton of money, but that in implementing them the US federal government will become more transparent, more agile, in short a better government. I say let's go do it.

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