Discovering LinkedIn In 2019

I discovered Twitter in 2009, and JP Rangaswami was a big reason why. His blog Confused Of Calcutta that a friend pointed out to had many posts where he shared his enthusiasm for Twitter. I got infected. Within a year I became a top followed in NYC on Twitter. And I was no Ashton Kutcher. I worked hard at it.

It is not like I had not heard of Twitter. I had. But at first, I thought it was ridiculous. (I was also in attendance at the NY Tech MeetUp where FourSquare first presented, and I was unimpressed with what the two Founders called "check-in") I had been an avid blogger for years. And I thought Twitter was for people who can compose full sentences, but full paragraphs are beyond their reach. I was not going to stoop down.

LinkedIn I signed up for not long after it was launched. I have been a keen reader of tech news since the late 1990s, and so I seldom missed developments. But until this year, I never really used LinkedIn. I updated my profile and kept it current, but that was just because.

This year LinkedIn has become my favorite social network. I have become an avid user. I have been using it for hours a day. It keeps running in the background. It has become more like an Operating System.

When I was living in the city (now I live 90 minutes out, more depending on your mode of transportation) I went to numerous tech events. And often you exchanged business cards. The idea would be to try and connect with those people online.

Now I realize I was doing it in reverse and wasting a lot of precious time. You meet people online. You try to connect with them. They might, they might not reciprocate. Which begs the question, did you have a good enough reason to connect, did you write a relevant enough first email?

After you connect, you can have so much communication online. LinkedIn messaging might not be the best messaging out there, but it works fine. And if you connect with someone enough, you might even want to meet. But that is a rather high threshold. What will you talk in person that you can not over email and voice chat? Especially when a meeting is so hard to arrange. For both parties.

I continue to use Twitter and Facebook, pretty much daily. And although I don't blog as regularly as I used to, my blogs are still active. Now I also blog on LinkedIn itself. But that is deliberately few and far between. If people decide to read my articles, let them be few enough that they might actually read them. That is what I have thought.

The LinkedIn profile is an excellent format. If you have only a few minutes to get to know me, reading my LinkedIn profile might be how you ought to spend your time. The kind of work people have done over the years gives you a pretty good picture of who someone is as a person. Even if your interest in them might not be work-related.

And so I have been networking on LinkedIn like crazy. I don't miss the city. I quite like the clean air around where I live. And I don't much miss the networking tech events either. LinkedIn is far superior an experience.

It feels like for the first time I am building a company (two, actually) in earnest. And LinkedIn is the Operating System I am happily using.

LinkedIn trending topics has also become my favorite place online to go for news. Although I go many places on a daily basis.

And to say I have actually seen Reid Hoffman in person. Mike Bloomberg threw a party. I don't know how I got invited. But that is where I got to meet and know Arianna Huffington also. Hoffman was the featured speaker.

Discovering #LinkedIn In #2019 https://t.co/Ly3PnZh0C3 #2009 #adamcarson #facebook #jprangaswami #networking #nyc @jobsworth @adamkcarson @reidhoffman @MikeBloomberg @ariannahuff @Twitter @LinkedIn

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 14, 2019

Hello

New York City Beats San Francisco

This is remarkable.

Many of us have been connecting the dots for years. But this has come sooner than I expected.

The center of gravity for tech innovation shifted from Silicon Valley to the city of San Francisco a while ago. Silicon Valley feels rural. That is where the old companies are. Old like Google and Apple. And most engineers who work for those companies live in San Francisco, because, well, it is the city life they crave. But if it is about city life, San Francisco has nothing on New York City. Shanghai beats NYC on infrastructure, but NYC is not its infrastructure, it is its collection of people. There NYC beats Shanghai.

Already NYC was a strong number two. Then, in terms of VC money, NYC became neck and neck last year. And Amazon voted with its feet. Google has been expanding in the city for a long time.

Years ago Dennis Crowley of FourSquare made news by not moving to San Francisco. His startup did open up an office there, but he stayed put. I was unsurprised. At the time FourSquare was the NYC tech startup with the most buzz.

The next phase in innovation is about reimagining entire industries. I said so in my last article posted on LinkedIn. And NYC is a good place to be for that. It is home to numerous industries.

New York City Beats San Francisco https://t.co/uhQSiNRWDJ Celebrating? @fredwilson @dens @albertwenger @naveen @kortina @alexahirschfeld @lessin @rachelhaot @R_Scheinman @nihalmehta @reshmasaujani @thegothamgal @cdixon @businessinsider @MikeBloomberg?

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 8, 2019

Could The New York Times Relaunch As A Tech Startup?

The New York Times Co. Reports $709 Million in Digital Revenue for 2018

709 million dollars is a lot of revenue. For a tech startup on the way up. But for an old company, it is chump change. Your market value is not what you are making this year. It is what you are projected to make in the future years. If you are making 700 million this year, but are projected to make no money in three years, your market value will nosedive to zero. On the other hand, if you will stagnate at 700 million, you might get a 5X or a 10X and have a market value below 10B.

What would it take for the New York Times to see a 40% increase in revenues every year for years and years? Obviously the same old, same old would not do.

Is it possible for an old company to relaunch itself? Or must old companies necessarily die and new ones take their place?

Is there a hybrid model possible where a new small team comes in to take an old company to new heights? An equity structure might be where that new team gets one third, and the old NYT keeps two-thirds in equity, and the new team helps take the organization to new heights with new business models.

The broad directions would be deeply digital, niche payments, tiny payments, and global.

Could The New York Times Relaunch As A Tech Startup? https://t.co/fzXDeCdzAI Hey @nytimes I have a proposal for you. @NickKristof @nickbilton

— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) February 6, 2019