Friday, September 13, 2019

Softbank's Problem: Vision, Not Money




100 billion dollars is a lot of money, but it is not too much money for all the innovation that needs to happen, that will happen, with or without the Softbank Vision Fund. So where did the Vision Fund go wrong?

Masa by now has the wrong vantage point.

A tech startup can fail every step of the way. It can fail post-IPO.

But veterans (and give him credit, he has a Steve Jobs-like aura ... he has a stellar record) like Masa learn to become cautious and careless at the same time. Cases in point: Uber and WeWork.

It is hard to spot Uber and WeWork in their early rounds. But by the time they become unicorns, you think, okay, I missed out when it grew from one million to one billion in market value, but now I got it. If I can hop on now, I will still likely see a 100X growth to my investment, when 10X is considered excellent.

But then things go topsyturvy. Elon Musk wants to eat Uber alive. WeWork starts crumbling down right before your eyes post-IPO.

Both are sound companies. Both shifted the paradigm.

Masa picked Alibaba when Alibaba was really young. He has to go to those roots. Maybe it is hard to do. But there are enough early stage companies in the world today that will easily absorb 100B, or whatever is left of it after Uber and WeWork, two dud investments of Masa.








Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Gender And Tech







Shivani Siroya, Founder CEO Of Tala, A Revolutionary Fintech Company

Masa should put his money in Tala, not WeWork. Although WeWork is fine. But Tala is way more impactful. Masa needs to put $30 billion into this.









Shivani Siroya
The Founder Of Tala On Her Leap From Finance To Fundraising For Her Mission-Driven Startup
Shivani Siroya
With $65M, Tala Goes Global: Q&A With Shivani Siroya and Female Founders Fund
GE 193: How TEDTalk Speaker Shivani Siroya Built Financial App Tala That Has Dispersed $50M+ in Emerging Markets to 1M+ Global Customers (podcast)
Shivani Siroya Of Tala On What It Takes To Build Company Culture Across Time Zones
With loans of just $10, this startup has built a financial services powerhouse in emerging markets
Shivani Siroya
Tala, a Company That Offers Loans for as Little as $10, Just Raised $110 Million
A Tech Founder on Why Being an Outsider Is a Strength
Give People Some (Micro) Credit—and Transform Their Lives
Bringing financial services to emerging markets with Shivani Siroya the Founder and CEO of Tala






























Saturday, August 31, 2019

Baseline Happiness





I retired at 34 with $3 million—here are 5 downsides of early retirement that no one tells you no matter how much of a boost we get in freedom or money, we eventually revert back to our normal baseline of happiness. ....... losing social interactions at work, a loss of purpose, boredom and depression. ...... Eventually, I grew tired of explaining why I retired early or that I wasn’t a trust fund kid. To keep the discussion simple and regain a social identity, I’d simply say I was a writer and tennis coach...... Many people think that once they achieve financial freedom or leave a job they hate, they’ll be permanently happier. ..... One a scale of one to 10, my happiness level skyrocketed to a 10 after I was able to negotiate a pretty solid severance. It was enough to pay for five years worth of living expenses. But not too long after that check hit my bank account, I reverted back to my normal post-retirement baseline of happiness. ....... Retiring early is like finishing the season finale of your favorite TV show. You’re glad it got a nice ending, but you’re also sad it’s over and left wondering what’s next...... We did a lot of traveling, but more importantly, we became parents, which renewed my sense of purpose. ...... Here’s the truth: If you’re unhappy before you retire early, it’s likely that you’ll still be unhappy after you retire. It’s better to figure out what’s at the very core of your issues and fix them first....... Early retirement isn’t the elixir to everlasting happiness, but it sure beats commuting to work and sitting in meetings all day long!

Financial Samurai







Thursday, August 29, 2019

Digital Leadership







What makes someone a great leader in the digital economy? Some leadership characteristics are enduring – courage, for example – but others are uniquely important in today's digital economy......... a handful of leadership characteristics will endure no matter what. Integrity comes to mind, as do courage and the ability to execute. ..... whereas crafting a vision and a strategy is an enduring leadership characteristic, doing so in a transparent, inclusive, and collaborative manner is a contextual characteristic, given the expectations of the new workforce ...... “Great leaders will need to more artfully merge the ‘what’ with the ‘how’ to thrive in tomorrow’s world.” ...... “We can train for the digital skills that are important for future success,” he writes. “But developing a digital mindset is a more complex challenge because it is a less tangible one to address.” ...... Without a mentality focused on platforms, a company’s leaders risk investing in increasingly obsolete ideas. ...... Far more than talking about digital leadership, leaders need to live it ....... Strong leadership was once about creating standardized processes, five-year strategic plans, and then establishing controls to help achieve these plans. ....... Leading in a digital world is instead about creating a culture that encourages — even demands — rapid innovation and experimentation. It is about empowering employees to feel and think like owners so that they remain motivated to create new opportunities. It is also about establishing a kind of radical transparency in which voices across the hierarchy can be heard. But all of this requires, in turn, the cultivation of an open and trusting environment. ....... leaders who can create an innovation-minded culture that fosters creative thinking, agility, and speed....... He started with five-year-olds and found that, against the test’s criteria, 98% of them performed at “genius level.” ........ The scores dropped from 98% at five years old, to 30% at 10 years old, to 12% at 15 years old, to 2% as adults. Land summarized the results simply: “Noncreative behavior is learned.” ......

“As leaders in today’s world, we need to recall the gifts of our inner child.”





Elon Musk And Jack Ma In Shanghai













Wednesday, August 28, 2019

The Microsoft Team

How Microsoft Builds a Sense of Community Among 144,000 Employees Getting together in person to discuss pressing matters has been replaced by meeting through online conferences. ...... build community and create connection between employees and leaders. ...... Microsoft uses Yammer as a channel for Nadella and other leaders to engage with employees, listening to and learning what’s on their minds. On a “CEO Connection” page, employees can pose questions and connect with other employees on a gamut of topics — everything from product strategy to employee benefits........ Instead of being present only with the people in their office, Microsoft leaders can directly engage employees on the other side of the world, crossing time zones and accommodating varied schedules....... Every day, a small sample of Microsoft employees receive a survey called Daily Pulse. Driven by the HR division, Daily Pulse takes a snapshot of how employees are feeling about the company, its culture, and other timely topics. ....... “In what ways do you think Microsoft is different today than it was one year ago?” or “What is the biggest change you’d recommend your leadership make to allow you to be more effective in your job?” Having the flexibility to add in timely questions provides more regular insights into employee sentiment when acquiring companies, orchestrating large reorgs, and making other changes within the organization....... Every month, Microsoft holds an employee town hall meeting where company priorities, progress, and culture are discussed in an open forum. This meeting is broadcast live for employees around the globe and is also available on-demand for employees in other time zones. Along with members of his leadership team, Nadella provides a monthly business update and takes questions directly from the audience as well as from his CEO Connection page on Yammer. This gives him a chance to share his thoughts across a number of areas — including business, industry, and society — and allows employees to raise topics that matter to them. ...... During the event, employee engagement is measured to capture real-time sentiment. ....... Microsoft has hundreds of distribution lists for people with specific interests, so these self-selected communities help with message targeting. ........ Leveraging technology to connect with people at scale is a cornerstone of the 21st-century leadership journey.


Remote Work: To Do Or Not To Do? (Preethi's Take)
Anywhere Competes With Silicon Valley, Bangalore, Beijing And London

Sunday, August 11, 2019

My Blog Posts About Facebook




The Unfacebook (on August 28, 2007)
Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived (on November 07, 2007)
What Should Facebook Do (on March 05, 2009)
Twitter And The Time Dimension (on March 06, 2009)
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic (on March 26, 2009)
The Search Results, The Links, The Inbox, The Stream (on March 30, 2009)
Peter Thiel: Primitive Mind In The Tech Sector (on April 28, 2009)
Define Social Media (on April 29, 2009)
Stand Up Comedy: Thinking On Your Feet: 2.0 (on May 03, 2009)
Facebook Faceoff Firefox (on May 10, 2009)
Facebook's Ad Space Is Different (on May 23, 2009)
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter? (on June 02, 2009)
Facebook And Mashable: Social Media And Social Media Blog (on June 09, 2009)
Facebook Landgrab: A Friday Midnight Call (on June 13, 2009)
Twitter Should Hand Over Search To Google (on August 22, 2009)
The FriendFeed, Facebook Merger (on August 26, 2009)
The Next Big Thing In Social Networking (on October 14, 2009)
Google, Bing And Social Media (on October 22, 2009)
Time, Facebook Connect, And Comments (on December 18, 2009)

Why Will Facebook Itself Not Do Facebook Enterprise? (on April 15, 2010)
Graphic Reality (on April 23, 2010)
Zuckerberg Has Stature (on June 06, 2010)
Facebook Doing Location Is Like Google Doing Social, Almost (on August 17, 2010)
The Web Lifestyle And Company Cultures (on August 17, 2010)
Dennis Crowley, Facebook, And The Location Ecosystem (on August 22, 2010)
I Was In Chicago? Facebook Places Messing Up (on August 22, 2010)
Apple Trying To "Get" Social Now? (on September 02, 2010)
The Facebook Search Engine (on September 06, 2010)
Links And Likes (on September 06, 2010)
StartUp Anxiety For FourSquare? (on September 08, 2010)
Zuck In New Yorker (on September 16, 2010)
Google's Social Efforts (on September 17, 2010)
Adoption And Missed Opportunities (on September 30, 2010)
The Social Network: Before Seeing The Movie (on October 01, 2010)
I Gave In: Facebook: The Movie (on October 01, 2010)
Paradise City (on October 02, 2010)
To Make Sense Of The Facebook Movie (on October 04, 2010)
Facebook Needs To Revamp Email Next (on October 06, 2010)
Facebook's Location Patent (on October 07, 2010)
A Sophisticated Like Button (on October 13, 2010)
David Kirkpatrick: "Zuck Is Not An Asshole" (on October 13, 2010)
Google Under Attack? (on October 15, 2010)
Eduardo Saverin: Roommate Does Not Mean Best Friend (on October 15, 2010)
A Facebook Browser? A Facebook Operating System? (on October 21, 2010)
Social Graph, Social Concentric Circles (on October 28, 2010)
Unique URL For Facebook Updates (on October 30, 2010)
Dropio Acquired (on November 01, 2010)
Facebook Alternative? Dave McClure Is Full Of It (on November 01, 2010)
Facebook's Aggression (on November 03, 2010)
Facebook And Twitter: The Only Two That Count (on November 05, 2010)
Brazil On Orkut (on November 09, 2010)
The Idea Of A Social Browser (on November 09, 2010)
If You Could Take Your Data Center With You (on November 11, 2010)
Facebook's Gmail Killer? Wow (on November 12, 2010)
Should FourSquare Be Scared Of Facebook? (on November 14, 2010)
Facebook's Gmail Killer Email: The Expectation Is In The Air (on November 15, 2010)
Does Path Stand A Chance? (on November 15, 2010)
Facebook Messaging: Awesome (on November 15, 2010)
Facebook Messaging Event: My Favorite Question (on November 15, 2010)
Google, GroupOn: Facebook Needs To Go Public (on November 30, 2010)
Zuckerberg On CBS (on December 06, 2010)
Congrats Zuck (on December 16, 2010)
Mark Suster: The Social Network: Facebook To Fragmentation (on December 05, 2010)

The Twins Were Rowing Boats (on January 01, 2011)
FoodSpotting's Social Graph: FoodSpotting Day: January 15 (on January 04, 2011)
Facebook Could Do Well In Search (on January 04, 2011)
I Am On Facebook Messages Now (on January 07, 2011)
Facebook Going After Disqus Now? (on February 01, 2011)
Facebook Going Into Blog Comments Is Huge (on February 02, 2011)
When Zuck's Facebook Account Got Hacked (on February 14, 2011)
The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance (on February 14, 2011)
Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, FoodSpotting: Sharks (on February 18, 2011)
Facebook Comments To Go: Facebook Nailed It (on March 01, 2011)
Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn (on March 02, 2011)
Facebook Comments: First Impressions (on March 07, 2011)
Farmville's Got Competition (on March 07, 2011)
Facebook Location (on April 07, 2011)
9400 Workers In Six Years? Facebook Is Not Seeing Right (on April 27, 2011)
Facebook Getting Smarter With Social Ads (on April 27, 2011)
Facebook Valuation: Up And Up (on May 03, 2011)
Google's Social Search (on May 19, 2011)
Social Concentric Circles (on May 19, 2011)
Apple Going After Google's Cloud? Facebook Going After Apple With HTML5 (on June 16, 2011)
Path + Instagram + Color (on June 16, 2011)
Facebook's Next Major Breakthrough (on July 01, 2011)
Sheryl Sandberg: New Yorker Profile (on July 04, 2011)
The Facebook Skype Integration Is Huge (on July 06, 2011)
Facebook Videocalling: I Am On Now (on July 06, 2011)
Facebook Beats Google Plus On Design (on July 07, 2011)
Plus, Face (on July 15, 2011)
Finally Facebook Lets Me Reach Out To Non Friends (on September 14, 2011)
HTML5 And F8 (on September 19, 2011)
The Facebook Revamp Is Heartwarming (on September 24, 2011)
Sean Parker: Mystery Man (on September 30, 2011)
Sean Parker's 2009 Email To Spotify (on October 08, 2011)
Google Plus: What Went Wrong? (on October 18, 2011)
How To Recommit Facebook To The Power Users (on October 25, 2011)

Facebook And Big Data (on January 15, 2012)
So Facebook Went IPO (on February 02, 2012)
A Facebook Supported Online Parliament (on February 11, 2012)
Google Plus Is Google's Bing (on April 08, 2012)
Instagram: A Billion In Two Years (on April 09, 2012)
Now That Instagram Has Been Bought By Facebook (on April 10, 2012)
The Facebook IPO Fiasco (on June 27, 2012)
Facebook And Money (on July 11, 2012)
The Facebook Like Button: Not Working Right Now (on July 11, 2012)
Fred Wilson, Mark Zuckerberg And Mobile (on July 15, 2012)
Asana Just Like Facebook (on July 23, 2012)
The Facebook Phone (on July 25, 2012)
Facebook's Money Problem (on July 26, 2012)
No Facebook Phone (on July 27, 2012)
Facebook At $25: This Is Not A Glitch (on July 27, 2012)
The Commandos Behind Facebook's Growth (on July 30, 2012)
Facebook Eating Into Its Ecosystem (on July 31, 2012)
Facebook Doldrums (on August 02, 2012)
Facebook In 2022 (on August 05, 2012)
Facebook's Financial Woes Are Unnecessary (on August 13, 2012)
Facebook's Proposed Campus: Lots Of Open Space (on August 25, 2012)
Facebook's Search Option (on September 17, 2012)
Yahoo Facebook Search Alliance Would Be Interesting (on November 18, 2012)
Off Season April Fool Joke On Yahoo Facebook Search Deal (on November 19, 2012)
Facebook Search Can't Be Bing (on December 29, 2012)

Snapchat, Poke And Facebook (on January 01, 2013)
A Social Graph Can't Last 10 Years (on January 01, 2013)
Facebook's Graph Search: A Long Time Coming (on January 16, 2013)
Facebook Graph Search: The Alternative View (on January 23, 2013)
The Facebook Phone (on April 01, 2013)
A Case For A Facebook Phone (on April 04, 2013)
Snapchat (on December 14, 2013)
Facebook Drones: Super Exciting (on March 28, 2014)
Pinterest Dwarfing Facebook? (on October 18, 2014)

Facebook's Out On Free Internet Could Be A Mobile Browser (on January 08, 2016)
In Defence Of Facebook (on November 22, 2018)
Facebook's Blockchain Push: Libra (on June 19, 2019)


For more: http://technbiz.blogspot.com/search?q=facebook


Bits And Pieces (Of Me)

Being Called Sean Parker
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2011/06/white-male-conspiracy-to-drive-me.html
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/06/paul-graham-brad-feld-me-bbc.html
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/09/netizen-has-arrived-link-from-avc.html (This blog post by Fred Wilson where he hyperlinked to my blog post was his most popular for the year)
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2012/02/top-influencer-during-social-media-week.html
http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2011/06/robin-hood-my-german-nickname.html



CNN: Inside the partnership of Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg


Sunday, August 04, 2019

Microsoft Inspire 2019 Corenote With Satya Nadella






Steve Jobs had a second act at Apple. Bill Gates did not. He had Satya Nadella. It was easier for Steve Jobs to give his second act. For Satya Nadella to come up with the second act is harder, and thus more impressive. Bill Gates was still sending those memos when Steve Ballmer was CEO, and Microsoft missed out on the smartphone completely.

Satya's superpower is his feel for corporate culture. He could teach Bill G a lesson or two. Satya is the antithesis of the nasty Founder CEO aura that is rightly or wrongly credited to/blamed upon Steve Jobs. Satya has proven you can be a nice, humble, empathetic, never angry CEO and create a trillion-dollar company. In fact, he has proven, that is the only way to do it.

And it's not just humility. Satya lays out the vision with such immense clarity, and with such precision; only an impressive intellect can do that. He distills. He forages. He pollinates. He crisscrosses. He wanders around. He picks and chooses. He speaks. He lays it down.
















Friday, August 02, 2019

Digitisation Of The Supply Chain




Digitisation is helping to deliver goods faster Machines are replacing humans in prediction and planning ...... Digitisation will have the impact on supply chains that steam and electricity had on manufacturing”

That steam/electricity metaphor is not hyperbolic. If anything, it is an understatement.