Category: Silicon Valley

New DLD Galloway Video Up

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I won’t lie – I dig this dude. I don’t agree with all of it but most of it.

Some highlights to track:

  • Amazon to keep kicking ass and become the biggest of the 4 horseman
  • Facebook and Google to leap ahead of Apple. I agree that Apple is in a funk but I also think Facebook’s core product will be in decline.
  • He says Snap won’t go public and will decline in value. We should see the answer to that soon.
  • Says the wearable market is a mess. I agree. I keep thinking but have not bought an Apple watch.
  • Say VR is not going to be huge. I agree. I think AR will be bigger.
  • He also gets into the morale responsibility of the large platform players and how thet pretend they can shirk things like fake news as an example. Will be interesting to see if this gets any attention but I think it won’t under Trump unless he picks a target.

All in all another good video from Scott.

Great post by Om on Empathy

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I am digging seeing Om in long form in the New Yorker :: http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-has-an-empathy-vacuum

He makes some solid points but I don’t see the valley changing much given it’s such a bubble. Both the wealth and the protection from the real world but I do wonder how the Trump era is going to attack it and how the valley will rise to the challenge.

Empathy would be a great place to start.

I have talked about this some before :: https://seedvc.blog/2016/10/17/empathy/

BEA and Warburg Pincus

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Had a great time at the Deal Street Asia Event :: http://www.dealstreetasia.com/events/

I think my panel went pretty well and hopefully I can join the crew in some way again next year.

To my left, your right, is Jeffrey Perlman who is the MD for SEA Region of Warburg Pincus.

In talking to Jeffrey I was reminded of my BEA years and working with Bill Janeway. I told Jeffrey about my BEA experience and he immediately commented that this is still one of the single best returns that Warburg ever had:

In 1992, the firm funded the launch of OpenVision Technologies, which subsequently merged with VERITAS Software in 1996. In 1999, Warburg Pincus also was the founder and sole investor in BEA Systems. Warburg Pincus eventually distributed its positions in both companies to its limited partners, realizing total returns of $750 million in VERITAS shares and $6.5 billion in BEA shares on investments in each of approximately $50 million.

6.5 billion on 50 million. Insane. 

Has to be one of the best deals not only for Warburg but for the industry.

Where to find the best coders?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I thought this article was pretty interesting but not sure if the sample size is big enough to really declare winners but interesting to see the country breakdown.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/08/30/who-would-win-the-coding-olympics/

China and Russia at the top but also cool to see Singapore come in at #13.

People always ask if there is talent outside of the USA or the known ecosystems of record and I always say that there are but that things like culture, experience and supporting cast members have a lot to do with success as well. Hard to rival Silicon Valley or the USA ecosystem in general due to some of those factors and the shear size of the market but you can’t ignore Asia.

Impossible.

I tend to have always thought the raw coding skills in Asia are as good as the USA but the experience of working for large tech firms on global products is lacking but that is improving with time and the presence of companies like Google who are beginning to build product in the region.

Good time to be in Asia.

Google copied my playbook ;)

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

It’s funny how much a lead Yahoo threw away. First there is the global rise of messaging as a platform – remember Yahoo messenger?

Then there is the need to chase the emerging markets opportunity but rather than do it from Silicon Valley – you place the problem with people from the market.

Now google goes and acquires Pie.co to help them with emerging markets software talent. Great move.

Amazes me at times to see how bad Yahoo is blowing it and how they had so many of the pieces needed to compete.

Oh well…

Lyft

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Was reading this about Lyft – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-18/leaked-lyft-financials-show-the-struggles-of-being-no-2-behind-uber.

Not such a great business it seems but a quick takeaway for me is how the hell do they compete with Uber when they don’t have a big international footprint?

This was also news to me:

Andreessen Horowitz is currently Lyft’s largest shareholder, according to one of the documents obtained by Bloomberg. The venture capital firm holds 12 percent of shares. Bloomberg LP is an investor in Andreessen Horowitz. Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten owns 10 percent of Lyft shares, and the Mayfield Fund owns 6.6 percent.

What the hell is Rakuten doing?

Grab’s problem versus Uber

~ michael_msft ~ 11 Comments

I get in arguments constantly that I am an Uber lover and a Grab hater but most people won’t stop long enough to listen to my stance on it. I will say that after meeting an hearing Sacca I am even a bigger fan but I guess I was just super impressed with Sacca.

First off let me add that as Grab is a local I am constantly baffled and why they are not more local? They took forever to add credit cards, they have no loyalty program (huge mistake), and in places like Singapore their mapping and lack of using zip codes is comical.

On top of all of this the apps just suck – let me get detailed here:

– I will book a taxi. It is on the way. The app will crash. It re opens and it goes back to book a taxi mode. I have one on the way. Of course now I can’t contact the taxi because it shows I don’t have a taxi.

– This happened to me a number of times in Bangkok and since I couldn’t contact the taxi and they couldn’t find me they would cancel on me. I wouldn’t know this since the app thinks I don’t have a booking anyway.

– Other times I would re book only to find I would have two taxis coming. How would a system let me book two taxis? On top of this customer service would call me to inquire why I booked two cabs.

– Other issues like the timing mechanisms are totally broken and the app is just overly complicated.

However let me get to what I think is the core crux of why I don’t like Grab. It fails on the instant gratification scale that Uber absolutely nails. For example this is what I saw this morning when trying to get a GrabCar:

Untitled//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js

To myself or my wife this would make it look like we have a chance of getting a car.

Wait for it – this is what almost always happens though:

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And happens and happens and almost always happens.

Why doesn’t it retry till I get a car?

Why does it show me there are cars around me but yet none accept the fare?

This is the part of Grab that lulls me into thinking it is just a booking app – like all other booking apps. Whereas Uber is an Instant Transportation Service living within my phone. If there are no cars available then it shows me that there are no cars. And practically every time it shows cars are available I am able to book one. Otherwise it shows no cars available. Or if really busy you see surge pricing.

I will take a surge price over hitting retry on Grab 100 times. Why? Instant gratification. I know I can book a car. With Grab. It is spray and pray.

There are those saying that Grab will just keep raising enough money to win. I think winning might be beating other regional players – Rocket already packed their bags. However Uber will win the ultimate battle due to the difference in how the core of their service works.

Grab could fix this but they don’t seem to be since the apps are as bad a they have ever been.

Can anyone run Yahoo?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Adding this for everyone :: http://thomasdiong.com/post/105578350652/marissa-mayer-is-doing-a-fine-job

The internet is all on fire with the latest article about Yahoo and the forthcoming book. It is too juicy of a subject not to talk about it. Here I go.

In case you are wondering I have written about Yahoo before – and normally these posts always make my top 10.

Starting from the most popular on down:

Fuck you, I’m the ‘D’ on this

What the hell happened to Yahoo! Messenger

Thinking about Koprol 2.0

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 1

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 2

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 3

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 4

Koprol – The Inside Story. Part 5

Fuck you, I’m the ‘D’ on this – part 2 (#marissadidit)

What is happening with Yahoo?

That is my core 10 posts regarding Yahoo and they make up most of my blog traffic. I actually had another post on how Carol Bartz was the worst pick as a Yahoo CEO but I erased it one day, actually my first day at Yahoo, thinking that someone might read it and fire me. The rest of the posts were all written after I left Yahoo.

I get emails from people saying I like to bash Yahoo but I don’t. I loved working there, I loved Yahoo before I worked there and I still love Yahoo. I write about it cause I think about it. I do not intend to cause any harm to people working there even if I am sometimes accused of that.

Here is the new article on Yahoo :: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/21/magazine/what-happened-when-marissa-mayer-tried-to-be-steve-jobs.html . It is a riveting read and of course the book will be a must read.

Nothing in the article is really news apart from the fact that it seems Marissa thinks a lot of herself and likes to be late to everything. I heard about the Ross story first hand and of course everyone knew Ross would quit right away. I personally think Ross should have had a shot at running Yahoo. He would have massively cut staff, it NEEDS to be cut, and he would have focused on the right bits. That would be a better course of action than doing nothing or trying to acquire everything. Yahoo could make money as a smaller, more nimble entity. Ross also wanted to buy Hulu but not sure that would have worked but I think trying a big acquisition is smarter than a bunch of small ones for the purposes of recruiting.

At first I was excited about the Marissa news but I had so many current and ex Google friends tell me what a mistake it was. In hindsight a lot of what they were saying was right. She is out of touch with reality, is not a great manager and is not the right fit for Yahoo. As I am in the States right now hanging with my folks, who use Yahoo religiously, I realize that people like my folks are Yahoo’s current target user base for the USA. Yahoo may not like that fact but it is true. They use Yahoo mail, front page, news, weather and the yahoo news digest app. They used to use messenger but let’s be honest – no one uses messenger anymore. It’s dead. Huge, huge mistake for Yahoo to lose out on the messaging craze. Huge.

Enter Marissa, a CEO who knows little about my parents. Marissa is too wealthy, sheltered and full of herself to ever understand my parents. Yes – I know a lot of tech CEOs are out of touch with my mom and dad but the difference is Yahoo needs turing around, Yahoo’s strength is folks like my mom and dad and it will take knowing them to serve them. I know Yahoo wants the young ones but that ain’t happening. In fact, I am not my parents or a young one but I don’t use Yahoo anymore either. That’s the problem really – no one is really waking up everyday and checking Yahoo like they used to.

On this point one has to hand it to Gruber for somewhat nailing the decline of Yahoo :: http://daringfireball.net/2014/12/yahoo_decline . I don’t disagree with him on what happened but I don’t think those mistakes spelt the end of Yahoo. What cooked Yahoo was years and years of not changing course.

Yahoo knew the old stuff was dying and the new web was taking over – but they didn’t respond to it at all.

They missed mobile, then they missed apps, they missed the emerging markets and they blew their Asian deals. Let me be clear here – Yahoo made money on both their Alibaba and their Softbank deal but what they never did is take advantage of those deals. They should have learned how to import stuff from Japan and China back into the States. They should have worked closely with Alibaba and Softbank on Southeast Asia, India and North Asia. Yahoo had huge leads in these markets and now they have virtually nothing. Korea closed. Yahoo Japan is not Yahoo. There is no Yahoo in China. They are dying in Southeast Asia. Properly executing in Asia could have done a lot for Yahoo in the big picture. They let it all die.

I agree with Gruber that a comeback is highly unlikely but along the way they could have fallen less farther than they did. As to now – I don’t know if it can bounce back. It may just be too late. Apart from Flickr I use nothing from Yahoo and they could spin that off if it were up to me. Their mail sucks. Their messenger sucks. I never hit the front page. The new digest thing was interesting but too fluffy and not customizable enough for my tastes. There is just nothing interesting about Yahoo and to top it off – I live in Asia – Yahoo in Asia is even worse than Yahoo in the States. 

Yahoo makes money. They have too many people. They still need to cut back and focus. Then they would make even more money.

As to a Yahoo/AOL thing. Kill me if this happens.

Maybe Alibaba or Softbank might try to buy them. At least that would be interesting.

 

Things about America

~ michael_msft ~ 2 Comments

This is the longest trip back to my homeland in a very long time. Since it is not a business trip I am basically experiencing life again like when I lived here. Which is fun and slightly eye opening since for the last 10+ years I have been centered in Asia.

Around my home area, where I am staying, it feels like nothing has changed much at all. Everyone is older, as I am, and all the same houses are there but with new faces in many of them.

Things that still amaze me are the big box stores that have huge boxes of everything- massive amounts of home electronics, tons of people and the inability to escape the cash register for anything less than 300 USD. I go every trip though to stock up on socks and underwear.

The growth of whole food’s like stores and whole food’s itself is something new. I assume most of it is overpriced nonsense but the selection and quality is pretty amazing. So far this trend hasn’t hit Asia but I can see that it might over time.

What’s strange to me is it still feels like I can buy a pair of shoes made in Asia cheaper in America than in Singapore. Not sure how to grok that one yet.

As we make our way down to Disneyland I am reminded that America is huge and pretty useless without a car. Once you have to live in rural America you must have a car. Must. It’s only the cities that allow non car living. I enjoy the convenience of it but back in Singapore I don’t have or feel like I need one.

Everything is too big. Everywhere you eat the portions are insane and it seems people’s bodies slowly catch up to being able to consume the ultra large portions. People look bigger to me.

Although the market is huge in America I feel like the opportunity to build things and carve into new markets that have better connectivity and a proclivity for mobile devices feels more appealing. It may not be true but it I like building for Asia and the globe more than for America and the globe but it could be that it’s just a feeling more than reality.

That being said I am stunned how bad mobile data is here outside the cities and how crappy rural Internet is. Coming from even Thailand I feel like the Internet is more expensive and slower in rural America than Thailand – apart from the great Thai firewall issues.

My parents live in Alta, CA and they have DSL from ATT that is just crap. I think it is a 5mbps line that barely gets 3 on a good day. There is no other option for them except for some line of sight service that isn’t very reliable.

Might be okay if one could tether their mobile phone but ATT gets like 2 bars there and TMobile won’t work at all. As we drive I5 to Disneyland from Alta I am amazed at how often both our phones have no signal or have edge versus real data. It’s like I am in an emergent market or something – just stunning how America got into this backwater Internet position.

What is absolutely amazing and what gets me thinking about moving back at times though is how beautiful California is and how much I miss the outdoors. The walks, the trees, the oceans, and the mountains are just incredible. Really is no other place like it on earth.

Back to the roadtrip and my shitty gprs connection.