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Chapters:0:00 Intro1:50 Gokul Rajaram on Google and what makes a great CEO14:30 Ishan Mukherjee on the State of LLMs22:23 Mark Pincus on how to come up with good ideas and build great products33:12 Anil Varanasi on how to spot great talent36:18 Rio Ferdinand on Leadership and Young Prodigies41:33 Hudzah on using Claude LLM to build products quickly47:29 Mike Maples on patterns for successful startups56:00 Career and life advice by Aarthi and Sriram1:06:55 Aravind Srinivas on Google's Larry Page being his favourite entrepreneur1:10:50 Bryan Johnson's 7 simple hacks to live longer Follow Sriram:https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/https://twitter.com/sriramkFollow Aarthi:https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/https://twitter.com/aarthirFollow the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/aarthiandsriramshow/https://twitter.com/aarthisrirampod
Mark Pincus is the founder of Zynga, which developed some of the most popular mobile games of all time like Farmville and Words With Friends. He currently runs Reinvent Capital and teaches product management at Stanford University. In this episode of World of DaaS, Mark and Auren discuss:Why games predict the future of techBuilding on platforms like FacebookThe economics of virtual goodsProduct frameworks for the AI eraLooking for more tech, data and venture capital intel? Head to worldofdaas.com for our podcast, newsletter and events, and follow us on X @worldofdaas. You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Mark Pincus on X at @markpinc.Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com)
[00:30] Trump Transparency vs. Joebama Hoaxes (55 minutes) President Donald Trump has already given the press pool far more insider access and answers to questions than they were used to getting from Joe Biden's unprecedentedly opaque administration. The media is infuriated that Trump released the January 6 protesters, but many Americans, like tech billionaire Mark Pincus, now recognize that the Joebama administration and propaganda media have been hoaxing the public for years.
(0:00) The Besties welcome Mark Pincus! (3:53) Mark's background (6:02) How Mark got red-pilled for Trump, maintaining friendships despite political differences (23:21) LA Wildfires update: Newsom's EOs, market impact of price controls (51:32) Congestion pricing in NYC, fixing broken cities (1:08:33) TikTok ban: origin and potential outcomes (1:19:15) MBA hiring downturn (1:34:37) Conspiracy Corner: Mark's take on UFOs and UAPs! Follow the Besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Mark Pincus: https://x.com/markpinc Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://www.piratewires.com https://x.com/micsolana https://www.athena.com https://nypost.com/2024/11/04/us-news/tech-billionaire-mark-pincus-reveals-hes-voting-for-trump https://x.com/TheTechnXMedia/status/1878459564980392410 https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/EO-N-4-25-Rebuilding-Final-signed.pdf https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/EO-N-7-25-_-Land-Speculation-1.14.25-bl-_GGN-Signed_.pdf https://x.com/MayorOfLA/status/1878630125786566664 https://congestionreliefzone.mta.info https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/13/nyregion/congestion-pricing-nyc.html https://x.com/friedberg/status/1652334973586915328 https://x.com/markpinc/status/1878575249505333606 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T72DfPEBn0A&t=29s https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-14/china-discusses-sale-of-tiktok-us-to-musk-as-one-possible-option https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/harvard-mba-employment-rate-job-hunt-difficulty-addfc3ec
Chapters:0:00 Intro1:30 The big political divide in the US7:50 The new media election19:55 Pre-Zynga: Mark's entrepreneurial origins26:10 Being in the room where it happens30:50 How to choose the right idea to work on34:35 Meeting Mark Zuckerberg and investing in Facebook40:20 Founder Mode43:15 Zynga board and saving the company49:30 Zynga 2.0: The Comeback55:00 Zynga company culture1:01:20 Building product at Zynga1:08:30 How Zynga was Facebook's winning strategy1:14:10 Advice to Founders1:25:15 Outro Follow Sriram:https://www.instagram.com/sriramk/https://twitter.com/sriramkFollow Aarthi:https://www.instagram.com/aarthir/https://twitter.com/aarthirFollow the podcast:https://www.instagram.com/aarthiandsriramshow/https://twitter.com/aarthisrirampod
Guest: Mark Pincus, founder & chairman of Zynga, and managing member & co-founder of Reinvent CapitalBefore Zynga and Facebook made social gaming mainstream, the video game industry was “extreme on this being about art and crafting,” recalls Zynga founder Mark Pincus. He believes his winning instinct was the realization that games were “at least 50 percent science” — but it's not enough to just have the instinct. Mark says entrepreneurs like him have to quickly take multiple shots on the goal and “look for feedback loops that tell you your instinct is right ... you need to get to a minimum viable idea state and you need to find true signal around that idea state, that it's right or wrong, and move on.”Chapters:(01:40) - Rubbing sticks together (07:01) - Virtual businesses (12:10) - Pre-Zynga companies (13:51) - Setting the real intention (17:44) - Internet treasures (23:21) - Disrupting gaming (30:14) - The chip on Mark's shoulder (33:19) - The end of Tribe (37:24) - Zynga Poker (42:59) - Explosive growth (46:57) - Making the virtual real (52:02) - The downturn (58:12) - Stepping aside (sort of) (01:01:50) - Back into the fire (01:08:45) - In the abyss (01:11:46) - What “grit” means to Mark Mentioned in this episode: Dot Earth, Elon Musk and the Boring Company, Uber Eats and Dara Khosrowshahi, ChatGPT, Roblox, Madhappy, Reid Hoffman, Craigslist, Google, Napster and Sean Parker, the California Culinary Academy, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Yahoo, John Doerr, Words with Friends, LinkedIn, Tribe.net, Supercell and Ilkka Paananen, FarmVille and Hay Day, Parker Conrad and Rippling, Bing Gordon, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, the Game Developer's Conference, CNET, Matt Cohler, Don Mattrick, Microsoft and the Xbox, Joe Biden, Jason Citron and Discord, Steve Jobs, Super Labs, Marcus Segal, Frank Gibeau, The Courage to Be Disliked, and Stewart Butterfield.Links:Connect with MarkTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
Echo Chunk, a company that is building Wordle-styled daily chess puzzle game Echo Chess, has raised $1.4 million in pre-seed from a16z Speedrun (Andreessen Horowitz's early stage games accelerator), founder of Zyanga Mark Pincus, South Park Commons (SPC), Opendoor founder and CEO Eric Wu and Stef Corazza, the Head of Generative AI at Roblox Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
You might recognize the name Mark Pincus but we almost guarantee you recognize the game Farmville. Mark Pincus is the founder and longtime CEO of Zynga, known for its massive global franchise of games, including those household names like Farmville and Words with Friends. Zynga was also at the forefront of the transition to mobile and the use of large platforms like Facebook for distribution.In this episode Mark joins Josh Lu from the a16z Games team for a fireside chat. They discuss navigating major tech waves and recognizing "true signal" opportunities, and explore a wide range of topics, from the strategic insights that propelled Zynga to success, the future of the Metaverse, and the philosophy behind minimum viable products. This conversation offers invaluable insights for both gaming industry insiders and enthusiasts looking to understand the dynamics of tech innovation and entrepreneurship.Topics Covered:00:00 - How Zynga Spotted the Mobile Wave02:47 - Challenges of Starting Zynga05:24 - Zynga's Early Workforce and Learning HTML07:40 - Preparing for Tech Waves11:29 - The Importance of Being Too Early15:42 - The attribute of great founders18:33 - Hiring Philosophy 22:02 - ‘Everyone is a CEO'24:20 - Fast Iteration and Learning from Failures31:06 - Personal Gaming Preferences32:52 - Advice on Reevaluating Projects and True Signal35:50 - AI's Role in Consumer Adoption and Gaming40:17 - Community as a Core Element43:31 - UGC Gaming Space and Future Computing ParadigmsResources: Find Mark on Twitter: https://twitter.com/markpincFind Josh on Twitter: https://twitter.com/joshluLearn more about SPEEDRUN 3.0: https://a16z.com/speedrun3Learn more about SPEEDRUN: ttps://a16z.com/speedrun-your-gaming-startupStay Updated: Find a16z on Twitter: https://twitter.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zSubscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://a16z.simplecast.com/Follow our host: https://twitter.com/stephsmithioPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
This encore episode is a recording of a special event where Mark Pincus (@markpinc) was interviewed by Ben Casnocha in San Francisco in front of a live audience of portfolio founders, friends of the firm, and LPs.Mark is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga, and is an angel investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other companies. He talked about about raising venture capital, his philosophy of product management, the early days at Zynga, and much more. He also took time at the event to meet with Village Global founders to give them his advice on growing their companies. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Mark Pincus, the founder of Zynga, once said that leaders should "make everyone the CEO of something." But that's easier said than done. So how do you go about cultivating an ownership mindset, not only for yourself, but all of your direct reports as well? I mean, is it even possible to affect how other people view their ownership of something? In this week's episode, I wanted to highlight the importance of having an ownership mindset in leadership and explore some of the common challenges and negative consequences of a low ownership mindset within teams. If you've ever wanted tips on how to boost your team members' autonomy and accountability to foster a more creative and independent work environment then this episode is for you! Check out more resources here: www.ramonashaw.com/185-ownership-mindset Or watch it on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/IJtFSLmVl7Y — RESOURCES MENTIONED — Daniel Pink's book, "Drive" Learn how to turn your 1-on-1 meetings from time wasters, awkward moments, status updates, or non-existent into your most important and valuable meeting with your directs all week. Access the course and resources here: ramonashaw.com/11 Have a question or topic you'd like Ramona to address on a future episode? Fill out this form to submit it for her review: https://ramonashaw.com/ama — OTHER EPISODES YOU MIGHT LIKE — Episode 12: Why Telling People What To Do Often Doesn't Work Episode 43: Is Your Thinking Helping or Hurting You? Episode 53: How Not To Micromanage Episode 69: Why Coach When Giving Advice Is So Much Easier? Episode 72: Manage Your Mind Before You Manage People Episode 83: Having High Standards Episode 99: Stop Asking for Direction Episode 129: Creating a Feedback Culture - With Harrison Kim — WHAT'S NEXT? — Grab your copy of Ramona's best-selling book 'The Confident & Competent New Manager: How to Rapidly Rise to Success in Your First Leadership Role': amzn.to/3TuOdcP If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me @ramona.shaw.leadership or DM me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/ramona-shaw Are you in your first manager role and don't want to mess it up? Watch our FREE Masterclass and discover the 4 shifts to become a leader people love to work for: ramonashaw.com/masterclass Don't forget to invest time each week to increase your self-awareness, celebrate your wins, and learn from your mistakes. Your career grows only to the extent that you grow. Grab your Career Journal with leadership exercises and weekly reflections here: ramonashaw.com/shop Love the podcast and haven't left a review yet? All you have to do is go to ramonashaw.com/itunes and give your honest review. Thanks for your support of this show!* Disclaimer: Shownotes may contain affiliate links. That means that I am awarded a small commission for purchases made through them, at no added cost to you.
Mark Pincus was at the forefront of mobile technology when it was just being born. He is a recovering venture capitalist who co-founded his first company with Sunil Paul in 1995. FreeLoader was at the forefront of giving people the news through push technology, just as the IETF was in the process of ratifying HTTP2. He sold that for $38 million only to watch it get destroyed. But he did invest in a startup that one of the interns founded when he gave Sean Parker $100,000 to help found Napster. Pincus then started Support.com, which went public in 2000. Then Tribe.net, which Cisco acquired. As a former user, it was fun while it lasted. Along the way, Pincus teamed up with Reid Hoffman, former PayPal executive and founder of LinkedIn and bought the Six Degrees patent that basically covered all social networking. Along the way, he invested in Friendster, Buddy Media, Brightmail, JD.com, Facebook, Snapchat, and Twitter. Investing in all those social media properties gave him a pretty good insight into what trends were on the way. Web 2.0 was on the rise and social networks were spreading fast. As they spread, each attempted to become a platform by opening APIs for third-party developers. This led to an opening to create a new company that could build software that sat on top of these social media companies. Meanwhile, the gaming industry was in a transition from desktop and console games to hyper-casual games that are played on mobile devices. So Pincus recruited conspirators to start yet another company and with Michael Luxton, Andrew Trader, Eric Schiermeyer, Steve Schoettler, and Justin Waldron, Zinga was born in 2007. Actually Zinga is the dog. The company Zynga was born in 2007. Facebook was only three years old at the time, but was already at 14 million users to start 2007. That's when they opened up APIs for integration with third party products through FBML, or Facebook Markup Language. They would have 100 million within a year. Given his track record selling companies and picking winners, Zynga easily raised $29 million to start what amounts to a social game studio. They make games that people access through social networks. Luxton, Schiermeyer, and Waldron created the first game, Zynga Poker in 2007. It was a simple enough Texas hold 'em poker game but rose to include tens of millions of players at its height, raking in millions in revenue. They'd proven the thesis. Social networks, especially Facebook, were growing.. The iPhone came out in 2007. That only hardened their resolve. They sold poker chips in 2008. Then came FarmVille. FarmVille was launched in 2009 and an instant hit. The game went viral and had a million daily users in a week. It was originally written in flash and later ported to iPhones and other mobile platforms. It's now been installed over 700 million times and ran until 2020, when Flash support was dropped by Facebook. FarmVille was free-to-play and simple. It had elements of a 4x game like Civilization, but was co-op, meaning players didn't exterminate one another but instead earned points and thus rankings. In fact, players could help speed up tasks for one another. Players began with a farm - an empty plot of land. They earned experience points by doing routine tasks. Things like growing crops, upgrading items, plowing more and more land. Players took their crops to the market and sold them for coins. Coins could also be bought. If a player didn't harvest their crops when they were mature, the crops would die. Thus, they had players coming back again and again. Push notifications helped remind people about the state of their farm. Or the news in FreeLoader-speak. Some players became what we called dolphins, or players that spent about what they would on a usual game. Maybe $10 to $30. Others spent thousands, which we referred to as whales. They became the top game on Facebook and the top earner. They launched sequels as well, with FarmVille 2 and FarmVille 3. They bought Challenge Games in 2010, which was founded by Andrew Busy to develop casual games a well. They bought 14 more companies. They grew to 750 employees. They opened offices in Bangalore, India and Ireland. They experimented with other platforms, like Microsoft's MSN gaming environment and Google TV. They released CastleVille. And they went public towards the end of 2011. It was a whirlwind ride, and just really getting started. They released cute FarmVille toys. They also released Project Z, Mafia Wars, Hanging with Friends, Adventure World, and Hidden Chronicles. And along the way they became a considerable advertising customer for Facebook, with ads showing up for Mafia Wars and Project Z constantly. Not only that, but their ads flooded other mobile ad networks, as The Sims Social and other games caught on and stole eyeballs. And players were rewarded for spamming the walls of other players, which helped to increase the viral nature of the early Facebook games. Pincus and the team built a successful, vibrant company. They brought in Jeff Karp and launched Pioneer Trail. Then another smash hit, Words with Friends. They bought Newtoy for $53.3 million to get it, after Paul and David Bettner who wrote a game called Chess with Friends a few years earlier. But revenues dropped as the Facebook ride they'd been on began to transition from people gaming in a web browser to mobile devices. All this growth and the company was ready for the next phase. In 2013, Zynga hired Donald Mattrick to be the CEO and Pincus moved to the role of Chief Product Officer. The brought in Alex Garden, the General Manager for Xbox Music , Video, and Reading, who had founded the Homeward creator Relic Entertainment back in the 1990s. The new management didn't fix the decline. The old games continued to lose market share and Pincus came back to run the company as CEO and cut the staff by 18 percent. In 2015 they brought in Frank Gibeau to the board and by 2016 moved him to CEO of the company. One challenge with the move to mobile was who got the processing payments. Microtransactions had gone through Facebook for years. They moved to Stripe in 2020. They acquired Gram Games, to get Merge Dragons! They bought Small Giant Games to get Empires & Puzzles. They bought Peak Games to get Toon Blast and Toy Blast. They picked up Rollic to get a boatload of actions and puzzle games. They bought Golf Rival by acquiring StarLark. And as of the time of this writing they have nearly 200 million players actively logging into their games. There are a few things to take from the story of Zynga. One is that a free game doesn't put $2.8 billion in revenues on the board, which is what they made in 2021. Advertising amounts for just north of a half billion, but the rest comes from in app purchases. The next is that the transition from owner-operators is hard. Pincus and the founding team had a great vision. They executed and were rewarded by taking the company to a gangbuster IPO. The market changed and it took a couple of pivots to get there. That led to a couple of management shakeups and a transition to more of a portfolio mindset with the fleet of games they own. Another lesson is that larger development organizations don't necessarily get more done. That's why Zynga has had to acquire companies to get hits since around the time that they bought Words with Friends. Finally, when a company goes public the team gets distracted. Not only is going through an IPO expensive and the ensuing financial reporting requirements a hassle to deal with, but it's distracting. Employees look at stock prices during the day. Higher ranking employees have to hire a team of accountants to shuffle their money around in order to take advantage of tax loopholes. Growth leads to political infighting and power grabbing. There are also regulatory requirements with how we manage our code and technology that slow down innovation. But it all makes us better run and a safer partner eventually. All companies go through this. Those who navigate towards a steady state fastest have the best chance of surviving one more lesson: when the first movers prove a monetization thesis the ocean will get red fast. Zynga became the top mobile development company again after weathering the storm and making a few solid acquisitions. But as Bill Gates pointed out in the 1980s, gaming is a fickle business. So Zynga agreed to be acquired for $12.7 billion in 2022 by Take-Two Interactive, who now owns the Civilization, Grand Theft Auto, Borderlands, WWE, Red Dead, Max Payne, NBA 2K, PGA 2K, Bioshock, Duke Nukem, Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, Battleship, Centipede, and the list goes on and on. They've been running a portfolio for a long time. Pincus took away nearly $200 million in the deal and about $350 million in Take-Two equity. Ads and loot boxes can be big business. Meanwhile, Pincus and Hoffman from LinkedIn work well together, apparently. They built Reinvent Capital, an investment firm that shows that venture capital has quite a high recidivism rate. They had a number of successful investments and SPACs. Zynga was much more. They exploited Facebook to shoot up to hundreds of millions in revenue. That was revenue Facebook then decided they should have a piece of in 2011, which cut those Zynga revenues in half over time. This is an important lesson any time a huge percentage of revenue is dependent on another party who can change the game (no pun intended) at any time. Diversify.
Mark Pincus is a serial entrepreneur and investor who founded the early social media company Tribe Networks, and the mobile social gaming company Zynga. More recently he co-founded investment firm Reinvent Capital in 2018.
Aurora CEO Chris Urmson and Reinvent's (RTPY) Michael Thompson join David Drapkin to talk self-driving technology, why Aurora is setup for success, and the overall SPAC market. Aurora / Reinvent just announced their shareholder vote on the deal is happening on November 2nd. Reinvent Technology Partners Y (RTPY), is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. More on Aurora: https://aurora.tech/ More on Reinvent: https://www.reinventtechnologypartners.com/ Discussion DetailsOverview of Aurora and its technology, partnershipsWhy public now vs. an additional private roundWhy Reinvent, process of finding a SPACSponsor alignment with public shareholdersKeys to success as a public company2023 Truck launch and go-to-market strategyWhy Aurora vs. a GM or Waymo?Valuation in context vs. Peers and latest raise?Telling Aurora's story to the publicCapital structure of the company post closeReinvent as a SPAC sponsor - picking SPAC targetsFuture of the SPAC market from a sponsor perspectiveBiggest Risk for Aurora
Dönüm Noktası, bu bölümde hypercasual oyun sektörünün yükselen yıldızı Alictus'un kurucuları Ecem Baran ve Emre Taş'ı ağırlıyor. Ecem ve Emre'nin hikayesi İzmir ve Ankara ekseninde başlayıp, global hypercasual oyun sektöründe kendi oyunlarını geliştirip yayınlayan şirketler listesinde zirveye çıkmalarına kadar devam ediyor. Hiç yatırım almadan, çok kısa bir sürede nasıl büyüdüklerini, Endeavor'ın Outliers Programı'na en kısa sürede giren girişimciler olarak deneyimlerini, Türkiye'deki oyun sektörünü ve son dönemde çok konuşulan "yeteneği elde tutma"yı, tamamen uzaktan çalışmaya geçiş kararlarını nasıl verdiklerini ve süreci nasıl yönettiklerini, Alictus'la ilgili hem eş, hem iş arkadaşı olarak hayallerini ve Zynga kurucularından Mark Pincus ile olan hikayelerini konuştuğumuz bu bölümü keyifle dinlemenizi dileriz!
Justin Waldron co-founded gaming company Zynga with Mark Pincus when he was 19. Today, he is an investor in over 50 companies across the globe, and has also founded another gaming startup - Playco. Justin talks about his Zynga journey, investing in startups, and founding Playco. Read more at: https://yourstory.com/2021/03/zynga-startup-investor-serial-entrepreneur-playco-justin-waldron Follow us on Social Media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/yourstorycom Instagram: www.instagram.com/yourstory_com Twitter: www.twitter.com/YourStoryCo YouTube: www.youtube.com/yourstorytv Write to us: podcast@yourstory.com This story was reported by Sindhu Kashyaap on 16th March 2021 with edits by Tenzin Pema. Hosted by Julius Sharma!
Audio source (with video): https://thisweekinstartups.com/tobi-lutke-on-shopifys-impact-on-the-creator-economy-covid-forcing-focus-early-internet-breakthroughs-evolving-as-a-remote-manager-much-more-e1184/Software and Blacksmithingswyx: [00:00:00] So recently Tobi Lutke, the CEO of Shopify was on theThis Week in Startups podcast with Jason Calacanis and he has some really interesting thoughts about software, which I shared. But it sounds better coming from him around why software engineering is an attractive career it's because we get to make tools that we then use to help us the next day. And so if you apply this over a 40 year career, you can really compound your productivity and your output. And here he is:Jason Calacanis: [00:00:30] Do you still write code ever? I think sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. You miss being, 12 hour a day, coder.Tobi Lutke: [00:00:36] Yeah, it's a really good question. I think the 12th hour day coding has never been a goal, but sometimes happened just because there wasn't anything more interesting going on in plateau and figuring something out to read like it's so in a way that's not the objective, but I love coding. I find, I think the, all, I think the narrative around programming is more interesting than people have realized just because really, since blacksmithing, we never really had a craft that makes whether the craftsman actually make their own tools.And I think there's, the who's had it first we make two of the tools and number two, it's make us I'm making this part of it. Yeah. I think, Jason Calacanis: [00:01:15] I mean, to make tools, right? Like you see this gorillas take sticks and stick them into the Antell to get the bugs out, to eat, to get the heads out, to eat and say Tobi Lutke: [00:01:24] it's purely cause and effect vote for four primary purposes.I think what we do is I'll give you a genetically no different in the last 70,000 years, we event like so the difference between aspect van, and now it's really the tools we have available that don't really invent the stories we tell each other. And it's amazing that we can put people on the moon or, go to space on your usable, the rockets and do all these things and have internet based on just to a building point to a building.And then of course softwares, like what would you make of. Plenty of leverage because you have zero marginal cost copying infrastructure that everyone on planet earth can add to and constantly come up with trying to come up with better ideas. So I'm like, this is the thing that I'm really excited by and why I love being here programmer, because for leverage, you get as an individual, being able to build something that then is available to everyone.It's just enormous. I'd like obviously Shopify as a good example of that. And I, I think that's that's really important. There's so many stories about, w what you said earlier is totally true about, Ethernet, like DSLR camera and an SM7B microphone.But in a way If you need technologists to come in and make it so that someone can buy a single thing and then plug it into one thing. And then all of this needs to work well. And you need to marshal the complete infrastructure that we've built around machine learning to to take tiny microphones and make them sound good.And we need to like all of this. Like it needs to be like significant movement to make the setup you and I have here, which we can do because we have tinkerers available to everyone, this kind of democratization of goodness studio. Yeah. It's important. Jason Calacanis: [00:02:57] Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting.I love the thought of the compounding nature of software and it's also happening in hardware. Now, if you just think about what happened with the smartphone revolution, If we hadn't an Apple hadn't produced and Android phones, billions of smartphones and billions of batteries and billions of charging stations and got obsessed with how fast can we charge these phones?It would have never trickled down into your Tesla and that would have never trickled into your quad-copter. And now the quad copters, I don't know if you said Joby is going public Reid. Hoffman's taking a public Mark Pincus. I said, read on the pod, talking about it. That would have not been possible if Elon haven't made a million cars with those battery packs, because now the battery management and fast charging allows you to have a Vitol.So you're going to be able to go from Ottawa to the airport in a veto, and it's going to have eight rotors and it's going to I would never get an, a helicopter. Those things are death traps, but a veto with eight rotors and to go out and it just the software it's like, Oh, two Rutgers are out just.Redeploy the energy and it's done, and it feels like that's happening with software so quickly. Startups today, I had a startup that built a million dollar business, basically on Slack, like just charging people subscriptions to go into a soccer room. And I was like, there's no, you don't have any developers.So no. We just charge people on this Stripe account to go to this landing page. And then they are in a Slack instance and we built some glue with Zapier. If this, then that. The no code startups I'm seeing, which actually is what Shopify is right too. And people can build an online store with no work. swyx: [00:04:33] I think if you've been in software for a while, you've probably thought about this where one thing that we do builds on another thing that someone else did and so on and so on and down the stack. And it's just really empowering. And I really like this discussion from Toby.
Beyond meat partners with Mcdonaldshttps://www.cnn.com/2021/02/26/business/beyond-meat-mcdonalds-partnership/index.htmlLet's talk about the newest SPAC invested in by Uber, Mark Pincus, and Reid Hoffman. ticker symbol: RTP. And get to learn about how bonds affect the stock market, especially growth stocks. Plus, what Cathie Wood says about the growth stocks she's in after record down days. Like the video! This is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as advice. DM us on Instagram..............�https://www.instagram.com/pineapple__chunks/ Apple Podcast Link..............�https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pineapple-chunks/id1525157285 Spotify Link..............�https://open.spotify.com/show/05b2mxk08zp7jgqnOaHGZg Comment how much you love water if you read this!! Merch..............� https://www.redbubble.com/people/pchunks/explore?asc=u Website link..............� https://pinneapple-chunks.simplecast.com/episodes These episodes are for entertainment purposes ONLY. IF stocks or companies are mentioned, Peter and Elihu MAY have an ownership interest in them -- DO NOT make buying or selling decisions based on Peter and Elihu's videos. If you need advice, please contact a qualified CPA, attorney, insurance agent, contractor/electrician/engineer/etc., financial advisor, or the appropriate professional for the subject you would like help with.
Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP):2:40 Andrew Chen's early college experience and why it's smart marketing10:38 Buying Michael Jordan's house and turning it into a business28:00 Investing in athletes?38:10 The startup-studio model: it usually fails, but can it work?MFM #158Andrew Chen storyUniversity of Washington has a program for gifted high schoolers who want to do college early. Andrew took part and graduated at 19.He met some pretty cool people doing this including emmit of twitch, and head of hedge funds.Shaan got into a Duke program as a teenager via TIP program by scoring high on PSAT. Shaan: This is a great marketing trick -- he’ll do this when he starts his schoolFor athletics, the opposite is done.MJ’s houseMichael Jordan’s Chicago home went on sale for $30m many years ago, but hasn’t sold. Today it’s on sale for $14m.Idea #1: Buy the house using crowdfunding and through NFTs, any fan can own a fraction of the property. From there, the property can be turned into a museum.Idea #2: Instead of turning the house into a museum, turn into a great Airbnb. Obama’s Hawaii house (the Plantation Estate) rents for $6k a night or $180k a month.You have to make it the dream “man cave”/sports fan getaway. Make it an alternative to Vegas for bachelor’s parties. Fill the house with Jordan memorabilia, and make it an incredible experience for fans to come to.How to fund:Sam: Get investors to put up the moneyShaan: NFTs baby!Famous homes: There's a precedent for taking famous homes and turning them into museums. Graceland: Elvis’ former home receives 600k visitors each paying ~$30Monticello & Mount Vernon: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington’s former residences have been tourist destinations for centuries. Each pulls in millions in revenue.National Trust for Historic Preservation: Buys historic building for preservation. Sam believes their profit is around $26mPainted Ladies: Painted Ladies and “Full House” house are mainstay attractions. “Full House” house sold for a premium above market price. Counter: Sam is sceptical of crowdfunding on Rally Road because of the difficulty in liquidating. Shaan counters by saying fractional ownership makes liquidity less of an issue. Also many aren’t concerned about selling. Would rather wait and hold.Big League AdvanceBLA: Offers cash to minor league baseball players with the promise of making money if the baseball player hits it big.Fernando Tatis Jr: Took cash when he was in the minors from BLA, but now has to pay out ~$30m after signing a $300m+ dealOpportunity: Baseball is the easiest to model, but the NBA presents a great opportunity because of guaranteed contracts. If a player gets a $100m, 5 year deal, you can offer them $80m upfront for the contract. Instead of Counter: This is a risky business. The business only works if you can model properly and get big hits to cover the losses.Startup studioInstead of investing in companies or starting just one company, startup studios invest and incubate several businesses at once.Shaan: Historically very tough and didn’t work. Garret Camp, Mark Pincus, Kevin Rose, and Michael Birch (Monkey Inferno where Shaan worked) all had studios which had no big winners.Successful studios: The tides may be shifting as a few studios have begun getting hits. Thrive Capital by Josh Kushner (Oscar), Atomic by Jack Abraham (Hims), Prehype (Barkbox and Ro)Atomic: Only works at one project at a... See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
MFM #158 Andrew Chen story University of Washington has a program for gifted high schoolers who want to do college early. Andrew took part and graduated at 19. He met some pretty cool people doing this including emmit of twitch, and head of hedge funds. Shaan got into a Duke program as a teenager via TIP program by scoring high on PSAT. Shaan: This is a great marketing trick -- he’ll do this when he starts his school For athletics, the opposite is done. MJ’s house Michael Jordan’s Chicago home went on sale for $30m many years ago, but hasn’t sold. Today it’s on sale for $14m. Idea #1: Buy the house using crowdfunding and through NFTs, any fan can own a fraction of the property. From there, the property can be turned into a museum. Idea #2: Instead of turning the house into a museum, turn into a great Airbnb. Obama’s Hawaii house (the Plantation Estate) rents for $6k a night or $180k a month. You have to make it the dream “man cave”/sports fan getaway. Make it an alternative to Vegas for bachelor’s parties. Fill the house with Jordan memorabilia, and make it an incredible experience for fans to come to. Famous homes: There's a precedent for taking famous homes and turning them into museums. Graceland: Elvis’ former home receives 600k visitors each paying ~$30 Painted Ladies: Painted Ladies and “Full House” house are mainstay attractions. “Full House” house sold for a premium above market price. Counter: Sam is sceptical of crowdfunding on Rally Road because of the difficulty in liquidating. Shaan counters by saying fractional ownership makes liquidity less of an issue. Also many aren’t concerned about selling. Would rather wait and hold. Big League Advance BLA: Offers cash to minor league baseball players with the promise of making money if the baseball player hits it big. Fernando Tatis Jr: Took cash when he was in the minors from BLA, but now has to pay out ~$30m after signing a $300m+ deal Opportunity: Baseball is the easiest to model, but the NBA presents a great opportunity because of guaranteed contracts. If a player gets a $100m, 5 year deal, you can offer them $80m upfront for the contract. Instead of Counter: This is a risky business. The business only works if you can model properly and get big hits to cover the losses. Startup studio Instead of investing in companies or starting just one company, startup studios invest and incubate several businesses at once. Shaan: Historically very tough and didn’t work. Garret Camp, Mark Pincus, Kevin Rose, and Michael Birch (Monkey Inferno where Shaan worked) all had studios which had no big winners. Successful studios: The tides may be shifting as a few studios have begun getting hits. Thrive Capital by Josh Kushner (Oscar), Atomic by Jack Abraham (Hims), Prehype (Barkbox and Ro) Atomic: Only works at one project at a time and the team has 9 months to raise a series A or else may be out of a job. Also focused more on B2B than consumer. eFounders: European studio that only does SaaS. They’ve been able to make the model successful Kevin Ryan: Part of DoubleClick when it was sold. Made about $20m and created AlleyCorp which incubated companies like MongoDB, Business Insider, Zola and Guilt. Good: It’s a dream job because you work on multiple ideas. Unlike a traditional startup, when failure happens you can just move onto a new project as a team Bad: For a startup to work, you need laser focus. Often what happens, when a startup hits a plateau, you can pivot to an area that’s working. At studios, the team is more inclined to move onto another project altogether. No do-or-die, back-to-the-wall mentality as with startups. --------- Have you joined our private Facebook group yet? Go to https://www.facebook.com/groups/ourfirstmillion and join thousands of other entrepreneurs and founders scheming up ideas. Editing thanks to Jonathan Gallegos (@jjonthan)
How I Raised It - The podcast where we interview startup founders who raised capital.
Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Adam Cohen-Aslatai of S’More (www.smoredate.com), a dating app that’s focused on helping users find more meaningful relationships In this episode, Adam talks about finding out what is unique about YOU (and pitching that to investors), how to reach out and connect on LinkedIn, how to pitch "high profile" investors such as Mark Pincus, and more. The Company raised capital Benson Oak Ventures, Mark Pincus’ Workplay Ventures, Gaingels VC, Loud Capital/Pride Fund, SideCar Angels, AppLovin Chairman Rafael Vivas, Joshua Black of Apollo Management, Plus Grade CEO Ken Harris, Harvard geneticist George Church, former Meet Group CEO John Abbott, former IMAX CEO Brad Weschler, Aaron and Sharon Stern, Justen Stepka/Enterprise Fund, Boston Harbor Angels, Grit Daily CEO Jordan French, Kind.Fund founder Marty Isaac, Craig Mullett and Dating Group. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $2.5 Billion since 2016.
Silicon Valley peer-to-peer car rental startup Getaround has secured a $25 million loan from Horizon Technology Finance Corporation. The financing announcement comes one month after Getaround raised $140 million from investors, including SoftBank Vision Fund, Menlo Ventures, Reid Hoffman and Mark Pincus' Reinvent Capital. Getaround's raise signals that the company is looking for new ways […]
LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman was one of my first guests on Venture Voice, back in 2006. Even though LinkedIn had 7.2 million users by then, it was still very much a niche platform and had only 56 employees. Putting your resumé online for all the world to see was pretty uncommon at that time. But Reid was driven by a simple goal: to change the world. Revisiting this interview now, you can pick up on some of the clues as to why he would become so successful. He takes an almost philosophical approach to business, putting himself in the user’s shoes and focusing on creating valuable media objects that would have a transformative effect on society. He also discusses the value of PR, something that stuck with me as I later launched Muck Rack. And he talks a lot about his peers — Mark Pincus, Peter Thiel, Stewart Butterfield — fellow entrepreneurs who hadn’t yet made it big but went on to do big things and continue to support each other. I was a fledgling entrepreneur when I spoke with Reid back in 2006, and these conversations were hugely instructive to me as I was growing my businesses. Between my companies Muck Rack and The Shorty Awards, we’ve now grown to about 100 employees — more than LinkedIn had at that time. I’ve found that I’ve discovered new insights by revisiting this conversation about what a mammoth company like LinkedIn was thinking about when they were first getting started. Listen now for an inside view of LinkedIn on the cusp. *** Thank you to our sponsor SteadyMD. Find out more about them here: steadymd.com/venturevoice If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than a minute and helps us continue to attract the entrepreneurs you want to hear and learn from. For show notes, past guests and transcripts, visit venturevoice.com Sign up for the Venture Voice email newsletter at venturevoice.substack.com/welcome Follow and connect on social: On Twitter: twitter.com/gregory On Instagram: instagram.com/gregory On YouTube: youtube.com/c/GregoryGalant On LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/galant/ Learn more about Muck Rack at muckrack.com and The Shorty Awards at shortyawards.com
Today’s guest made it his mission to reduce online misinformation & abusive content from the internet. Dhruv Ghulati is Founder and CEO of Factmata, a London-based tech startup who uses unique algorithms to score and classify content. Since 2017 he has raised 3.5 million from the likes of Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, but also from the Founders of Zynga, Brightmail, Twitter, and Craigslist, to name a few. He’s building an AI to bring more truth to the world. Dhruv has a truly outstanding experience. We talk about how he went from investment banking to launching his own company, traction, fund raising, and we cover some of the mistakes he made along the way. We talk about:Factmata’s Unique Selling PropositionDhurv’s path from investment banking to founding AI-powered startupHow Dhruv balanced impact and profitabilityFactmata’s incredibly effective customer acquisition strategySome early mistakes Dhruv made with go-to-market strategyDhruv’s advice on fundraising and the story about how he bring investors like Mark Cuban, Mark Pincus, Founder of Zynga, Sunil Paul, Founder of Brightmail, Biz Stone, Co-founder of Twitter, Craig Newmark, Founder of CraigslistHow Factmata approached challenges such as algorithmic biasesDhruv’s top mistakes as a first-time tech startup founderHis ideal employee profileFor detailed show notes and relevant links, visit www.stunandawe.com If you want to accelerate traction, hit the growth stage, and upgrade your skills, check out our Growth Leap online course. It’s a step-by-step guide to design your tech startup for high performance and impact. It’s packed with actionable and proven frameworks and tools to improve your startups performance, from better customer acquisition to clear prioritization and more productive meetings.Learn more here: https://growth.stunandawe.com/course
Silicon Valley venture capitalists are no longer content with investing in startups and then eventually handing them off. Instead, many are now forming SPACs, or blank check acquisition companies, to ride tech unicorns into the public markets themselves. Dan discusses this trend with the co-founders of one such tech SPAC: Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and partner with VC firm Greylock, and Mark Pincus, founder and former CEO of Zynga. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mark Pincus (@markpinc) joined us last summer in San Francisco for a town hall with Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner at Village Global.Mark is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga, and is an angel investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other companies.He talked about about raising venture capital, his philosophy of product management, the early days at Zynga, and much more.He also took time at the event to meet with Village Global founders to give them his advice on growing their companies.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Mark Pincus (@markpinc) joined us last summer in San Francisco for a town hall with Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner at Village Global.Mark is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga, and is an angel investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other companies.He talked about about raising venture capital, his philosophy of product management, the early days at Zynga, and much more.He also took time at the event to meet with Village Global founders to give them his advice on growing their companies.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
This week, Cory speaks to entrepreneur and investor Kevin Hartz, who’s well-known for co-founding the leading global self-ticketing platform Eventbrite. In this weeks episode, Kevin talks about how he got started as a 26-year-old founder, gives advice on how to connect with brilliant people, the moment he knew he was onto something big, the best way to attract and retain talent and much more. -- Eventbrite Co-Founder and investor Kevin Hartz has always placed a significant amount of importance on learning. While earning a Master’s Degree in British History from Oxford University seems like an odd path for a tech entrepreneur, Hartz says that it “was an opportunity to learn how to learn.” Kevin has used that ability to grow a company that in 2013 surpassed $2B in sales. In the early days of Eventbrite, Hartz and the Eventbrite team shared offices with other entrepreneurs and startups including Clickster (acquired by Warner Brothers), Tripet (acquired by Concord), and Zynga. “Mark (Pincus) had his first office in the office we had…we always had these really great founders around us.” Kevin has learned important lessons from entrepreneurs and investors from Roelof Botha to Peter Thiel. “Peter has always challenged me on conventional thinking. I think that we can always be in this mode of kind of going with the flow and not even realizing it, realizing that there are other realities out there. Peter, in any conversation, always has a provocative, unconventional view of the world.” Early in my journey as an entrepreneur, many have learned, from Kevin and others, the importance of surrounding myself with other motivated and talented entrepreneurs, and people with other views and skillsets. While Cory was building relationships with and learning from hundreds of entrepreneurs, he was encouraged to find a way to bring those connections together while providing them value. Cory created the NextGen Conference in 2009, which is now Internapalooza, and I invited Kevin to speak. He spoke at the first event and they’ve stayed in touch since.
When Drew Houston founded Dropbox, he knew he faced some fierce competition (hello, Google, Apple and Microsoft). But he didn’t back down. Why? Because he believed in his product, and he knew he had an advantage those big, cumbersome competitors could never exploit: Dropbox was lean, focused and fast. Hear how he outmaneuvered the big guys – and what's next for Dropbox. Cameo appearances: Mark Pincus of Zynga, Shellye Archambeau of MetricStream.Music: "Exciting Trailer" by Kevin MacLeod, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license.Books mentioned in this episode:Competing Against Luck, by Clay Christensen and Karen DillonThe Effective Executive, by Peter DruckerThe Hard Thing About Hard Things, by Ben HorowitzBecoming Steve Jobs, by Brent Schlender and Rick TetzeliHard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire, by James Wallace and Jim EricksonFounders at Work, by Jessica LivingstonHigh Output Management, by Andy Grove
Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) is a cofounder of LinkedIn, investor at Greylock Partners, host of the podcast Masters of Scale, and coauthor of Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies. What We Discuss with Reid Hoffman: Why creating the best products and services on the market won't mean squat if you don't have the network to get the word out about them. Reid's flexible planning framework that adjusts navigation to suit the unexpected path rather than the imagined destination. How to know when you're informing your intuition with the best available data or just procrastinating to avoid making important decisions. Why "never give up" is terrible advice, and how to separate your winning instincts from your losing ideas. Why an honest partner is almost always your best source of ideas -- and a reminder of where the road paved with the best intentions usually leads. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/207 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Get two months of Skillshare -- unlimited access to over 18,000 classes in design, business, technology, photography, entrepreneurship, film, writing, and more -- for free at skillshare.com/harbinger! Great protection. Fair prices. Easy to use. SimpliSafe is the right way to protect your home at half the size and double the range -- go to SimpliSafe.com/jordan to learn more! Explore Blue Diamond for all your almond product needs. From delicious almond nut snacks to gift baskets, they've got you covered at a store near you or at bluediamond.com! Rocket Mortgage by Quicken Loans. Apply simply. Understand fully. Mortgage confidently. To get started, go to RocketMortgage.com/JORDAN! Brother INKvestment Tank all-in-one inkjet printers keep your business running by delivering up to one year of printing without the need to replace ink cartridges! Until June 15th, get up to $50 off select INKvestment Tank models by going to inksaleradio.com! Disgraceland is a true crime podcast about musicians getting away with murder. If you love true crime and you love music, get ready to love Disgraceland here! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!
Before Mark Pincus made it big with Zynga, he made it even bigger by investing in a couple of little companies called Napster and Facebook. He talks about those early days, and what Mark Zuckerberg was really like back then. Hosts: Leo Laporte and Adam Fisher Guest: Mark Pincus Download or subscribe to this show at https://twit.tv/shows/valley-of-genius. Get a copy of Adam Fisher's Valley of Genius book at a bookstore near you.
To succeed, you have to be relentless about pursuing a big opportunity — and ruthless about killing your own bad ideas along the way. Zynga founder Mark Pincus up-ended the gaming industry with social games like Farmville and Words with Friends. And he did it by gathering data; killing ideas that didn't move the needle, and going all-in on the ones that did. With cameos by Andrea Jones-Rooy, analyst at FiveThirtyEight, and comedian Matt Ruby, founder of Vooza.
Kalle Freese talks with Mark Pincus, Founder and.
Testla Announced their Earnings Today http://bit.ly/qlearly571 http://bit.ly/qlearly572 http://bit.ly/qlearly573 Amazon selects Southwest Sydney for new fulfilment centre. http://bit.ly/qlearly574 FTC Warns 6 Major Companies That Their Warranty Coverage Is Illegal. http://bit.ly/qlearly575 Square's Bitcoin Business Is Struggling to Make Money http://bit.ly/qlearly576 Zynga founder Mark Pincus is giving up voting control of his gaming company: ‘It’s time’ http://bit.ly/qlearly577 Spotify Sinks After Subscriber Growth Disappoints Investors http://bit.ly/qlearly578 Cambridge Analytica Is Shutting Down http://bit.ly/qlearly579 Xiaomi Files in Hong Kong for World's Biggest IPO Since 2014. http://bit.ly/qlearly580 Hulu passes 20 million subscribers, will finally offer offline viewing http://bit.ly/qlearly581 Song: Poldoore - Morning Glory Thank you for tuning in.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Darian Shirazi is the Founder & CEO @ Radius, the startup that provides you with not just data but truth allowing you to gain clarity to reach and convert your best B2B prospects. To date, Darian has raised over $105m in VC funding with Radius from some of the very best in the business including our friends at Founders Fund, 8VC, Salesforce Ventures and rockstars like Jared Leto and Charlie Songhurst. Prior to Radius, Darian has enjoyed roles such as first external engineering hire at Facebook and working on the "Sell Your Item" team at eBay. Darian has also made several angel investments in the likes of MessageMe, Sprig and Try.com just to name a few. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Darian made his way into the world of tech as Facebook's first ever intern at the age of 17 and how that led to the founding of Radius? 2.) According to Joe Lonsdale @ 8VC, "Darian is one of the most respected founders and CEOs in the valley". How does Darian define great CEOship? What have been the commonalities he has seen in the great leaders he has engaged with from Mark @ Facebook to Mark Pincus? 3.) How did Darian approach the fundraising strategy for the $85m he has raised with Radius? How does Darian believe that founders can test quickly whether an investor is truly interested? Why is it so important to be fundraise as fast as possible? If an investor could only provide Darian one thing, what would it be and wh? 4.) How does Darian respond to investors that suggest founders should not be actively angel investing, as Darian is? What operational benefits does Darian gain from angel investing? How does Darian think about angel portfolio construction and specialisation? How has Darian seen investor attitudes alter when it comes to capital efficiency? 5.) As an early Bitcoin miner, how does Darian evaluate the world of crypto today? Why does Darian believe BTC has reached escape velocity compared to other currencies? Why was Darian skeptical on Ethereum for so long? What are Ethereum's ongoing challenges? Why does Facebook have the chance to dominate the world of crypto? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Darian’s Fave Book: Sapiens As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Darian on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Cooley is a global law firm built around supporting start-ups and the venture capital firms that fund them. Now we have spoken before about their forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, and forming more VC funds than any other law firm in the world but Cooley also represents more than 6,000 high-growth startups across the globe – through the full company life cycle. They are the #1 law firm for VC-backed exits (M&A and IPO) ranked by PitchBook, and since 2014 has represented more companies in their IPOs than any other law firm. Simply head over to Cooley.com or you can check them out at Cooleygo.com.
The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Mark Pincus is a serial entrepreneur and investor, best known for founding Zynga, the first company to introduce the mass market to social gaming. To date, more than one billion people around the world have played Zynga’s games, which include hits like FarmVille and Words with Friends. Mark is also known for his investments in some of the internet’s largest and most successful companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb, Snapchat and Xiaomi. One of the earliest pioneers in social networking, Mark founded multiple startups including support.com and tribe.net, before going on to create Zynga. A fun fact - recognizing the importance of social networking, in 2003 Mark teamed up with his friend Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, to purchase the fundamental Six Degrees patent – which broadly covers social networks – in order to keep it out of the hands of patent trolls and guarantee that all players could innovate on this technology. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) Having founded one of the first social networks, Tribe and seed invested in Facebook, what convinced you that 2007 was the right time to start a social games company, Zynga? 2.) Having mastered distribution with Zynga, does Mark believe we are in a "fallow" period for consumer with a lack of distribution channel availability? If distribution is not the core problem, what does Mark believe is the fundamental issue? 3.) What have been Mark's biggest lessons when it comes to assembling truly great teams? What does Mark mean when he says that he looks for people with "broken resumes"? Why is that so beneficial to potential candidates? 4.) When investing, how does Mark determine timing on when to ride winner and cut losers? What does Mark really mean when he says, ''you have to instill a mindset of expected value over loss avoidance"? 5.) What are the 2 biggest lies in Silicon Valley told by founders and VCs? How can founders truly test the alignment with their VC? How did Mark do this in pitches with Zynga? What were Mark's learnings on optimising board composition and performance? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Mark’s Fave Book: Ready Player One As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mark on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Available in carry-on and check-in sizes, Raden is the case for better, smarter travel. By pairing the lightest and most durable materials with technology, travelers can charge their devices on the go, weigh, and track their cases. Visit Raden.com to use code 20VC at checkout. With purchase, receive credit towards Tablet Hotels for the next year. If a UK listener, head over to Selfridge’s and shop Raden today. The Simba Hybrid. The most advanced mattress in the world. With a unique combination of two thousand five hundred conical pocket springs and responsive memory foam, it offers the perfect support for two people. A mattress that responds to you and your partner’s sleeping patterns. Delivered free, with a one hundred night sleep trial, free returns and a ten year guarantee. Start your free trial at simbasleep.com
The Masters of Scale team brings you a special blend of leadership tips from season one guests — including clips we haven’t aired yet. In this bonus episode, we’ll share our favorite insights from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, Zynga’s Mark Pincus and more.
This week, Inc. editors and writers talk about how Silicon Valley is responding to how the Trump administration has delayed the International Entrepreneur Rule, a program that would allow immigrant entrepreneurs live in the U.S. while they build companies. The crew dives into the new field of robot psychology as researchers at Alphabet's DeepMind analyze why artificial intelligence neural networks make specific decisions and study AI’s inherent biases. Lastly, the group discusses how Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman launched a new group to disrupt the Democratic party. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
John Breyault (@JammingEcono) is Vice President of Public Policy, Telecommunications and Fraud at the National Consumers League (NCL). John's focus at NCL is on advocating for stronger consumer protections before Congress and federal agencies on issues related to telecommunications, fraud, technology, and other consumer concerns. In addition, John manages NCL's Fraud Center and coordinates the Alliance Against Fraud coalition. John is also Research Director for the Telecommunications Research and Action Center (TRAC), a project of NCL. In his role with TRAC, John advocates on behalf of residential consumers of wireline, wireless, VoIP, and other IP-enabled communications services. John was a member of the FCC's Consumer Advisory Committee from 2005 to 2007 and served on the Board of the Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless. He is a graduate of George Mason University, where he received a bachelor's degree in International Relations. In this episode, we discussed: top issues facing consumer advocates in the new administration. the risk of scaling back the FCC's privacy rules. Resources: National Consumers League (NCL) NEWS ROUNDUP The tech sector is hitting hard against the Trump administration's ostensibly temporary travel ban against 7 predominantly Muslim countries including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen . Ninety-seven companies including, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and even Levi Strauss filed an amicus brief on behalf of the State of Washington in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals late Sunday. The State of Washington is appealing to a 3 judge panel of the court to uphold the District Court's decision to halt the travel ban. Oral arguments in this case will take place Tuesday at 6PM. The brief is a culmination of a number of developments last week in the the growing resistance against the Trump administration's travel ban by the tech sector. Among them was Uber CEO Travis Kalanick's departure from Trump's economic advisory council. The move follows major protests by tech employees, including Uber's employees, against Trump's Muslim travel ban, which the district court in San Francisco has temporarily suspended. Uber employees were wondering why Kalanick was still on Trump's advisory board. Two hundred thousand Uber users wondered the same thing, and deleted Uber's app from their phones. Kalanick sent a letter to Uber employees on Thursday announcing that he had quit Trump's advisory council. Mike Isaac reports in The New York Times. Meanwhile, Tony Romm reports that Silicon Valley leaders are organizing against Trump. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus are among those leading the effort. They have set up organizations like Win the Future which will seek out progressive candidates for future elections. Sam Altman from Y Combinator also set up a new site called Track Trump -- a running dashboard of the Trump administration's policy changes. -- So on the one hand, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is claiming he's going to be all about closing the so-called digital divide. He's announced small, closed-door meetings with organizations like the Multicultural Media, Telecom and Internet Council and HTTP, he's created a broadband adoption advisory board ... but on the other, his policies, thus far, can't be much more against closing the digital divide. In fact, the moves he's been making suggest he's going in the complete opposite direction. Take for example his decision last week telling 9 companies that they can't offer broadband pricing subsidies of $9.95 per month to the poor--a program otherwise known as the Lifeline program. The decision states that the Wheeler FCC allowed these 9 companies to provide Lifeline subsidies at the last minute and that the new FCC needs more time to consider the waste, fraud and abuse concerns the Republican commissioners have about the program. -- A U.S. magistrate judge in Philadelphia has held that Google must comply with an FBI search warrant seeking access to emails stored on Google servers abroad. This departs from a decision in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last year holding that Microsoft did not have to comply with such a warrant. A Google spokesperson says the company will appeal. Jonathan Stempel has the story in Reuters. -- FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has closed the set-top box proceeding. The proceeding, introduced under former Chairman Tom Wheeler, was intended to promote competition in the set-top box market by allowing consumers to choose to receive the programming they had already subscribed to on a set-top box of their choice, rather than being stuck with the one from their cable provider. Republican leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee had asked Pai to close the proceeding on Wednesday. On Tuesday, Pai also explicitly stated at a press conference that he "favors an open Internet but opposes Title II." The Chairman, however, would not answer as to whether the Commission would be enforcing the FCC's net neutrality rules, which were upheld in the DC Circuit last year. -- Finally, The commission also closed the zero-rating proceeding. The Wheeler FCC had begun an inquiry into carriers' zero-rating practices towards the end of its term. Zero rating, or so-called "sponsored data", plans are ones in which carriers offer access to their own preferred content without it counting against subscribers' data caps. But net neutrality advocates argue zero-rating is a back-door to violate the FCC's net neutrality rules. For example, Sprint has announced it will be acquiring a 33% stake in Jay-Z's streaming music service, Tidal. Net neutrality advocates are worried about what this might mean for companies like Pandora, Spotify and Apple Music if Sprint turns Tidal into a zero-rated service--offering their customers music streaming without it counting against their data caps. Chris Brantner has the story in Motherboard and David Shepardson reports on this in Reuters.
2000 Books for Ambitious Entrepreneurs - Author Interviews and Book Summaries
To achieve unimaginable business success and financial wealth—to reach the upper echelons of entrepreneurs, where you’ll find Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sara Blakely of Spanx, Mark Pincus of Zynga, Kevin Plank of Under Armour, and many others—you have to change the way you think. In other words, you must develop the Entrepreneur Mind, a way of thinking that comes from learning the vital lessons of the best entrepreneurs. In this riveting book written for new and veteran entrepreneurs, Johnson identifies one hundred key lessons that every entrepreneur must learn in seven areas: Strategy, Education, People, Finance, Marketing and Sales, Leadership, and Motivation. Lessons include how to think big, who makes the best business partners, what captivates investors, when to abandon a business idea, where to avoid opening a business bank account, and why too much formal education can hinder your entrepreneurial growth.
Full notes at Reboot.io/podcast “...the greatest gift of relationship proves to be that as the result of encountering each other, we are obliged to grow larger than we had planned.” - James Hollis Two co-founders, who refer to each other as business soulmates, have found themselves in that special place of alignment. A place in partnership where they align not just intellectually, not just energetically, not even just at a values level, but at a human level. Jules Pieri (her second time on the show) and her partner Joanne Domeniconi are the co-founders of The Grommet. They join Jerry to talk about the beginning of their partnership, where and how they found alignment at the human level, how it has evolved over time, and the challenges it represents as they scale the business. Links The Grommet - thegrommet.com The Grommet on Twitter - https://twitter.com/TheGrommet Jules Pieri - https://twitter.com/julespieri Joanne Domenic - https://twitter.com/jdomeniconi Fred Wilson - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wilson_(financier) Mark Pincus - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Pincus Sunil Paul - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunil_Paul David Whyte - http://www.davidwhyte.com How to Be an Adult in Relationships by David Richo - http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Adult-Relationships-Mindful/dp/1570628122 The Center for Collaborative Awareness - http://www.blueprintofwe.com/cfca.html Parker Palmer - http://www.couragerenewal.org/parker/
Episode 11 - A Victor Lucas Tangent: It All Comes Back to GamelifeHosted by Rob Pigott, Eric Bayer, & Kelly Burke, this is a podcast about the things we and our guests love, whether it be art, film, video games and more!On this episode, Rob, Eric and Kelly are joined by guest Carson Mauthe as they talk about Carson's work with Mega64, his website ServerCrashers, FreezeCracker, Victor Lucas, the Internet game review show Gamelife, Carson's various YouTube videos, our favorite Internet videos of 2013, The Walking Dead: Season Two, Gone Home, the VGX, The Purge, American Hustle, and more!Cell Shock Podcast Facebook Page Theme Song and “Rocco Botte, Karate Master ” is by Ethan Avila AKA Tikal ShineEric’s Twitter Kelly’s Twitter Rob’s Twitter Carson’s Twitter Mega64: A Rift Between Sexes Time in a Bottle Mega64: The Update of a Lifetime Server Crashers FreezeCracker Victor Lucas Geoff Mendicino Geoff’s Darksydephil Parody video SamueltehG33k Carson’s Playstation Corner Gamelife Episodes 1-10 of Gamelife Newest Gamelife Episode Mega64: Gamez Alive Killzone 2 Special GAMEZ ALIVE CHRISTMAS SPECIAL Carson reviews Punch Out Waking Dad PS4 Public Unboxing Xbox One Public Unboxing Wii U Public Unboxing Carson’s Chrono Trigger DS Unboxing Typical YouTube Makeup Guru Haul Video Knock Out Video trumpet fight Trumpet Fight Guy’s Website & Women’s Rights Photos Playground Mystery Japanese man in a car Sexuality of The Antichrist in Gangnam Style Kid throws up, lady and son fall! Victor Lucas FreezeCracker Interview Highlight Reel Rick and Morty The Venture Bros. Carson’s Interview with Tommy Tallarico The Ball Carson’s Chrono Trigger Battle Theme Cover Take This News Carson’s Prince of Persia video Fuck the Whities - A Documentary on Racism Kelly’s Tumblr Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies Dragon’s Dogma Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn Kelly’s Article on Mega64 The Walking Dead: Season 2 The Wolf Among Us Gone Home The Stanley Parable Papers, Please The VGX Mega64 VGX video Zynga’s Mark Pincus asked Obama to pardon NSA leaker Edward SnowdenDarksydephil and Mega64 The Man from Nowhere Twin Peaks Deadly Premonition The Purge The Girl Who Leapt Through Time Summer Wars The Amazing Spider-Man Carson’s PAX 2012 Podcast American Hustle Blue is the Warmest Color This Film is Not Yet Rated The Cell Shock Podcast, a podcast hosted by me, Rob, aka Jedifan421, all about movies, music, gaming, and pop culture, new and old, as I host a round table discussion with new guests every week from fan communities around the world.
New York Times editor Adam Bryant has interviewed more than 200 CEOs for his Corner Office column. In his book The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed Bryant shares what he has learned from Xerox CEO Ursula Burns Ford CEO Alan R. Mulally Yum Brands CEO David C. Novak Teach for America CEO Wendy Kopp Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus and other leaders. Knowledge at Wharton recently sat down with Bryant to discuss five qualities of successful leaders the age-old question of whether leaders are born or made and how his discussions with CEOs have influenced his own approach to leadership. (Video with transcript) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Clifton and Jayson discuss The Cabin in the Woods, Joss Whedon's OBP, the circular logic of Fringe, Rick Grimes's legacy, Zynga's secondary stock offering, why Facebook should have bought Pinterest instead of Instagram, and Terry Gilliam's Brazil.Links:The Cabin in the WoodsJoss WhedonFringeThe Walking DeadZynga's so-called growthThe Agony and Ecstasy of Mark PincusFacebook isn't coolPinterest's ever expanding user baseBrazilEpisode 4 - Bureaucratic ZombiesImage: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Kate Snow reports on Zynga, the social gaming company that just went IPO, is Wall Street's newest billion dollar baby. Best known for its virtual gamesWords with Friends, Farmville,Mafia Wars and Cityville, it's CEO and founder Mark Pincus is making no apologies for his drive and intensity. Rock Center With Brian Williams airs Mondays @ 10pm (eastern).
Justin and Jason discuss the progress being made on AnyFu and related business decisions, concepts from the book Running Lean, Paul Paetz of Innovative Disruption, why no one is going to steal an unproven idea, why you want to buy when everyone else is selling and sell when everyone else is buying, how Mark Pincus is attempting to steal equity from his employees, selling equity in private companies on Second Market, whether Andrea Rossi's E-Cat (Energy Catalyzer) is real or a fraud, how a new cancer drug is being used for weight loss, how energy efficiency of computing is doubling every 18 months, how the FBI is using GPS trackers without warrants and how Twitter had to turn over user information to the Feds without a warrant, the book The Shadow Factory (about the NSA), what elite achievers do differently and how the founder of Color is off his rocker.
Todd Clark, President and Founder of DenaliTEK AN Anchorage IT services company talks about the often overlooked systems risk that small businesses take. Questions or comments email David@GDTB.Biz IN THE NEWS - TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THINGThe heart-racing calls and emergency texts often came in the middle of the night. The servers crashed. The payment system was down. These scenarios replayed far too often for Mark Pincus, after he launched San Francisco-based startup Zynga Game Network Inc. nearly three years ago. Questions or comments email David@GDTB.Biz.
Mark Pincus, Serial entrepreneur and founder of Zynga, and Bing Gordon, longtime Electronic Arts creative mind and investor on behalf of KPCB, discuss successful CEOs, building sustainable companies, mentorship, and the consumer. (October 28, 2009)
Serial entrepreneur and Zynga founder Mark Pincus and Bing Gordon, longtime Electronic Arts creative mind and investor on behalf of KPCB, provide a very laid-back and desultory conversation. Topics touched upon include successful CEOs, building sustainable companies, mentorship, and the consumer pay-driven Web 3.0.
Serial entrepreneur and Zynga founder Mark Pincus and Bing Gordon, longtime Electronic Arts creative mind and investor on behalf of KPCB, provide a very laid-back and desultory conversation. Topics touched upon include successful CEOs, building sustainable companies, mentorship, and the consumer pay-driven Web 3.0.
Serial entrepreneur and Zynga founder Mark Pincus and Bing Gordon, longtime Electronic Arts creative mind and investor on behalf of KPCB, provide a very laid-back and desultory conversation. Topics touched upon include successful CEOs, building sustainable companies, mentorship, and the consumer pay-driven Web 3.0.
In today's episode we meet up with Mark Pincus, the founder and CEO of the social networking website Tribe.net. Here, Pincus discusses the growth and development of Tribe, goes off about his favorite topic "Community vs. the Corporation" and gives insight on how burners and artists can create a sustainable livelihood based on doing work that they love. For more information about BURNcast visit BURNcast.net Do you call yourself a Burner? Then VOTE for BURNcast on the Public Radio Talent Quest today!