One of the most interesting things I’ve taken to heart in the wake of Microsoft’s combination with LinkedIn is how strongly Microsoft is committed to supporting open source code, open source developers, and Linux. Under Satya Nadella’s leadership, Microsoft has re-invigorated itself with an exploratory, future-oriented, and developer-focused mindset. Part of that has included pursuing…
Companies need different kinds of leadership at different stages. And there’s a very specific kind of leadership needed in an organization that’s changing fast — so fast that the office you leave at night is different from the one you walk into the next morning. I believe to lead this kind of organization to scale,…
Over the last 20 years, I’ve worked on or invested in many companies that scaled to 100 million users or more. And just about every entrepreneur I meet with has that ambition as they get started. But here’s the thing: You don’t start with 100 million users. You start with a few. And in many…
There’s a myth amongst entrepreneurs of the “lightning strike” — the “aha” moment when an idea just comes to you. In reality, it’s rare to find a successful scale entrepreneur whose big idea landed on their lap. It’s more likely they were already on the hunt. If you want to find your big business idea,…
Fred Kofman’s new book, The Meaning Revolution In 2012, after LinkedIn went public and the size of our global workforce was growing rapidly, our CEO Jeff Weiner convinced Fred Kofman to join our team as Vice President of Leadership and Organizational Development. Jeff and Fred had been working together since the mid-2000s — when Jeff…
Back in 2004—which is basically biblical times in Silicon Valley—Flickr was home to a tiny tribe of people who started sharing their photos online. Photo sharing begat the idea of “followers.” Followers begat activity feeds. Activity feeds begat hashtags. Hashtags begat #selfies. It’s actually astonishing how many conventions of social media were begat by Flickr.…
In Silicon Valley, entrepreneurs tend to celebrate a daring pivot. They see an opportunity. They act—and they don’t look back. Later on, they sound a bit like Caesar reporting to the Roman Senate: “I came, I saw, I conquered.” But the truth is a lot messier. There’s more to a pivot than a sharp left…
Every successful company scales more than just revenue. It scales your worldview. And I believe you can scale positive social impact along with your business. But only if you’re as creative and cash-conscious about doing good as you are about your business itself. As the founder, former CEO, and now executive chairman of Starbucks, Howard…
Think it’s hard to find a big idea? Imagine trying to find a mythical boiling river deep in the Amazon rainforest. That’s precisely what geothermal scientist Andrés Ruzo did in 2010, when he set out to find Shanay-timpishka, which means “boiled with the heat of the Sun.” That quest may sound quixotic, but it’s no…
As has been reported and documented, sexual coercion, harassment, and assault have unfortunately become the experience of many women and women founders in tech. In June of 2017, I published “The Human Rights of Women Entrepreneurs” (fka #DecencyPledge) as a response to news media reports of sexual harassment and assault in the venture capital industry.…
When you build and scale a massive business, you’re going to have a massive impact on the world. So when should you start thinking about whether that impact is for good or for ill? For many companies, “social responsibility” is a nice-to-have that founders and CEOs only consider when the business is established and profitable.…
Over the last year, I’ve had the chance to sit down with dozens of founders as host of the Masters of Scale podcast. Through these conversations I’ve honed my theories on what allows companies to scale spectacularly, and how these individuals realize their visions. For this week’s show, I had a very free-flowing conversation with Ev Williams, who founded…
I recently had the pleasure of attending an OpenAI event, where a number of academics, government types, and entrepreneurs convened to discuss artificial intelligence. The questions ranged from the changing nature of work, to how AI can play into international relations, to transformation of industries, to what the state-of-the-art is. Obviously, artificial intelligence is a complex…
Payal Kadakia thought of everything when she launched Classtivity, the precursor to the fitness subscription service ClassPass. She and her team spent 18 months developing an “OpenTable for classes,” building thousands of partner relationships and a beautiful website. Every time a customer booked a class, Classtivity would make money. But 90 days after launch, Classtivity…
Much of what I’ve been thinking and talking about in recent years focuses on scaling up quickly. But this week on Masters of Scale, I’m focused on a very different topic — how to reinvent a company so it remains relevant decades or even centuries after founding. Forget being a unicorn, and be a “Phoenix” instead…