More than 122 million lives saved. Hundreds of millions people lifted out of extreme poverty. Over the course of its existence, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has helped drive massive positive outcomes like that by focusing on what it calls “actionable measurement” – aka a commitment to collecting and analyzing data about its activities and interventions, and then…
This episode in our Greymatter Blitzscaling capsule series, with Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh, focuses on the topic of competitive strategy. In an ideal world, you won’t have any competition. But the world is far from ideal. How should a blitzscaling company think about and respond to the competition? Below is an edited transcript of Reid…
Welcome to the next production of Blitzscaling! Since the launch of our book, and after the Stanford class, Chris Yeh and I have received many questions from entrepreneurs who want more details on how to blitzscale their companies. We want to answer the questions at scale! That’s why we’re working with the team at Greylock Partners to release the…
The best way to combat global poverty at scale is to put money directly into the hands of millions of people who have very little of it. That’s the simple, powerful vision that Segovia CEO Michael Faye and his co-founder Paul Niehaus pitched me in 2015, and the reason I was excited to lead their Series A round with a personal…
In Silicon Valley, intelligence is both abundant and coveted. Because of this fact, Silicon Valley job interview questions have gotten tougher — and weirder — as interviewers devise queries designed to identify the best of the brightest. Consider, these brainteasers that various companies have asked job candidates in recent years: How many golf balls can…
Tim O’Reilly’s recent article, “The fundamental problem with Silicon Valley’s favorite growth strategy,” makes an impassioned argument that the ideas in our book, Blitzscaling, encourage entrepreneurs to behave in ways that are irresponsible or even dangerous in the pursuit of what he characterizes as “runaway growth.” Instead, he argues for the virtues of going slow and…
The Utopian Vision of AI In the late 1800s, in what’s known as the Second Industrial Revolution, multiple major new technologies initiated an era marked by even more rapid transformation than the century that preceded it — especially in the United States. Electrification, railroads, telegraphs, and eventually the automobile all helped unleash unprecedented productivity gains,…
At this point, almost everyone in the startup world agrees that hiring and culture are important. Whenever these topics arise, it’s almost guaranteed that the discussion will touch on how every Google employee had to interview with Larry and Sergey before receiving an offer, how Zappos offers new employees $1,000 to quit to weed out…
I strongly believe in the power and importance of diversity. That’s one of the reasons why Masters of Scale was the first American media program to commit to a 50/50 gender balance for its guests. But a nuance that is often missed is what it’s like being the person who provides that diversity. Sallie Krawchek, my guest…
My old friend Peter Thiel once wrote an essay for the Wall Street Journal, titled “Competition Is for Losers.” Entrepreneurs frequently make the mistake of picking highly competitive markets. I suspect that they fall into this trap because many entrepreneurs come from elite universities where they succeeded by outcompeting a bunch of other smart people…
While the hypergrowth of blitzscaling is often synonymous with the latest high-tech startup from Silicon Valley, blitzscaling isn’t limited by geography, industry, or even company size. Blitzscaling is a technique that can also help an established company make the most of a great opportunity. Yet while blitzscaling can be practiced by anyone, it isn’t appropriate…
Over the past two decades the internet has reshaped our daily lives and the world of business—so it’s not surprising that it’s transforming how companies develop talent. The emergence of a “personal learning cloud” makes it convenient and affordable for people to access new ways to learn. And that’s a necessity: To keep pace with…
In the early decades of the 20th century, automobility at scale ushered in new patterns of living and a new era of broad-based prosperity in America. For some time now, I’ve believed autonomous vehicles can do the same. So when the opportunity arose last year for Greylock to co-lead the $90 million Series A round in…
Superagency: What Could Possibly Go Right with Our AI Future with Greg Beato Superagency is the state of widespread empowerment that occurs when millions of people get simultaneous access to a breakthrough technology. With hands-on, self-directed AI, individuals benefit from their own new superpowers—and everyone else’s too. While, for many of us, AI seemed to…
Since launching the Masters of Scale podcast, I’ve interviewed more than 50 amazing entrepreneurs, and helped them share their experiences and lessons from building iconic companies. Now, for the first time in the history of the podcast, the tables have been turned. My friend June Cohen, the co-founder of WaitWhat, the company behind Masters of Scale, steps out…