2016 Jan 12

Whence QA?

Since the dawn of software, more or less, companies wrote their software in a process that went something like this: Product defines the specifications. Architecture designs it. Engineering/R&D builds it. Quality Assurance (QA) tests it. If it passes, it is scheduled for release; if not, goto #3. The jobs of QA teams historically have been procedure-oriented. Whereas engineers tend to be more creative and inventive, QA teams provide the process and constraints (remember the term "

2015 Dec 29

Brave New Equity World

Poor founders and CEOs; we really should have some sympathy for them. The sheer amount of information they need to know is mind-boggling. Everyone starts out with one area of expertise. For most startup founders, it is technology; for some, it is product or marketing. You quickly need to learn sales, and technology, and marketing. Then comes HR - since you need people to grow - and finance becomes important very quickly.

2015 Dec 3

What About Yahoo's Original Business?

Yesterday, we looked at how the market values Yahoo, and tried to understand why a company with $6.3BN in net assets, and another $31BN in a fairly liquid equity investment is valued only at... $31BN! Interestingly, Daniel Morris pointed out an article in CNBC from September which argued that the issue is taxes. Essentially, Yahoo's investment is encumbered by a potential tax bill. If an when they liquidate it, the tax bill will be enough to wipe out the rest of Yahoo's assets.

2015 Dec 2

Why Is Yahoo Valued Less than Zero?

According to several articles I have seen today, notably this Wall Street Journal report, Yahoo's Board of Directors are considering a sale of Yahoo's core Internet business. For quite some time, Yahoo has been a troubled company. To many people, it doesn't matter. But to those of us who enjoyed it as one of the first major Internet search sites, it is very sad to see. Marissa Mayer was brought on board to fix the company.

2015 Nov 25

Selling Clothes, Selling Software, Selling Cloud

What does selling clothes to Macy's have to do with selling software, and cloud services, to enterprises? Everything. Earlier today, I was speaking with my brother-in-law, entrepreneur and consultant Kevin Pearl. Before starting a firm to improve capture of billing time for attorneys, accountants and consultants; before serving as a turnaround consultant; before building a firm that sold software to manage venture capital portfolios; Kevin ran a firm that sold clothing to large well-known clothing retailers.

2015 Nov 19

Sales-Product Tension: Small Companies Scale and Big Companies Fail

Steve Denning has a great short article in Forbes, referencing Peggy Noonan on what Steve Jobs had to say about why big companies fail. The article is worth reading - actually, the entire Isaacson biography of Jobs is a great read - but here is the money quote: The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important.

2015 Nov 16

Independence Drives Speed

In the last week, I have had several discussions with some really smart technologists, partially focused on what makes technology companies nimble and fast and, therefore, great. In the last article, we discussed hiring 10x people, and especially the way many great employees compound together to create up to 2 orders of magnitude faster companies. However, hiring really smart employees is necessary, but it is not sufficient. What these employees need is independence.

2015 Nov 12

Chessmaster Employees

It has long been known, at least among experienced technologists, that the best people are worth ten times the "just" really good ones. I rarely see numbers to support this contention - which is somewhat surprising for someone as data-hungry and -driven as I - but I have known it since my earliest days in the technology business. The best people are the best because they absorb more, see more, are more creative, and can put these together to grasp the future and deliver results in a way that most others simply cannot.

2015 Nov 10

Good Writing Still Counts

In a world full of email, then SMS, then Twitter-based abbreviations for everything - ttyl, afaik, iirc, rtfm - do good, clean, clear writing skills still matter? Yes. Unquestionably, and without a second's hesitation, writing certainly matters, not solely for the pedantic nitpickers. Good writing skills greatly affect your business success. Secret of Success I once asked a very successful executive what he thought was the single most important factor in his success.

2015 Oct 21

Mind Your Margins... Again!

I have no idea why it surprises everyone. Every time some technology goes through the "hype cycle", or the sector as a whole goes through a "we're not in a bubble" bubble, inevitably, when the hype dies down or the bubble bursts, people suddenly "discover" business fundamentals. Often, it is not the people discussing it who discover it. Rather, they are the ones reminding everyone that the fundamentals count.