Tomorrow's Producer (Part 2)
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Mixpanel Co-Founder Suhail Doshi and New York Office Director Tim Trefren
On the pitches Andreessen is relatively restrained: he retains his fuse for further discussion when the firm makes the final decision on investing money. It is here that he asks those questions that force interlocutors to perceive the world in a new way. Discussing the Lyft ★ joint travel service: “Don't look at the size of the taxi market. What if people stop buying cars at all? ”Question for OfferUp ★ :“ And if all these online sales — eBay ★ and Craigslist ★ —will be forced to migrate to mobile devices? How much will this change? ”Insightful manager Ben Horowitz sat at the head of the table next to the co-founder. Among his friends are rappers Kanye West ★ and Ness ★ , and he likes to quote them in order to set up his interlocutors in a bold way. But he does not try to tune Andreessen at all. “Do not try to tell Mark not to bite someone’s head off,” explains Horowitz. “He has a huge responsibility when he makes decisions about the fate of gigantic amounts of money, so he cuts down:“ Why didn’t you think about it , and about it , but about this ! ””
A16z is designed to make a strong statement about the future, based on the ability of the founders to argue and conflict. In 1996, Horowitz was a product manager at Netscape. He wrote Andrissen a disapproving letter, when he opened the new strategy of the company to the press too early. Andrissen said that it would be Horowitz’s fault if the company fails: “Next time, give these damn interviews yourself. Fuck you! ”Ordinary relationships would end there. “If he feels disrespect, Mark will cut you out of his life like a cancer,” one of Andryssen’s close friends tells me. “But Ben and Mark fight like a cat and a dog, and then they just forget about it.” Two years later, when Netscape began to sink, and forty percent of the employees left the company, Horowitz said he would remain, no matter what. Previously, Andreessen did not trust anyone, but now he has changed his mind. In the a16z team, they complement each other: Horowitz is a CEO focused on working with people, and Andriessen is a chairman, a theorist with a large-scale vision. At the same time, Horowitz notes: “In fact, Mark is much more sensitive than me. He often gets upset because I involuntarily express my body language - “Ben, to you! I am telling you here, and I see that you are going to be sick. ”"
Although Andreissen was on the boards of directors of Facebook, Hewlett-Packard and eBay, he rarely takes his place on the board of companies from the a16z portfolio, preferring to watch from a distance. Andrissen is the producer of the future, asking again and again about "what will happen in ten, twenty, thirty years," while looking at his Google calendar. He develops the sharpness of his inner gaze, taking due care of observation and generalization, and often quotes William Gibson ★ : "The future is here, only it is distributed in an unobvious way." never appeared on the windows Target ★ . To smooth out such failures in the “distribution of the future,” Andrysen spreads his assessments in all possible ways: podcasts, discussions, an interview with CNN — he became a media soothsayer. This Andrissen is great. A hundred times a day, he tweets, overwhelming tens of thousands of subscribers with aphorisms and statistics, triggering Twitter tweets ★ . Andreessen says he loves Twitter because “reporters are obsessed with him. This is a pipe to which a loudspeaker is attached in every corner of the world. ”He believes that if you repeat something often enough and persistently, then this will be his glorious revenge on the world. “We have a theory of the nation of nerds. It includes forty or fifty million people around the world. They believe that they have more in common with other such eccentrics than with people in their own country. So, you have to choose which clan, gang or group you want to be a part of. ”Such a“ Twitter nation ”makes a map of the world in its own way.
')
Mixpanel is a symbol of exaggerated unicorn worship in Silicon Valley. Peter Levin ★ , a member of the Board of Directors at Doshi, during the consideration of the transaction, said that the company is striving to achieve a billion dollar valuation. It is this self-assessment that should determine the price of a share that a16z can acquire. In general, Doshi agrees to sell ten percent for eighty million, based on the company's value of eight hundred million dollars. To this, Andreessen stated: “The dogs would not jump through a small grate to get to the food. But he didn’t even work with the market at all. But he has a profit! ”
Horowitz exclaims: “How old is he, twenty-four? To hell with everything, let's give him all our money! ”A16z completely closed round B, paying sixty-five million for an increase in the share of 7.5 percent. The cost of the whole company at the same time reached eight hundred and sixty-five million dollars. Doshi was a little upset that he was not valued at a billion, but he assured me that he was ready to wait: his business is growing rapidly, and in this “boom” everyone so quickly raises money, that “in six or twelve months we will be the unicorn” .
Having closed one round, venture funds rarely single-handedly close the next one, fearing their own misconceptions about the company's present market value. Therefore, Andreissen adds: “And do not think that your shit now smells like vanilla ice cream!” None of the half a dozen other funds that Doshi addressed last fall did not rate his company so highly. But Andrésen applied the rule of his friend and intellectual sparring partner Peter Thiel (Peter Thiel ★ ), who was a co-founder of PayPal ★ and an early investor of LinkedIn ★ and Yelp ★ . When a recognized fund takes on two investment rounds in a row, Andriessen explains to me, Thiel thinks that this is a “whining siren calling for a purchase. And the higher the estimate relative to the previous round, the more undervalued the company. ”I need time to assimilate the idea of Till: when the company is growing rapidly, even rising investors, who have recently given a lower rating in the previous round, will be constantly slightly delayed. And the faster the growth, the more they will lag behind. Andrissen smirks again, checking out the paradox: the more they now pay for Mixpanel, the more profitable the deal will be for them, following the logic of Till.
Usually business doesn't work like that. At least for now. ▼
Part 1 ← | Part 2 | → Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
About the author: Ted Friend has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1998. Author of various reports and investigations, multiple winner of awards in the field of journalism.
Photo: New York Business Journal .
Mixpanel Co-Founder Suhail Doshi and New York Office Director Tim Trefren
On the pitches Andreessen is relatively restrained: he retains his fuse for further discussion when the firm makes the final decision on investing money. It is here that he asks those questions that force interlocutors to perceive the world in a new way. Discussing the Lyft ★ joint travel service: “Don't look at the size of the taxi market. What if people stop buying cars at all? ”Question for OfferUp ★ :“ And if all these online sales — eBay ★ and Craigslist ★ —will be forced to migrate to mobile devices? How much will this change? ”Insightful manager Ben Horowitz sat at the head of the table next to the co-founder. Among his friends are rappers Kanye West ★ and Ness ★ , and he likes to quote them in order to set up his interlocutors in a bold way. But he does not try to tune Andreessen at all. “Do not try to tell Mark not to bite someone’s head off,” explains Horowitz. “He has a huge responsibility when he makes decisions about the fate of gigantic amounts of money, so he cuts down:“ Why didn’t you think about it , and about it , but about this ! ””
A16z is designed to make a strong statement about the future, based on the ability of the founders to argue and conflict. In 1996, Horowitz was a product manager at Netscape. He wrote Andrissen a disapproving letter, when he opened the new strategy of the company to the press too early. Andrissen said that it would be Horowitz’s fault if the company fails: “Next time, give these damn interviews yourself. Fuck you! ”Ordinary relationships would end there. “If he feels disrespect, Mark will cut you out of his life like a cancer,” one of Andryssen’s close friends tells me. “But Ben and Mark fight like a cat and a dog, and then they just forget about it.” Two years later, when Netscape began to sink, and forty percent of the employees left the company, Horowitz said he would remain, no matter what. Previously, Andreessen did not trust anyone, but now he has changed his mind. In the a16z team, they complement each other: Horowitz is a CEO focused on working with people, and Andriessen is a chairman, a theorist with a large-scale vision. At the same time, Horowitz notes: “In fact, Mark is much more sensitive than me. He often gets upset because I involuntarily express my body language - “Ben, to you! I am telling you here, and I see that you are going to be sick. ”"
Although Andreissen was on the boards of directors of Facebook, Hewlett-Packard and eBay, he rarely takes his place on the board of companies from the a16z portfolio, preferring to watch from a distance. Andrissen is the producer of the future, asking again and again about "what will happen in ten, twenty, thirty years," while looking at his Google calendar. He develops the sharpness of his inner gaze, taking due care of observation and generalization, and often quotes William Gibson ★ : "The future is here, only it is distributed in an unobvious way." never appeared on the windows Target ★ . To smooth out such failures in the “distribution of the future,” Andrysen spreads his assessments in all possible ways: podcasts, discussions, an interview with CNN — he became a media soothsayer. This Andrissen is great. A hundred times a day, he tweets, overwhelming tens of thousands of subscribers with aphorisms and statistics, triggering Twitter tweets ★ . Andreessen says he loves Twitter because “reporters are obsessed with him. This is a pipe to which a loudspeaker is attached in every corner of the world. ”He believes that if you repeat something often enough and persistently, then this will be his glorious revenge on the world. “We have a theory of the nation of nerds. It includes forty or fifty million people around the world. They believe that they have more in common with other such eccentrics than with people in their own country. So, you have to choose which clan, gang or group you want to be a part of. ”Such a“ Twitter nation ”makes a map of the world in its own way.
')
Mixpanel is a symbol of exaggerated unicorn worship in Silicon Valley. Peter Levin ★ , a member of the Board of Directors at Doshi, during the consideration of the transaction, said that the company is striving to achieve a billion dollar valuation. It is this self-assessment that should determine the price of a share that a16z can acquire. In general, Doshi agrees to sell ten percent for eighty million, based on the company's value of eight hundred million dollars. To this, Andreessen stated: “The dogs would not jump through a small grate to get to the food. But he didn’t even work with the market at all. But he has a profit! ”
Horowitz exclaims: “How old is he, twenty-four? To hell with everything, let's give him all our money! ”A16z completely closed round B, paying sixty-five million for an increase in the share of 7.5 percent. The cost of the whole company at the same time reached eight hundred and sixty-five million dollars. Doshi was a little upset that he was not valued at a billion, but he assured me that he was ready to wait: his business is growing rapidly, and in this “boom” everyone so quickly raises money, that “in six or twelve months we will be the unicorn” .
Having closed one round, venture funds rarely single-handedly close the next one, fearing their own misconceptions about the company's present market value. Therefore, Andreissen adds: “And do not think that your shit now smells like vanilla ice cream!” None of the half a dozen other funds that Doshi addressed last fall did not rate his company so highly. But Andrésen applied the rule of his friend and intellectual sparring partner Peter Thiel (Peter Thiel ★ ), who was a co-founder of PayPal ★ and an early investor of LinkedIn ★ and Yelp ★ . When a recognized fund takes on two investment rounds in a row, Andriessen explains to me, Thiel thinks that this is a “whining siren calling for a purchase. And the higher the estimate relative to the previous round, the more undervalued the company. ”I need time to assimilate the idea of Till: when the company is growing rapidly, even rising investors, who have recently given a lower rating in the previous round, will be constantly slightly delayed. And the faster the growth, the more they will lag behind. Andrissen smirks again, checking out the paradox: the more they now pay for Mixpanel, the more profitable the deal will be for them, following the logic of Till.
Usually business doesn't work like that. At least for now. ▼
Part 1 ← | Part 2 | → Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
About the author: Ted Friend has been a regular contributor to The New Yorker since 1998. Author of various reports and investigations, multiple winner of awards in the field of journalism.
Photo: New York Business Journal .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292672/
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