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He's playing the game at a whole other level. With his intelligence and connections in SV, I don't think calling it luck does it justice. I'm still waiting for
by dschobel 17y ago
He's playing the game at a whole other level. With his intelligence and connections in SV, I don't think calling it luck does it justice.
I'm still waiting for him to start a hedge fund so that non-connected SV-outsiders can get in on his action.
- seiji 17y agoIt's an interesting model: work on something for a while to show people what you can do, convince friends in high places they want you (back), get "acquired" and EOL what you spent six months to two years working on. Appjet = left google -> appjet -> google acquisition. reMail = left google -> xobni -> remail -> google acquisition. FriendFeed = left google -> friendfeed -> acquisition by friends at facebook. (It's not just a "web" thing -- check out some Cisco acquisition cycles from people who leave, create new products, then get acquired back again. I think most Cisco Family acquisitions involve actually keeping the products they acquire though.)
- aditya 17y agoIsn't that a bit of oversimplification? Google buys a lot more companies started by people who weren't Xooglers. Also, those steps between leave google -> ... -> get acquired are really, 'make something people want' and as we know, that's not some simple formula. Conspiracy theory, or not. :-)
- marshallp 17y agoAh yes, only Mr Bucheit (and other connected people) know what "people want", the rest of us are just jackasses [sarc]
- dschobel 17y agoSure, but it's predicated on doing good work. If Paul didn't kick ass @ google, no one would have followed his work after he left. If he hadn't built something awesome after he left, they wouldn't have asked for him to come back. Skill is the common denominator to all of his good fortune.
- neilc 17y agoHowever, there might be some truth to the idea that Google alumni seem to be more successful at subsequent startups than alumni of, say, Microsoft, Amazon, or Sun.
- ojbyrne 17y agoI can't actually think of any off the top of my head, but 10 years ago it seemed like there were microsoft employees with startups everywhere. I'm sure plenty of them were successful.
- starkfist 17y agoPaypal has the most successful alumni network in the valley.
- neilc 17y agoRight -- at least on a per-capita basis, anyway. Zuckerberg made an interesting comment at this year's startup school, when he said that he explicitly wanted Facebook to be a "a great place to be from" -- i.e. FB wants to be a good company where you can learn for a few years, and then go off and start your own venture to apply what you've learned. I thought it was refreshing to hear a CEO recognize and embrace that working for his company might only be one step in someone's career.
- Harj 17y agoFriendFeed = left google -> friendfeed -> acquisition by friends at facebook. pb didn't have personal relationships with the people at facebook pre-acquisition. sure they knew of his achievements prior to friendfeed but by that definition most people in the valley would be his friend.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- skmurphy 17y agoCisco's acquisition strategy is driven by a desire to put new product into their sales channel, most are driven by a business unit that plans to continue to sell the product. Google seems to be using acquisitions to add talented engineers, most of the products seemed to be killed or undergo radical revision.