It's great to hear discussion around Umair's thought patterns that add even more depth... I think what he was trying to say might be a little different from PG

It's great to hear discussion around Umair's thought patterns that add even more depth... I think what he was trying to say might be a little different from PG's interpretation... Umair might have said, "every company that had the potential to be economically revolutionary over the last five years sold out [to an acquirer devoid of strategic imagination or the capabilities to discontinuously continue their trajectory]," ergo ending the disruption gravy train. That is, it's not necessarily "selling out" that blows things up; it's selling out to companies only driven to "increase market share", etc. Or something like that. I also think it is really interesting how your view of how the GOOG acquisition/IPO story played out vs. Umair's version: "If all Larry, Sergey, and Google's investors had wanted to do was to sell out fast to the highest bidder, they could have done so at any time. But they didn't: they chose to revolutionize something that sucked - and so a tsunami of new value was unlocked." That clearly doesn't square with how you saw it (even though it's an inspiring revision). I unfortunately lost my copy of Battelle's book before I got this far in the story, otherwise I would weigh in. Clearly PG, Fred, Umair, and other smart ones agree on the need for more, smaller risks and purposeful management. At any rate, whoever these "new investors" are that are going to fill the void between bottstrapping at Series A are going to make a FORTUNE. And they can't show up soon enough!