IPO
From everything I've heard for a long time, Jeff Weiner is a wonderful guy and great CEO. In addition, LinkedIn is certainly a great company, so please don't view this post as dissing either Jeff or the company. I will say, however, that I found media
Bubbles
As the new year approaches, it's time for another set of predictions, but before diving into my list for 2016, let's review and assess the predictions I made for 2015. Kellblog's 2015 Predictions Review 1. The good times will continue to roll in Silicon
Bubbles
This post shares a collection of thoughts on what I've variously heard referred to as "the tightening," "the unwinding," "the unraveling," or "the great reckoning" -- the already-in-process but largely still-coming deflation of technology-oriented stock valuations, particularly in consumer-oriented companies
Management
One thing I try to teach all new (and many old) managers is the simple, somewhat counter-intuitive rule that conflict avoidance causes conflict. Example: a manager has problems with an under-performing employee, but doesn't tell them that their work is below expectations and they need to ship up.
Silicon Valley
The first time I heard the word "pivot" in the context of business strategy was about nine months ago. As a student of language, my ears perked up when I heard it. I remember thinking, "pivot ... interesting, haven't heard that one before, ... strong buzzword potential,
Silicon Valley
While I was reading this story in the Mercury News about President Obama's dinner yesterday with a number of Silicon Valley tech titans, an odd thought occurred to me: Boy, I'd hate to make the seating chart for that dinner! How do you prioritize Larry Ellison,
Management
While I know that reading the newspaper -- with high unemployment, record budget deficits, and drastic spending cuts -- might make you want to go back to bed in the morning, from my experience there is plenty of positive excitement happening in Silicon Valley right now. Venture capital (VC) is
Management
The conventional Silicon Valley / venture capital (VC) wisdom is that startups should not bet on first-time managers in just about any position, but particularly at the executive team level. It's best captured by the statement: a high-growth startup is not the place to learn how to do your
Marketing
Quick post to highlight this New York Times story, Spinning the Web: PR in Silicon Valley. The article starts with the story of a start-up first pondering, and then deciding not to pitch the big tech blogs like TechCrunch. Excerpt: Instead, [publicist Brooke Hammerling] decides that she will “whisper in
Silicon Valley
Check out this article in the New York Times that overturns Silicon Valley conventional wisdom about failure. Per a Harvard Business School working paper, which looked at several thousand venture-capital-backed companies from 1986 to 2003: * First-time entrepreneurs had a 22% chance of success * Already-successful entrepreneurs had a 34% chance of
Silicon Valley
I just heard about this index today, the Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist Confidence Index, which measures the confidence of Silicon Valley venture capitalists on a scale from 1-5. In 4Q08, the index hit its fifth consecutive quarterly new low at 2.77 out of 5. The index was started in
Silicon Valley
In keeping with my predictions series, here are the results of a recently released survey by the National Venture Capital Association featuring predictions about venture capital in 2009. The survey includes responses from more than 400 venture capitalists and was taken between 11/24 and 12/12/08. Some takeaways:
