February 21, 2009 at 09:13Netscape founder of Facebook, Ning, and cloud computing [1]
Marc Andreessen gave another interview, sometimes interesting.
Excerpts about Facebook, Ning and cloud computing below. The rest later.
The video and the full transcript are here .
Mark will be denoted by the letter M, Charlie Rose (host) - the letter H, which seems logical to me ...
C. Mark is already here. He is one of the most respected entrepreneurs in Siliconova (aka Silicon as per wikipedia) Valley. He founded and sold two companies, each for more than $ 1 billion. The first was Netscape. She revolutionized web browsing before being sold to AOL in 1999. His second company, Opsware, was bought by HP in 2007. He now has 2 new companies - Ning's social networking site and venture investment fund. We want to crack about it about everything. Welcome Mark.
About Facebook
C. First I want to talk with you about something, in which you have 1.6%. This is Facebook.
M. Well, I really have less ...
Ch. Seriously? Oh no!
M. But on the other hand, I was lucky to be on the Deer Council.
<easy blah blah on the topic of how much money Mark swelled in the FB - Charlie insisted on $ 260 million, Mark unlocked. >
M. FB is a fantastically successful company with great potential. I do not want to compare with Google. FB needs to be evaluated independently.
Is the FB really worth $ 15 billion?
M. Well, in the round of investments in which preferred shares were sold, the price of the shares was determined on the basis of a valuation of $ 15 billion ... (that is, investors believed that the value of the company was no less - approx.)
C. Was it Microsoft's investment?
M. Microsoft and some other investors. And some people were actually in a frustration with regard to this assessment, since it was BELOW than when it was the placement of ordinary (unprivileged) shares. Well, this is all nonsense, of course, because the company is still private and ...
Ch ... and makes no profit?
M. Well, financials were not disclosed ...
Ch. Well, are you on the Board of Directors ?!
M. Yes, I’m on the Council ...
Ch. Well, let’s tell us if we called you here!
M. In short, the company is hurt. All internal targets are OK. Already more than 175 million ACTIVE users. HALF of them use FB every day. And many users come in 50 times a day. I think FB now generates non-acid loot, to be honest. And I think it will generate even more dough in the coming years.
C. Have you read the Fortune article? Right on the front page, man! They write FB already practically steers our daily life, but is this a real business?
M. Of course I did. People generally are always interested in new companies ... They ...
C. They monetize it!
M. Yeah ... Count on Toko, they already have 175 million active users. Well this is the size of the population of the 6th country in the world already, when compared with countries. They are on their way to 500 million ... It will be a multi-billion dollar success.
C. So what will be the focus with monetization?
M. Ok, in this place people just cease to understand what is happening. This is actually very interesting ...
Ch. Yes, yes, no hell is incomprehensible with monetization ...
M. Right now, I’ll explain it, although I myself also somehow don’t really get it right yet ... So, the FB deliberately does not engage in the usual brand advertising, which other sites gladly do. For example, a search for Yahweh - they also row a lot of money by the way - and they have all kinds of banners everywhere. And the FB made a strategic decision not to engage in such a poppin, but will build its own type of more organic business model. And they are still in the process of creating this model. And if they finally solve this problem - and I think they will - then they will become very successful and fat. But if so, you can always turn on the back and start giving regular advertising ... If the FB had given up to regular banner advertising right now, they would have already chopped off more than $ 1 billion in revenue a year. So here, dude, the question is long-term strategy ...
C. That is, if they wanted to make money instantly, could they?
M. Yes, without a bazaar! They could sell the first page for advertising and would start to cook giant loot. But there is great potential, and the question is how they decide to use it. And what's important, Mark (Zuckerberg) rested his horn on the idea of building a long-lived company. And you know, old man, in Silicon Valley there are people who like to cut down quickly, but there are people like Andy Grove, Bill Gates, guys from Google, and I think Mark is also in this company who want to do a long-running business. He (Mark) has plans for the distant future ...
Ch. That is, if other dudes in his place would sell to some thread of media giants, Mark wants to remain independent and develop his company as he wants?
M. And, like any company in the Valley, they received various offers for sale and decided to send everyone. Mark has a very cool Vision ...
Ch. Come on, come on, what the vision is there with him?
M. Count it yourself - it’s kind of an idea to document everyone on this planet! 175 million people now, and crowds of new people come daily. 6 billion goals throughout the world. Probably 3 billion of them have electricity and maybe even a telephone. That is, the entire market for the FB is possibly 3 billion people. This is a healthy call. And great opportunities.
C. Okay, I get it. Now about your business. What's up with Ning?
M. Soon there will be 20 million users. And every month another 2 million comes. Ning is such a thing that enables everyone to create their own social network, and soon we will have 1 million of such networks on Ning. It is free and easy. We cut all the loot on advertising. We are already in the black and the loot continues to drip faster. News Corps is doing very well with MySpace right now. LinkedIn, too, and I'm an angel investor there by the way, and they already have more than 20 million resumes in the database. Literally every first one uses LinkedIn today to find work or employees. Very hot topic, old man.
<blah blah about the fact that even politicians create their networks in Ning, that Obama’s company also used the principles of social networking, Obama puts his speeches on YouTube, etc.>
C. By the way, YouTube makes money, don’t you know?
M. I don’t know for sure; she’s Google’s now. But even if he doesn’t, then believe me, man, you could easily. These are all non-monetized assets!
<...>
M. ... I constantly hear about fresh innovations. For example, cloud computing.
Ch. Well, this is not a new idea even once, it is old ...
M. Yes, I founded the Loud Cloud company back in 1999. I'll explain those right now. Amazon has a Cloud service. And companies, instead of stupidly buying their own servers, can simply upload their software to Amazon’s servers and run it there and their sites too ... And you can imagine that there will be a whole generation of startups that will consist of a couple of programmers and a couple laptops, and they will all upload to Amazon, and pay toko for using their capacities like vodka in a bar, like electricity ... And it turns out that there will be a bunch of Internet startups that don’t need money to start, is it cool? This is innovation, damn it! Any Harvard student or just a schoolboy now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and in fact, now with cloud computing he has such a chance!
<...>
Excerpts about Facebook, Ning and cloud computing below. The rest later.
The video and the full transcript are here .
Mark will be denoted by the letter M, Charlie Rose (host) - the letter H, which seems logical to me ...
C. Mark is already here. He is one of the most respected entrepreneurs in Siliconova (aka Silicon as per wikipedia) Valley. He founded and sold two companies, each for more than $ 1 billion. The first was Netscape. She revolutionized web browsing before being sold to AOL in 1999. His second company, Opsware, was bought by HP in 2007. He now has 2 new companies - Ning's social networking site and venture investment fund. We want to crack about it about everything. Welcome Mark.
About Facebook
C. First I want to talk with you about something, in which you have 1.6%. This is Facebook.
M. Well, I really have less ...
Ch. Seriously? Oh no!
M. But on the other hand, I was lucky to be on the Deer Council.
<easy blah blah on the topic of how much money Mark swelled in the FB - Charlie insisted on $ 260 million, Mark unlocked. >
M. FB is a fantastically successful company with great potential. I do not want to compare with Google. FB needs to be evaluated independently.
Is the FB really worth $ 15 billion?
M. Well, in the round of investments in which preferred shares were sold, the price of the shares was determined on the basis of a valuation of $ 15 billion ... (that is, investors believed that the value of the company was no less - approx.)
C. Was it Microsoft's investment?
M. Microsoft and some other investors. And some people were actually in a frustration with regard to this assessment, since it was BELOW than when it was the placement of ordinary (unprivileged) shares. Well, this is all nonsense, of course, because the company is still private and ...
Ch ... and makes no profit?
M. Well, financials were not disclosed ...
Ch. Well, are you on the Board of Directors ?!
M. Yes, I’m on the Council ...
Ch. Well, let’s tell us if we called you here!
M. In short, the company is hurt. All internal targets are OK. Already more than 175 million ACTIVE users. HALF of them use FB every day. And many users come in 50 times a day. I think FB now generates non-acid loot, to be honest. And I think it will generate even more dough in the coming years.
C. Have you read the Fortune article? Right on the front page, man! They write FB already practically steers our daily life, but is this a real business?
M. Of course I did. People generally are always interested in new companies ... They ...
C. They monetize it!
M. Yeah ... Count on Toko, they already have 175 million active users. Well this is the size of the population of the 6th country in the world already, when compared with countries. They are on their way to 500 million ... It will be a multi-billion dollar success.
C. So what will be the focus with monetization?
M. Ok, in this place people just cease to understand what is happening. This is actually very interesting ...
Ch. Yes, yes, no hell is incomprehensible with monetization ...
M. Right now, I’ll explain it, although I myself also somehow don’t really get it right yet ... So, the FB deliberately does not engage in the usual brand advertising, which other sites gladly do. For example, a search for Yahweh - they also row a lot of money by the way - and they have all kinds of banners everywhere. And the FB made a strategic decision not to engage in such a poppin, but will build its own type of more organic business model. And they are still in the process of creating this model. And if they finally solve this problem - and I think they will - then they will become very successful and fat. But if so, you can always turn on the back and start giving regular advertising ... If the FB had given up to regular banner advertising right now, they would have already chopped off more than $ 1 billion in revenue a year. So here, dude, the question is long-term strategy ...
C. That is, if they wanted to make money instantly, could they?
M. Yes, without a bazaar! They could sell the first page for advertising and would start to cook giant loot. But there is great potential, and the question is how they decide to use it. And what's important, Mark (Zuckerberg) rested his horn on the idea of building a long-lived company. And you know, old man, in Silicon Valley there are people who like to cut down quickly, but there are people like Andy Grove, Bill Gates, guys from Google, and I think Mark is also in this company who want to do a long-running business. He (Mark) has plans for the distant future ...
Ch. That is, if other dudes in his place would sell to some thread of media giants, Mark wants to remain independent and develop his company as he wants?
M. And, like any company in the Valley, they received various offers for sale and decided to send everyone. Mark has a very cool Vision ...
Ch. Come on, come on, what the vision is there with him?
M. Count it yourself - it’s kind of an idea to document everyone on this planet! 175 million people now, and crowds of new people come daily. 6 billion goals throughout the world. Probably 3 billion of them have electricity and maybe even a telephone. That is, the entire market for the FB is possibly 3 billion people. This is a healthy call. And great opportunities.
C. Okay, I get it. Now about your business. What's up with Ning?
M. Soon there will be 20 million users. And every month another 2 million comes. Ning is such a thing that enables everyone to create their own social network, and soon we will have 1 million of such networks on Ning. It is free and easy. We cut all the loot on advertising. We are already in the black and the loot continues to drip faster. News Corps is doing very well with MySpace right now. LinkedIn, too, and I'm an angel investor there by the way, and they already have more than 20 million resumes in the database. Literally every first one uses LinkedIn today to find work or employees. Very hot topic, old man.
<blah blah about the fact that even politicians create their networks in Ning, that Obama’s company also used the principles of social networking, Obama puts his speeches on YouTube, etc.>
C. By the way, YouTube makes money, don’t you know?
M. I don’t know for sure; she’s Google’s now. But even if he doesn’t, then believe me, man, you could easily. These are all non-monetized assets!
<...>
M. ... I constantly hear about fresh innovations. For example, cloud computing.
Ch. Well, this is not a new idea even once, it is old ...
M. Yes, I founded the Loud Cloud company back in 1999. I'll explain those right now. Amazon has a Cloud service. And companies, instead of stupidly buying their own servers, can simply upload their software to Amazon’s servers and run it there and their sites too ... And you can imagine that there will be a whole generation of startups that will consist of a couple of programmers and a couple laptops, and they will all upload to Amazon, and pay toko for using their capacities like vodka in a bar, like electricity ... And it turns out that there will be a bunch of Internet startups that don’t need money to start, is it cool? This is innovation, damn it! Any Harvard student or just a schoolboy now thinks he can be the next Mark Zuckerberg, and in fact, now with cloud computing he has such a chance!
<...>