2021-12-10
I've worked on some “next billion” projects, and this one is truly inspiring. @Replit is teaching the world to code by making it fun, social, simple, lucrative and attractive to the next generation. Great example of founder/market fit @amasad https://twitter.com/...
Not Boring
Replit, a browser-based IDE for cross-platform collaborative coding, raises an $80M Series B led by Coatue at an $800M valuation
Replit Raises $80M Series B to Bring the Next Billion Software Creators Online … Hi friends 👋, — Happy Thursday!
2021-07-05
One of the most important things I learned from Jeff Bezos was to develop a bias for action. He wasn't always right, but he was always ready to act (and he was right much more than wrong). Like the time we were flying to Chicago and nearly wound up in Paris. Here's what happened:
New York Times
How Jeff Bezos' wide-ranging ambitions for Amazon, a fear of stasis, and an absence of empathy factor in his monumental but complicated legacy at the company
2021-06-14
In one of the greatest jiu jitsu moves of all time, Mark rented out the Shoreline cinema complex and bussed in the entire company to see the premier of the movie. His first (and probably only) viewing of The Social Network was in a giant cinema with the rest of his employees.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
@lakshmibas Yes, being a fighter doesn't mean you never listen. But when you have strong conviction and everyone is telling you that you're wrong, you have to trust yourself and be willing to stand up for what you believe.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
One of Mark's first big fights was with his own board + exec team. They tried to convince him to sell the company to Yahoo for $1B in '06. At the time FB had 5M users (all college) and was 2 yrs old. At the age of 22, Mark stood to gain $300M personally. How could he say no?
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
You don't have to be mean to be a fighter. Some CEOs struggle with this (famously Steve Jobs), but Mark pulled it off gracefully. He didn't yell at people, never threw furniture or lost his temper. He was just ruthlessly decisive, always willing to make the hard call.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
Within a couple of years after the Yahoo near miss, Mark replaced his entire management team and reconstituted the board. He needed people around him who believed in his vision, people he could trust to fight alongside him. I was one of them.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
In his first 5 years, Mark went through multiple product leaders, 3 CFOs, and many executives. When someone wasn't scaling with the company, he would ask them to leave or take a smaller role. His co-founders all quit too, they were tired of fighting. It's lonely to be CEO.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
I joined FB in mid-2006, right after Mark made the decision not to sell (I'm glad he did!). He had the courage to go against everyone around him, and he was promptly vindicated the following year when we raised our Series C from Microsoft at $15B.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
I wanted to cut a deal. Mark wanted to fight. When I organized a meeting behind his back to discuss my strategy, he sent me a pointed email: if I ever did that again, I'd be fired. He was open to discussing my views but there would be no discussion without him in the room.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
Mark hired a professional CFO around that time, someone with gray hair who had taken companies public. This guy struggled from the beginning with the fact that his boss was barely older than his children. When he tried to launch a coup 6 mos after joining, Mark fired him.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
@diogenes_man She complimented him and challenged him. She is also a fighter
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
But it's more lonely to lose, or to regret that you didn't try hard enough to win. Business is the ultimate game, it never ends and you are never done. Going from the garage to the boardroom requires incredible grit, determination, ambition, and yes...fight.
@danrose999
[Thread] Former Facebook employee, now Coatue Management Chairman, shares his experiences working with Mark Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days
Dan Rose / @danrose999 :
2021-04-05
When I joined the secret team working on Kindle, my job was to convince publishers to create digital books. They couldn't understand why we suddenly cared about ebooks when nobody at the time was reading them. I begged Jeff to let me share our plans for Kindle but he refused.
@danrose999
[Thread] Coatue Management Chairman on building company cultures at Amazon and Facebook, based on his combined 20 years of experience working for both
The partnership between Mark and Sheryl was forged by their mutual commitment to a unified culture across the company. There can be small differences based on the work to be done, but core values must be shared across product and business teams. There can only be one CEO.
@danrose999
[Thread] Coatue Management Chairman on building company cultures at Amazon and Facebook, based on his combined 20 years of experience working for both
Jeff was taking a cue from Apple. Tim Cook once shared with me that Apple put a precise dollar value on the free press they received from big product announcements, which was undermined by leaks. Secretive cultures try to avoid leaks by locking down information.
@danrose999
[Thread] Coatue Management Chairman on building company cultures at Amazon and Facebook, based on his combined 20 years of experience working for both
When I joined FB in 2006, I was shocked at how much Zuck shared with the company. I advised him to share less to avoid leaks. His response: “I'm building a company that I would want to work for if I hadn't started FB. And I would want to work at a place that shares openly.”
@danrose999
[Thread] Coatue Management Chairman on building company cultures at Amazon and Facebook, based on his combined 20 years of experience working for both
When we developed company values in the early days at FB, Zuck didn't want a bunch of corporate dribble postered on the wall. I argued against “Move Fast and Break Things” but Mark chose it precisely because it was controversial, clearly signaled culture of velocity & iteration.
@danrose999
[Thread] Coatue Management Chairman on building company cultures at Amazon and Facebook, based on his combined 20 years of experience working for both
2021-01-11
@stevesi @stevesi Great thread! I had a few meetings w/Jobs around this time. He admired Zuck/FB and took him/us under his wing. We had a partnership with Msft at the time as you'll recall, and I was struck by Jobs' hostility to you guys. He was surprisingly direct - “Msft is evil.” Why?
@stevesi
[Thread] A look back at the state of tech and mobile industries during the first iPhone keynote 14 years ago, the importance of which took years to sink in
Steven Sinofsky / @stevesi : Tweets: @stevesi , @cblatts , @danrose999 , @richminer , @stevesi , @ednutting , @raztweets , @ravithinkz , @kushaanshah , @grady_booch , @gassee , @z...