Jeff Hammerbacher

Jeff Hammerbacher is Chief Scientist and VP of Products at Cloudera. He was an Entrepreneur in Residence at Accel Partners immediately prior to joining Cloudera. Before Accel, he conceived, built, and led the Data team at Facebook. The Data team was responsible for driving many of the applications of statistics and machine learning at Facebook, as well as building out the infrastructure to support these tasks for massive data sets. The team produced two open source projects: Hive, a system for offline analysis built above Hadoop, and Cassandra, a structured storage system on a P2P network. Before joining Facebook, Jeff was a quantitative analyst on Wall Street. Jeff earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics from Harvard University.

Roger Magoulas

Roger Magoulas is Research Director at O’Reilly Media. Magoulas runs a team that is building an open source analysis infrastucture and provides analysis services, including technology trend analysis, to business decision-makers at O’Reilly and beyond. In previous incarnations, Magoulas designed and implemented data warehouse projects for organizations ranging from the San Francisco Opera to the Alberta Motor Club.

UPDATE::Pre-event interviews, thanks to Future Works, are now online:

Jack Herrick

Jack Herrick is a serial entrepreneur and wiki enthusiast. Jack currently runs wikiHow, a wiki based how-to manual. wikiHow is a bootstrap funded start-up. With over 17 million unique visitors, wikiHow is the 105th most popular site in the US according to Quantcast.com. As wikiHow’s steward, Jack works with a community of thousands of volunteers who create, edit and maintain wikiHow’s 60,000 how-to articles.

Gil Penchina

Gil Penchina is a serial entrepreneur and CEO of Wikia.com, the largest commercial wiki, whose users have written over 3 million articles in 100 languages in the last three years. The site now reaches over 14mm unique visitors per month according to Comscore. Prior to Wikia.com Gil was an executive at eBay for 8 years, most recently as a regional VP for eBay in Europe. Before eBay, Gil worked at General Electric, Bain & Co. and started two small technology companies. He has a Bachelors in Engineering from the University of Massachusetts and an MBA from Kellogg. In addition, Gil is an active angel investor in companies such as Linkedin, Paypal, Flock, Koders, ZipRealty, FindWhat and other consumer Internet services.

David Weekly

A Boston native and son of a MIT engineer, David Weekly has been programming since he was five and has coded for MIT, Harvard, Stanford, There.com, atWeb, and Legato. David wrote the first layman’s description of MP3 in early 1997 and graduated in 2000 with a BS in Computer Science from Stanford, where he was a President Scholar and a finalist in the ACM International Programming Competition.

David started the company that became PBwiki (now PBworks) in 2003, along the way creating SingleStat.us and IMSmarter.

UPDATE:: And here’s the event interview with Jack, Gil, and David (special thanks to FutureWorks):

Jason Calacanis

Jason Calacanis is founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine which launched in May 2007.  Prior to Mahalo, Jason was an “Entrepreneur in Action” at Sequoia Capital.  Jason is also a co-host and partner for TechCrunch50, a technology conference showcasing top new startups.

Before Mahalo, Jason was co-founder and CEO of Weblogs Inc, sold to AOL in November 2005. Upon joining AOL, he was appointed SVP and became GM of AOL Netscape. Prior to Weblogs, Jason was the founder of Rising Tide Studios, which produced Silicon Alley Reporter. The company was later sold to Dow Jones.

Jason is a frequent speaker at technology conferences, and his newsletter is published by Newsweek, The Huffington Post, and Nikkei Japan. He appears regularly in major news outlets including Charlie Rose, CNN, 60 minutes, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others.

Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a founding partner and entrepreneur-in-residence at Garage Technology Ventures. He is also the co-founder of Alltop.com, an online magazine of popular topics on the web.

Previously, Guy was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer. He is the author of nine books including Reality Check, The Art of the Start, Rules for Revolutionaries, How to Drive Your Competition Crazy, Selling the Dream, and The Macintosh Way.

Guy has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

For a look back at tomorrow, watch the original 1984 Apple Macintosh TV commercial:

Geoff Ralston, Lala Media

Our speaker for July will be Geoff Ralston, CEO of Lala Media, and formerly Chief Product Officer at Yahoo.  Geoff will be speaking about “Selling in the Age of Free”.

Geoff Ralston is the CEO of Lala, a music startup in Palo Alto.  He is also an investor, board member, and advisor to several companies. Geoff worked at Yahoo from 1997-2006 after the 1997 acquisition of Four11 Corp where he was VP Engineering and led the creation of RocketMail (which became Yahoo Mail after the acquisition). At Yahoo Geoff was SVP and General Manager of the Communications Business Unit, and then served as Chief Product Officer from 2003-2005. Prior to Four11, Geoff was the creator of the popular LookUP! Internet white pages and do-it-yourself home page service.

Geoff holds a BA in Computer Science from Dartmouth College, an MS in Computer Science from Stanford University, and an MBA from INSEAD. He lives in Atherton, California with his wife and three children.

here is a quick interview with Geoff by Brian Phillips prior to his talk:

After speaking briefly about his past entrepreneurial experiences, which started in the 1990s with Pointcast competitor Freeloader and most notably includes the early social network Tribe, Mark dove into the inspiration behind Zynga and social games in general. He described how his experience with Tribe taught him that he was more interested in building extensions, or plugins, for social networks than the social networking containers themselves. So when Facebook prepared to open up to 3rd party applications in 2007, he jumped at the chance to become that network’s premier social games provider, even though many people – including Facebook’s own Dave Morin – doubted the viability of social games at the time.

[Mark Pincus at Startup2Startup: Part I of III]

Aside from believing that games were simply the “coolest thing” for people to do together on social networks, Mark believed they fit two particular insights. First, since Tribe had suffered from user engagement, with its most engaged members actually costing the site much more than they gave back, Mark was looking to build a product that aligned engagement with monetization. Gamers tend to spend more money the more they play, so Zynga was established with the idea that it could make money from the early days and enjoy even greater revenue as engagement increased.

Mark also realized from his own gaming addictions that people were willing to spend money to beat others in competition. Gamers who don’t have the skill to beat their online opponents without assistance are often eager to pay for advantages, or power-ups, that make it possible for them to win faster and save time. Zynga was therefore predicated on the notion that virtual goods should impact gameplay, not just add extra value around the edges.

[Mark Pincus at Startup2Startup: Part II of III]

So far these insights have paid off, with Zynga exploding in growth over the past year from about 60 employees to over 300. This has been a managerial challenge for the company, and it has required the institutionalization of corporate processes that were vital if irksome to many employees. He described how startups need to introduce delegation at around 50 employees and really start to bend under the weight of 200+ employees. For Zynga, this required painful changes to how things are run, but Mark says these changes have laid the foundation for another doubling in the company’s size.

Mark’s most intriguing remarks of the night were about how he predicts online distribution and monetization to change over the next 5-10 years. He believes that we’re moving towards an app economy where most internet services with be distributed over platforms. These apps will derive most of their revenue from digital goods and services, not advertising. Basically, users will begin paying for things online at a much higher volume, and developers will use metrics and game mechanics (even with non-games) to maximize engagement and profitability. A corollary to this trend will be making all consumer services more fun, since enjoyment encourage users to pay for more virtual goods and upgrades.

This paid goods vision of the web hinges on the availability of better and more pervasive payment systems. However, Mark thinks it’s still to-be-determined how the payments market will play out, and he anticipates that there will be many players at many different levels of the ecosystem. Because of his optimism for online payments and the app economy in general, he encourages all of the big players (Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc) to get more involved as platforms or risk losing out on the more private corners of the web.

[Mark Pincus at Startup2Startup: Part III of III]

Mark Pincus, Zynga

Our speaker this month is Mark Pincus, co-founder and CEO of Zynga. Social gaming site Zynga is one of the largest application developers on Facebook, with more than 40 million monthly active users and top games such as Texas Hold’em and Mafia Wars.

Previously, Mark was also the founder and CEO of Tribe Networks, and a serial entrepreneur with a track record of growing venture-funded technology companies. Prior to founding Tribe Networks, Pincus founded and served as CEO of SupportSoft, a provider of service and support automation software. Prior to SupportSoft, Pincus co-founded Freeloader, the first consumer push information service, which was acquired in 1996 by Individual, Inc. for $38 million.

Before becoming an entrepreneur, Pincus worked in venture capital where he led investments in new media and software startups at Columbia Capital Corp. and at Tele-Communications, Inc. Before getting involved in new media, Pincus was a business consultant for Bain & Co. and an investment banker at Lazard Freres & Co. Pincus graduated Summa Cum Laude from University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School and he is a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

Here is a brief interview Leonard Speiser conducted with Mark before his talk:

(apologies for the sound… we got a bit rowdy before sitting down

Randi Zuckerberg (Facebook), Steve Grove (YouTube), Chris Sacca

Our Startup2Startup speakers for May 28 are: Randi Zuckerberg of Facebook, Steve Grove of YouTube, and Chris Sacca, ex-Googler and a Twitter investor. 

They will speak about how the Internet, social networks, and social media are being used in government and democracy, and what it means for both entrepreneurs and citizens.

Here is a brief interview Brian Phillips conducted with our speakers before their talk (more video footage below):

Randi Zuckerberg manages marketing initiatives at Facebook, where she has led the Facebook US election and international politics strategy, and managed several large media partnerships. Included in The Hollywood Reporter’s 2008 Digital Power List, Randi has led projects ranging from the ABC News/Facebook Presidential Debates to the CNN/Facebook Inauguration Day Partnership and Comcast’s Facebook Diaries. She is a television spokeswoman for Facebook and has made appearances on Good Morning America, The Today Show, France 2, and World News to discuss Facebook’s marketing and political initiatives. Most recently, Randi represented Facebook as a correspondent for CNN.com’s Inauguration Day live broadcast. Randi is a graduate of Harvard University and has a passion for Italian opera and Broadway showtunes.

Steve Grove is the news and political director at YouTube, where he directs all news and political programming for the company, including the YouTube CitizenTube blog & video channel.  Steve’s work at YouTube has included the development of You Choose ‘08, YouTube’s 2008 Elections platform that hosted presidential campaign YouTube channels, election news coverage and commentary from voters and media organizations, and spawned two presidential debates in partnership with CNN. He develops and manages media programs with national and local news and political partners, in order to increase citizen engagement and in politics, government, and news reporting. Originally from Northfield, Minnesota, Steve worked at the Boston Globe and ABC News prior to joining the YouTube. He received a Master’s in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in 2006.

Christopher Sacca is an investor, advisor, and entrepreneur in a number of consumer web, mobile, and wireless companies, including Twitter.  Previously at Google, Chris served as Head of Special Initiatives and was responsible for telecom projects including Google’s 700MHz and TV white spaces spectrum initiatives, and  Google’s free citywide WiFi network. Chris also led many Google business development and M&A transactions.  Most recently, Chris worked on President Barack Obama’s campaign as a Telecommunications, Media, and Technology advisor, and as Co-Chair of Finance and a Trustee of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.  Prior to Google, Chris held executive roles at Speedera Networks (acquired by Akamai), and was also an attorney with Fenwick & West where he handled venture capital, M&A, and licensing transactions.  Chris graduated cum laude from Georgetown University Law Center, and graduated cum laude from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Chris also attended university at each of Universidad Católica del Ecuador, University College Cork, and the Universidad Complutense in Madrid, Spain.  Chris lives in San Francisco and is an avid surfer, kitesurfer, skier, and triathlete.

[Part I of III of the Government 2.0 talk]

[Part II of III of the Government 2.0 talk]

[Part III of III of the Government 2.0 talk]

Blank began by describing how the product development process used by most entrepreneurs is ill-conceived. Instead of continually reassessing their product designs in light of customer feedback, companies tend to follow a linear development path that takes them through four main stages: 1) conceptualization, 2) product development, 3) beta testing, and 4) launching.

Ries argued that this strategy only makes sense when both the problem and the solution to that problem are fully understood. Most startups, however, cannot readily conceive a good solution to the problem they’ve identified. And many others don’t even have a clear idea of the problem they are trying to solve. Particularly in the latter case, startups must continually reevaluate both the problem and the solution by consulting their potential customers and developing a thorough understanding of those customers’ needs and behaviors. And this reevaluation leads to lots of product iteration that turns the development process into more of an ongoing cycle.

While we tend to think that the technology behind a startup determines whether it succeeds or fails, most startups actually fail from a lack of customers. This is especially true on the web where the risks to technology are relatively low, while the risks to customer acquisition and retention are relatively high. Therefore, it’s crucial for a web startup to incorporate processes that help it to develop a promising customer base while it builds out its technology.

Blank emphasized that there are no magic solutions for customer development; it simply takes a lot of focus on customers and the market at hand from the very beginning. When startups continually focus on their customers, they tend to fail fast and often because they discover a need to realign their efforts. But this is a good thing since lean startups with the ability to adapt (and “get outside of the building” to talk with customers) end up creating products that customers are actually willing to pay for. After all, earning revenue from the start is the best signal that you’ve stumbled upon a real solution to a real problem.

Here are the slides from the presentation by Steve & Eric:

Here is a recent presentation by Eric Ries on “The Lean Startup, Step-by-Step”, from his webcast earlier today via O’Reilly:

Here is a schematic from Eric on the Lean Startup feedback loop / iteration process:

Here is a brief pre-event interview with Steve Blank, conducted by Startup2Startup co-founder Leonard Speiser:

Here is the full recorded webcast of Steve & Eric’s talk below, courtesy of uStream:

Steve Blank

Our speaker for April is Steve Blank, founder of E.piphany, author of Four Steps to the Epiphany, and creator of Customer Development methodology (slides).  Steve will speak about Speed & Tempo for Startups, a discussion about decision-making.

Steven Gary Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over thirty years of experience in high technology companies and management.  He teaches entrepreneurship at both Stanford and UC Berkeley, and his Google Tech talk “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” (video) is one of the definitive views on early Silicon Valley innovation (updated clip from Computer History Museum).

Steve has been a founder or participant in eight Silicon Valley startups since 1978.  His last company, E.piphany, started in his living room in 1997 and went public in 1999.  His other startups include two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), a workstation company (Convergent Technologies), a supercomputer firm (Ardent), a computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), a military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and a video game company (Rocket Science Games).

Total score: 2 large craters (Rocket Science, Ardent), 1 dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany) + several base hits.

Steve is on the board of CafePress.com, an on-line marketplace, and IMVU, a 3D IM social network. Steve was appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the California Coastal Commission and is the Chairman of Audubon California and on the board of the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST).

Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are often criticized for seeking quick exits instead of building companies with long-term value. However, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com for over nine years now, is immune to this criticism having built an online retail business that strives above all for customer loyalty and the sale of “happiness”.

In a wide-reaching talk at Startup2Startup in Palo Alto last night, Tony explained how Zappos doesn’t try to extract the most profit out of every transaction that’s made on its site. Instead, Zappos makes the experience of buying merchandise on Zappos as pleasurable as possible so that customers will refer the site to their friends. This word-of-mouth marketing strategy is bolstered by a well-funded call center (a so-called “customer loyalty center”) that uses the 10 minutes or so it has with each captive customer on the phone to make the best impression possible. In effect, Zappos takes a lot of the money it would have put into advertisements and channels this money into providing great customer support.

Tony’s slides on “Delivering Happiness” are below:

To ensure that Zappos provides the best customer service, the company is intent on developing an extraordinary corporate culture, one that recently earned it 23rd place on Fortune’s 100 best companies to work for list. Employees are hired and fired based on their appreciation of customer service, and all employees – regardless of their rank – are required to undergo the same training program, which puts them in the call center and on the shipping floor for two weeks. Zappos holds its employees to 10 core values (which include principles like “Be Humble”) by applying these core values to its performance reviews.

Zappos may be best known as an online shoe retailer, but Tony says that the company actually has plans to become a multi-purpose corporation, one that’s in the business of selling happiness in a variety of ways. Like role model Virgin, which is in the business of selling “hip and cool” products and services in several industries, Tony expects Zappos to move into other verticals. More clothing and electronics listings are coming in 2009, and Tony only half-joked that perhaps by the year 2019 Zappos would have an airline focused on helping passengers enjoy flying again.

UPDATED: Here is the full video (3 segments) from Tony’s talk:

Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness (Part 1 of 3)

Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness (Part 2 of 3)

Tony Hsieh: Delivering Happiness (Part 3 of 3)

Here is a short video interview with Tony before his talk:

More photos from the event can be found on Flickr.

[Thanks to Brian Solis for the event photography]