How Cisco bounced back

THE STORY !

 

What happened?: Cisco grew rapidly during the tech bubble, acquiring 70 companies and more than doubling its work force. After the bubble burst, the company had to change the way it grew and developed talent, to build more from within rather than going out and buying it.

The company created a team to develop and leverage Cisco’s talent and began the ‘Cisco University’ initiative to promote an agile and versatile workforce. Within three years, the company had turned around and was listed as one of the top companies to become a leader.  

26-Year-Old Instagram Investor Joshua Kushner Has Raised A $150 Million Fund

Thursday, September 06, 2012 1:49 PM GMT

Joshua Kushner has been investing in startups for two years. In that short time, he’s made a lot of smart moves.

One of his first investments was a Hot Potato, a startup that was later acquired by Facebook. Then he invested in GroupMe, which was acquired for ~ $80 million by Skype.

This year Kushner, 26, invested in Instagram’s $50 million round. Days later it was acquired by Facebook for $1 billion.

Kushner’s early wins landed his firm Thrive Capital a second, $40 million fund last year. Today Thrive Capital announced a new $150 million fund.

It took Kushner about 10 weeks to raise the fund, says The New York Times’ Evelyn Rusli. It was oversubscribed.

Kushner’s other early investment wins include Fab.com, which recently raised $105 million, hot crowdfunding startup Kickstarter, and Dwolla, a round that was so competitive 700 investors inquired.

Kushner isn’t the first successful businessman in his family. His father was real estate mogul Charles Kushner, and his brother Jared runs the New York Observer.

Although it’s too early to judge Kushner’s venture capital career (the best funds in history have an average hold time of ~ 7 years per investment), he’s off to a promising start.

His strategy: “Thrive is opportunity drive,” Kushner told The New York Times. “We invest in assets as opposed to stage or geography.”

And despite any Facebook fallout, Kushner is optimistic about the startup environment.

“Many see the way the Internet has already transformed our daily lives and conclude that most of the change that was going to happen already has,” he tells NYT. “I am of the belief that it is only the beginning.”

 

This Is Where Apple Is Really Going To Miss Steve Jobs (AAPL)

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:13 PM GMT

When Steve Jobs died most people focused on the fact that he was a product visionary.

Without Jobs running the show, how would Apple produce amazing new products?

While that’s certainly a concern, thinking up products isn’t that hard for the brilliant executives at Apple. Lead designer Jony Ive deserves more credit for his ability to think up and design amazing gadgets.

The real challenge for Apple is making its gadgets worth buying.

To do that it has to work with a variety of partners to fill them with good content. To get that content Apple has to negotiate with companies that are wary of Apple. And this is where Jobs will be truly missed.

The famous “reality distortion field” of Jobs’ didn’t just apply to Apple employees, or people watching his keynotes, it also applied to the top executives in the wireless industry and music industry.

And without Jobs’ reality distortion field, or his star power Apple has been struggling to land deals with cable companies to make Apple TV a reality.

Eddy Cue, the Apple executive who is in charge of negotiations with cable companies, is no Steve Jobs. Getting a meeting with Cue is not the same as getting a meeting with Jobs, who was the arguably the most important businessman since Henry Ford.

That’s not to say Cue won’t get deals done eventually. It’s just that when Jobs died everyone worried about Apple’s products. It looks like the products are going to products are going to be fine. Making those products worth owning by filling them with great content looks like it’s going to be much harder without Jobs.

 

Marissa Mayer Will Not Sell Right Media, Plans To Invest In Ad Tech (YHOO)

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:19 PM GMT

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is not going to ditch the company’s ad tech business.

Instead she’s going invest, says Michael Barrett, the chief revenue officer who joined Yahoo in June when Ross Levinsohn was CEO.

Barrett tells Jason Del Rey at Ad Age, “We just want to go on the record… Yahoo is committed to being a primary player in the ad technology space and Right Media is part of that strategy.” He also says he’s sticking around.

There was some question about whether or not Barrett would jump since when he joined the company Levinsohn was CEO.

Del Rey also reports, citing sources, that Mayer is looking to invest “hundreds of millions” in the Right Media and other ad tech businesses.

 

 

NATE SILVER: Obama’s Odds Of Winning Have Risen Sharply–He’s Now At 76%

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:25 PM GMT

President Obama’s chances of winning the election have risen in the past week, according to poll-guru Nate Silver of the New York Times and the gamblers on Intrade.

Silver says Obama’s odds of winning reelection have risen sharply, to 76%. He now projects that Obama will take 311 electoral votes and 51% of the popular vote (click for more from the NYT):

 

Meanwhile, Obama’s odds have also risen on Intrade, although they’re still far lower than Silver’s. Intrade gives Obama a 59% chance of winning.

 

Why Nokia’s Stock Was Crushed Even Though It Announced An Awesome New Phone (NOK, MSFT)

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:31 PM GMT

A funny thing happened to Nokia yesterday. It revealed an awesome new phone, the Lumia 920, but it still saw its stock gets smashed, falling as much as 12% during the product announcement.

A lot of people on Twitter pointed out the stock crash with a mixture of mocking, amazement, and confusion.

The reason Nokia’s stock was clobbered was that despite announcing a cool looking phone, Nokia provided almost no real details on it.

We don’t know how much the phone will cost, exactly when it will ship (Nokia just said Q4 in select markets), or which carriers its going to support.

As a result, it feels like a rush job to beat the iPhone 5 hype. It also feels like Nokia is going to get no carrier support, which is terrible considering it will be going head to head against Apple’s new phone this fall.

 

 

Pandora and Twitter Take More Mobile Ad Dollars Than Facebook or Apple (FB, GOOG, P)

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:37 PM GMT

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A new estimate of mobile ad dollar revenue from eMarketer claims that Pandora and Twitter will take in more mobile ad dollars than either Facebook or Apple.

The estimates show Google leading the pack, taking in $1.4 billion in 2012 in mobile ad revenue, or about 55% of the entire market.

The No.2 company, Pandora, has 2012 mobile revenues estimated at $226 million. Apple is estimated at $75 million and Facebook at $72 million.

The numbers contain some contradictions: They don’t include an estimate for Velti, one of the major mobile ad players, which has revenues of more than $50 million per quarter (making it bigger than Twitter, by eMarketer’s count).

Nor does the report explain how it calculated Facebook’s mobile revenue at just $72 million, when the company said on its Q2 earnings call that it made about $500,000 per day from mobile—running at roughly $182 million a year. Even if that run-rate only applied to the second half of 2012, Facebook’s mobile ad revenue would be at least $91 million.

Similarly, Millennial Media takes in $33 million per quarter, suggesting annual revenue of at least $120 million—but eMarketer has it down as selling just $84 million this year.

The numbers do underline one major factor, however: That no matter how you slice it, Pandora now owns one of the biggest mobile ad businesses on the planet.

Disclosure: The author owns Facebook stock.

Related:

• Pandora Just Told The SEC It’s Taking A Huge Hit On Mobile Ads
• Here Is The Evidence That Mobile Advertising Is In A Bubble
• 4 Companies Who Are Losing Millions In Mobile Advertising
• Facebook’s Mobile Ad Revenue: $500K Per Day

 

Vanity Fair’s New Establishment List Is Out — And It’s DOMINATED By Tech People

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:44 PM GMT

Vanity Fair released its “New Establishment” list and it is dominated by tech people.

Here’s the full list:

• Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive, Apple
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google
• Jeff Bezos, Amazon
• Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook
• Jack Dorsey, Twitter, Square
• Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz
• Marissa Mayer, Yahoo
• Ben Silbermann, Pinterest
• Elon Musk, SpaceX, Tesla Motors, SolarCity
• Reid Hoffman and Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn
• Adele, singer, songwriter
• Joss Whedon, writer, director
• Dick Costolo, Twitter
• John Lasseter, Pixar, Walt Disney Animation Studios
• Terry Gou, Foxconn
• Lady Gaga, singer
• Preet Bharara, attorney
• Herb Allen III, Allen & Co.
• The Hacker
• Yuri Milner, DST Global
• Natalie Massenet, Net-a-Porter Group
• Seth MacFarlane, writer, director, producer
• Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures
• E. L. James, author
• Ashton Kutcher, actor, investor
• Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the Row
• Paul Graham, Y Combinator
• Christopher Nolan, director
• Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp
• Salar Kamangar and Robert Kyncl, YouTube
• Will Ferrell, Chris Henchy, and Adam McKay, Funny or Die
• Dan Doctoroff, Bloomberg LP
• Louis CK, comedian
• Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, All Things D
• Judd Apatow, film producer, writer, and director
• Tyler Perry, director, writer, actor, and producer
• Peter Thiel, Founders Fund
• Ryan Seacrest, host, producer
• Susan Wojcicki, Google
• Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos, Netflix
• Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook
• Kevin Ryan, Gilt Groupe, Business Insider
• Lena Dunham, writer, director
• David Karp, Tumblr
• Mark Pincus, Zynga
• Ali Pincus and Susan Feldman, One Kings Lane
• Sal Khan, Khan Academy
• Daniel Ek, Spotify
• Dennis Crowley, Foursquare
• Andrew Mason, Groupon

 

BLODGET: The US Smartphone Revolution Is Already Entering The Late Innings

Thursday, September 06, 2012 2:44 PM GMT

To listen to some mobile industry executives and investors tell it, you would think the smartphone revolution was just beginning.

In the United States, however–one of the more mature smartphone markets–we’re actually already entering the later innings.

In a new BI Intelligence report from Henry Blodget, we detail how smartphone penetration in the U.S. has reached the point where market growth will begin to slow rapidly, why the U.S. market will be almost fully penetrated in a few years, and look at the impact this will have on the growth rate of of the U.S. smartphone ecosystem– including gadgets, apps, ads, mobile commerce, and mobile web usage.

Access The Full Report By Signing Up For A Free Trial Today >>

Here’s a brief rundown of why we are already in the late innings:

• Anyway you cut it, the U.S. smartphone market is more than 50% penetrated: According to comScore, 114 million Americans used smartphones as of July. Nielsen reported that two-thirds of of handsets sold in Q2 2012 were smartphones and that the market is now 55% penetrated. The vast majority of the primary smartphone market, U.S. adults between 18-54, already have smartphones.
• The typical “diffusion” curve for new technologies will begin to kick in: As described by sociology professor Everett Rogers in a 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations, new technologies tend to follow a standard adoption curve. he peak of market growth in terms of annual unit gains occurs around the halfway mark. Shortly after the halfway point is reached, the number of incremental new users each year begins to decline. And soon, when the market becomes saturated, unit growth flattens. 2011 and 2012 could very well mark the peak years for smartphone growth in the U.S.
• And, the demographics of new users will be different: Most affluent Americans aged 18-54 already have smartphones. The Americans who don’t have smartphones, meanwhile, tend to be those who make under $100,000 per year and are older than age 55.
• This will have massive implications on the smartphone ecosystem: These new users will likely spend less on smartphones and apps, and be a less-valuable demographic for advertisers and commerce companies. Growth in the smartphone ecosystem will therefore have to increasingly come from selling more to the earlier, existing smartphone users.

In full, the report:

• Details how the U.S. smartphone market is more than halfway penetrated
• Explains the typical “diffusion” curve for new technologies, and explains how this will impact U.S. smartphone growth going forward
• Explores the demographics of current and future smartphone users
• Analyzes the implications of slower user growth and different demographics in the U.S. smartphone market on the the entire smartphone ecosystem, including app sales, advertising sales, game sales, web-usage, and commerce
• Looks at what stage the global smartphone revolution is in and assesses global smartphone growth potential

Here’s What LinkedIn’s Newly Redesigned Company Pages Look Like

Thursday, September 06, 2012 3:15 PM GMT
                                   

LinkedIn is changing the design of its company pages so that they’re more visually appealing. We’ve got a screengrab of the new beta launch, below. Clients Philips, Citi, Dell, and HP are among a handful of companies the career networking site chose to test-drive the new pages.

The early reviews note that the big horizontal graphic that brands are asked to use bear a striking resemblance to Facebook’s Timeline redesign, which many companies love. LinkedIn notes, “Company Pages [are] the core of the LinkedIn Marketing Solutions follower ecosystem.”