Josh Silverman
18 statements across 3 episodes · 5 bullish · 5 bearish · 3 people on the record · first statement Jan 18, 2021 by Josh Silverman · said 8 times in 3 episodes since 2023 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Josh Silverman's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year
brought up most by Akin Babayigit (5), Thomas Plantenga (2), Danny Rimer (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2024 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
Everything said about Josh Silverman, oldest first
Jan 18, 2021 positive
Silverman: Pivoting Skype to video calling dramatically altered its growth curve
“Pivoting Skype from audio calls to video calls was probably the most powerful way to drive engagement. And so we made video calling the centerpiece of Skype for that out, changed Skype's brand, really, and mission to be about video. Shipped an amazing product …”
Jan 18, 2021
Silverman: eBay spent four months seeking Skype CEO before hiring him
“When they asked me to run Skype, I was at eBay. Honestly, they spent four months looking to find anyone else, and no one would take that job because, you know, it's in the telecommunications industry, which is highly regulated, and international phone calls we…”
Jan 18, 2021
Silverman: 20-year career plans are overwhelming and likely to get derailed
“I think this notion that you've got to figure out what you're going to do for the next 20 years can be so overwhelming. And life has so much luck and Fate involved that if you hang everything on some twenty-year aspiration, the probability that something is go…”
Jan 18, 2021 positive
Silverman: Authentically echoing dissenting views builds trust during hard choices
“And for any difficult decision you make, there's going to be a group of people who don't agree with you. But if they know that their point of view was heard, and if they can actually hear you articulate it back, Here are the four things about this decision tha…”
Jan 18, 2021
Silverman: Leadership requires only defining success, constraints, and hiring correctly
“Leadership is about defining success and defining constraints. And the more I've been on my journey, the more I realize it's those two things plus one. I would add one thing, which is making sure you have the right people on the team. But if a leader does only…”
Jan 18, 2021 negative
Silverman: Etsy cut 20% of staff, half of projects in five weeks
“We had to lay off over 200 people, you know, within five weeks of joining the company, we'd laid off 20% of the staff, and of the remaining staff, probably 80% of them had new jobs, and we'd shut down over half of all the projects that the company was working …”
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021 positive
Jan 18, 2021
Silverman: True happiness comes from hindsight fulfillment, not present ease
“Happiness, you normally, I don't know, in my experience, I don't often have happiness in the moment. I have happiness in hindsight. When I feel like we have achieved something of great purpose, at the end of my life, I will reflect back and determine that I wa…”
Jan 18, 2021 negative
Silverman: Etsy refused cloud software due to internal handmade dogma
“Etsy believed that because Etsy was about handmade, Etsy should make everything itself. So Etsy didn't use the cloud and built almost all of its software itself. And that was sort of lore. It was considered strategy, but I don't think it was strategy. It was j…”
Jan 18, 2021 positive
Jan 18, 2021 positive
Silverman: CEOs must build baseline competence in weak areas for empathy
“I think there's table stakes and there's your spikes or strengths, right? So whatever your job is, there's table stakes good enough. I'm not a project manager by nature. It's not What I'm great at. But to be an effective CEO, there's a table stakes level of pr…”
Jan 18, 2021 negative
Silverman: Executives ignoring personal weaknesses is flippant given employee livelihoods
“Yes. And especially if you're a leader, I mean, I don't know, I feel like if, I mean, all of us are leaders in our own roles, but if you have the privilege to lead a whole company, there's a lot of people whose livelihoods are at stake. You know, it feels trem…”
Jan 18, 2021
Jan 18, 2021
Feb 12, 2024 negative
Plantenga: Etsy buying Depop caused existential panic at Vinted
“So Depop got sold to Etsy. And we were shitting our pants. Like I thought Josh Silverman is gonna like take a bit baseball bat and smash us into the ground because Etsy is a company I very much look up to. They're a great company. Josh is a great CEO. And I th…”
Jun 17, 2024 negative
Index Ventures sold Etsy too early before Josh Silverman's turnaround
“Another one where we sold too early was definitely Etsy. We didn't take into consideration the fact that Josh Silverman was going to come in and totally transform the organization, and that obviously we left a lot of money on the table.”