The Exchanges

Q What about the biggest mentor to you, and how did that relationship come about?

A I wouldn't say I've had a single mentor, but I've had some amazing teachers, and Bing Gordon has been an amazing teacher to me, and we met because his company, EA, I was going to sue my company, and he wasn't even supposed to be in the room. It was just a bunch of lawyers, and I walked in not talking about legal stuff. I talked about how social gaming could be EA's new Walmart and distribution, and then Bing and I connected over that. So it was also a lesson in playing the game you want to play, not the one that's offered to you. And then the other, John Doerr has been an amazing teacher to me for years. He's taught me that venture investors and board members really can differentiate themselves by showing real courage and leadership.

AI assessment note: “Bing Gordon has been an amazing teacher to me, and we met because”

Q What about the biggest mentor to you, and how did that relationship come about?

A I wouldn't say I've had a single mentor, but I've had some amazing teachers, and Bing Gordon has been an amazing teacher to me, and we met because his company, EA, I was going to sue my company, and he wasn't even supposed to be in the room. It was just a bunch of lawyers, and I walked in not talking about legal stuff. I talked about how social gaming could be EA's new Walmart and distribution, and then Bing and I connected over that. So it was also a lesson in playing the game you want to play, not the one that's offered to you. And then the other, John Doerr has been an amazing teacher to me for years. He's taught me that venture investors and board members really can differentiate themselves by showing real courage and leadership.

AI assessment note: “Bing Gordon has been an amazing teacher to me, and we met because”

Q Can I ask with that? I've had a lot of VCs on the show that suggest that we're in a fallow period for consumer due to the lack of available distribution channels with them being so expensive with incumbents paying up for them. How would you respond to this? Should we Fallow period for consumer. And do you think there really is a lack of distribution channel availability?

A That is a problem, but I wouldn't say that the problem is that there isn't distribution. I was listening to Evan Spiegel talk about his decisions in the early days to grow Snapchat, and everyone at the time thought it was amazing that he didn't base it on Facebook or even have a Facebook Connect option. And he held up the phone and he said, you know, this is the most viral network That we've ever seen, and anybody can send anyone a text message, or have a push notifications to show up on their front screen, and everyone's all connected, and it's just a good reminder that there is more people connected, and with less friction, and more ways to connect to each other than ever before, but we're not seeing a lot of organic virality occur, so that's why you can look at both sides of that question on distribution. The distribution is there bigger than ever, but there are not easy proven paths That people can follow, and maybe that's good, because we don't want text messaging to get, like, email, where people start ignoring it. These channels can open up, become valuable, then get overused, and get destroyed in terms of their value to everybody. So the fact that that channel is so protected is probably why it's still valuable, but it's also why it feels impossible to get this organic growth like we've seen in the past.

AI assessment note: “I wouldn't say that the problem is that there isn't distribution.”

Q I'm really interested. You said about instilling cautious optimism within your team. I'd love to touch on the aspect of team and how you build world-class Teams, and if there are any rules of thumb that you insert into hiring and managing that talent?

A Lots of different answers I could go into on that. First of all, on hiring and recruiting, I have a bunch of thoughts that I've served me and some have not. It's also important to know your weaknesses, and so first I'll say, I have a weakness that I'm not very good at interviewing people, and I'm not good at asking those tricky questions and really figuring out who you are and how you'll do from an interview. In fact, I try to tune to my own instincts on that. I have seen a few things that have really served me. One is I like to hire people who have what I call broken resumes. So someone who has seen greatness, touched greatness, come close to greatness, but then fallen because things just didn't work out. I find that those people are more humble and curious and more hungry. They might have a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. Then they're more willing because they've experienced some level of intense failure to They're more willing to come in and be ready to try new things and learn, and sometimes the opposite can be painful. If someone has such an impressive resume, they're almost doing you a favor by coming to work for you, and they're just going to walk around sharing their brilliance of what happened at Google or Facebook or wherever, and that can just be annoying to hear, and you kind of, in so many ways, you're trying to convince this team to take a hill that…

AI assessment note: “One is I like to hire people who have what I call broken resumes.”

Q Can I ask with that? I've had a lot of VCs on the show that suggest that we're in a fallow period for consumer due to the lack of available distribution channels with them being so expensive with incumbents paying up for them. How would you respond to this? Should we Fallow period for consumer. And do you think there really is a lack of distribution channel availability?

A That is a problem, but I wouldn't say that the problem is that there isn't distribution. I was listening to Evan Spiegel talk about his decisions in the early days to grow Snapchat, and everyone at the time thought it was amazing that he didn't base it on Facebook or even have a Facebook Connect option. And he held up the phone and he said, you know, this is the most viral network That we've ever seen, and anybody can send anyone a text message, or have a push notifications to show up on their front screen, and everyone's all connected, and it's just a good reminder that there is more people connected, and with less friction, and more ways to connect to each other than ever before, but we're not seeing a lot of organic virality occur, so that's why you can look at both sides of that question on distribution. The distribution is there bigger than ever, but there are not easy proven paths That people can follow, and maybe that's good, because we don't want text messaging to get, like, email, where people start ignoring it. These channels can open up, become valuable, then get overused, and get destroyed in terms of their value to everybody. So the fact that that channel is so protected is probably why it's still valuable, but it's also why it feels impossible to get this organic growth like we've seen in the past.

AI assessment note: “I wouldn't say that the problem is that there isn't distribution.”

Q Before we move into the quickfire round, I do have to touch on that winning instinct, losing idea. What would you say is your biggest winning instinct, and then your biggest losing idea?

A Well, you know, I had, I think, a very, very big winning instinct around this people web, and it started when I invested in Napster in probably 1999 or 2000, and I had this, it was like my matrix moment when I first got on Napster, and it said there's four and a half million people, or Computers connected to you right now, and there was no Barry Diller branded, you know, mash.com database in the middle of all of us. We were just connected to each other, and that's when I saw more of the potential of what this internet could be like, and far more power, and that led to me starting Tribe, and feeling a tribe, and, you know, other things that were more successful, but that instinct around this network that can allow people to connect in life-changing ways, that was the biggest instinct, and I The most failing idea was try. I stubbornly stuck with one iteration on a social network for four years, and I got it so wrong. It's so painful to me to think that I tried one iteration of this, and it was clearly wrong, and I just stuck with it, and I could have tried. In four years, I can't think of how many more I could have tried, and that lesson was burned into me, and I think so much of success today is starting with a winning instinct, but then testing more good ideas, In a week than the rest of the industry does. And it's not so much that you're competing in a zero sum way. It's that …

AI assessment note: “that instinct around this network... was the biggest instinct... The most failing idea was try.”

Q I'm really interested. You said about instilling cautious optimism within your team. I'd love to touch on the aspect of team and how you build world-class Teams, and if there are any rules of thumb that you insert into hiring and managing that talent?

A Lots of different answers I could go into on that. First of all, on hiring and recruiting, I have a bunch of thoughts that I've served me and some have not. It's also important to know your weaknesses, and so first I'll say, I have a weakness that I'm not very good at interviewing people, and I'm not good at asking those tricky questions and really figuring out who you are and how you'll do from an interview. In fact, I try to tune to my own instincts on that. I have seen a few things that have really served me. One is I like to hire people who have what I call broken resumes. So someone who has seen greatness, touched greatness, come close to greatness, but then fallen because things just didn't work out. I find that those people are more humble and curious and more hungry. They might have a chip on their shoulder and something to prove. Then they're more willing because they've experienced some level of intense failure to They're more willing to come in and be ready to try new things and learn, and sometimes the opposite can be painful. If someone has such an impressive resume, they're almost doing you a favor by coming to work for you, and they're just going to walk around sharing their brilliance of what happened at Google or Facebook or wherever, and that can just be annoying to hear, and you kind of, in so many ways, you're trying to convince this team to take a hill that…

AI assessment note: “One is I like to hire people who have what I call broken resumes.”

Q I had a startup founder on the show the other day. He said that startups are hard enough. We need everyone thinking in the same direction like me. How would you respond to that sort of thought process?

A Well, there's one part of it I love and one part I hate. The part I love is I think one of the ingredients that I think was really key to making Zynga successful in the early days was alignment. And we had such powerful alignment between the investors, first the CEO and founder vision, and not just vision for the product or company, but the vision of the way we wanted to play this out. We wanted to remain an independent company and never sell the company. And we wanted an investor base that wanted that Kind of journey. And, and likewise, the kind of people who came in, we said, we're going to give you huge amounts of responsibility early on and credit and exposure, but this isn't going to be some kind of quick flip company or short ride. And it's been a long ride. Obviously those people have been there 10 years now. So the first part of, I like of, I think that this alignment and having alignment with your investors is so key too, and your board and having everybody Signing up for the same mission and journey turns out to be really powerful because one thing you don't realize until later, sometimes into, to your detriment is that even though you're hiring all these people and you're bringing investors and board members and hiring your team potentially quickly, you're really bringing your constituents and stakeholders and you're kind of creating this democracy of sorts and they …

AI assessment note: “there's one part of it I love and one part I hate.”

Q touch on, on one thing you said there about kind of the vision itself, and you've invested in many early stage founders, And aligning that to the vision, how do you balance between vision for the product roadmap, for the kind of meta landscape that you're painting, and then also comparing that to stubbornness when something isn't working, when product market fit isn't quite there? What's the balance to you?

A I don't think there is any single formula or balance. You're getting to just the heart of the toughest part of what we all do, and the way that I've thought about it and talked about it is that as entrepreneurs, we're on this long journey, and a lot of it is about Self-discovery and self-awareness, and one of the biggest parts of it is, I think we all have to develop this ability to separate our winning instincts from our losing ideas, and when you can separate that, it can set you free, and so we have underlying instincts, and I believe they're pretty much always right, and you're tuning to these instincts, and you're just like, I know this makes sense, and that the world needs this and doesn't have it, but you might be instantiating it as one particular idea that's either bad, or the only thing worse than bad is a B+, an idea that is good but not great, Is the worst thing, because you're not going to fail with it, and you're going to get some positives back, enough to keep going, and if that's based on a killer instinct that you just religiously believe in, that's kind of the formula for a lot of wasted time, and it's why you might almost succeed and not completely, or not be the winner. So that's the tough part, and you have to develop this intuition and be able to separate these and be able to see enough signs that your idea, you know, just isn't good enough.

AI assessment note: “we all have to develop this ability to separate our winning instincts from our losing ideas”

Q Before we move into the quickfire round, I do have to touch on that winning instinct, losing idea. What would you say is your biggest winning instinct, and then your biggest losing idea?

A Well, you know, I had, I think, a very, very big winning instinct around this people web, and it started when I invested in Napster in probably 1999 or 2000, and I had this, it was like my matrix moment when I first got on Napster, and it said there's four and a half million people, or Computers connected to you right now, and there was no Barry Diller branded, you know, mash.com database in the middle of all of us. We were just connected to each other, and that's when I saw more of the potential of what this internet could be like, and far more power, and that led to me starting Tribe, and feeling a tribe, and, you know, other things that were more successful, but that instinct around this network that can allow people to connect in life-changing ways, that was the biggest instinct, and I The most failing idea was try. I stubbornly stuck with one iteration on a social network for four years, and I got it so wrong. It's so painful to me to think that I tried one iteration of this, and it was clearly wrong, and I just stuck with it, and I could have tried. In four years, I can't think of how many more I could have tried, and that lesson was burned into me, and I think so much of success today is starting with a winning instinct, but then testing more good ideas, In a week than the rest of the industry does. And it's not so much that you're competing in a zero sum way. It's that …

AI assessment note: “biggest winning instinct around this people web... The most failing idea was try”

Q I had a startup founder on the show the other day. He said that startups are hard enough. We need everyone thinking in the same direction like me. How would you respond to that sort of thought process?

A Well, there's one part of it I love and one part I hate. The part I love is I think one of the ingredients that I think was really key to making Zynga successful in the early days was alignment. And we had such powerful alignment between the investors, first the CEO and founder vision, and not just vision for the product or company, but the vision of the way we wanted to play this out. We wanted to remain an independent company and never sell the company. And we wanted an investor base that wanted that Kind of journey. And, and likewise, the kind of people who came in, we said, we're going to give you huge amounts of responsibility early on and credit and exposure, but this isn't going to be some kind of quick flip company or short ride. And it's been a long ride. Obviously those people have been there 10 years now. So the first part of, I like of, I think that this alignment and having alignment with your investors is so key too, and your board and having everybody Signing up for the same mission and journey turns out to be really powerful because one thing you don't realize until later, sometimes into, to your detriment is that even though you're hiring all these people and you're bringing investors and board members and hiring your team potentially quickly, you're really bringing your constituents and stakeholders and you're kind of creating this democracy of sorts and they …

AI assessment note: “Well, there's one part of it I love and one part I hate.”

Q touch on, on one thing you said there about kind of the vision itself, and you've invested in many early stage founders, And aligning that to the vision, how do you balance between vision for the product roadmap, for the kind of meta landscape that you're painting, and then also comparing that to stubbornness when something isn't working, when product market fit isn't quite there? What's the balance to you?

A I don't think there is any single formula or balance. You're getting to just the heart of the toughest part of what we all do, and the way that I've thought about it and talked about it is that as entrepreneurs, we're on this long journey, and a lot of it is about Self-discovery and self-awareness, and one of the biggest parts of it is, I think we all have to develop this ability to separate our winning instincts from our losing ideas, and when you can separate that, it can set you free, and so we have underlying instincts, and I believe they're pretty much always right, and you're tuning to these instincts, and you're just like, I know this makes sense, and that the world needs this and doesn't have it, but you might be instantiating it as one particular idea that's either bad, or the only thing worse than bad is a B+, an idea that is good but not great, Is the worst thing, because you're not going to fail with it, and you're going to get some positives back, enough to keep going, and if that's based on a killer instinct that you just religiously believe in, that's kind of the formula for a lot of wasted time, and it's why you might almost succeed and not completely, or not be the winner. So that's the tough part, and you have to develop this intuition and be able to separate these and be able to see enough signs that your idea, you know, just isn't good enough.

AI assessment note: “I don't think there is any single formula or balance.”

Q I want to finish on the final question. What does the next five years hold for you, Mark? What does the roadmap look like? It's like an interview question. I'm so sorry.

A Right, or a dating question. I don't know where. I just follow a Things that interest me intellectually and emotionally, and, and I'm always looking to get outside my comfort zone and to grow, and I tend to think most of the things that I get excited about seem flaky to other people at the time, and so, you know, people were embarrassed for me that I was doing a Facebook app company in 2007, and, and I hate to tell you, but now I got involved with cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin early, and then I thought I was Too early, and maybe it wasn't going to happen, and now I'm completely drinking the Kool-Aid, and I'm completely enthralled by just the potential of cryptocurrencies to get us to a post-capital, post-investor world, and just even a post-corporation world, so I'm going to sound like super flaky again, but, and I know it's also kind of, it's unfortunate to really get excited about something, and at the same time, it's becoming a bubble.

AI assessment note: “I don't know where. I just follow a Things that interest me”