

Marc Andreessen: Building Startups Is Like Baking A Cake In 3 Minutes - icki
http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/10/29/marc-andreessen-building-startups-is-like-baking-a-cake-in-3-minutes/

======
dmk23
In my opinion, Marc's segment was the most interesting because his perspective
/ experience cannot be found in any other living human being:

1) Being in the Internet business longer than anyone else (1994 or 1993)

2) Being a hacker, who turned into co-founder, who turned into CEO / executive
chairman

3) Inventing some of the most foundational components of the Internet
infrastructure

4) Co-founding and co-managing one of the biggest hypergrowth stories ever
(Netscape, where baking the cake metaphor comes from)

5) Becoming a serial entrepreneur (OpsWare, Ning)

6) Becoming an independent board member of major technology companies (HP,
Facebook)

7) Starting a VC firm that is on track to become one of the biggest disruptors
of Silicon Valley investor business model

What I especially enjoyed are some of Marc's speculations of what could have
happened IF Netscape would have added things like payment or social features
they have not pursued. Small decisions we make today could have enormous
implications on what becomes our future.

------
mrmasa
I'm very curious about the following issue by Mark:

"When a company like Netscape hired one top engineer, that person usually came
from a top company such as Sun, Oracle, or Silicon Graphics (today Google or
Facebook)...That can be really good and immediately infuse your company with
skills and knowledge from somewhere else,” he says. “But that can also be
really bad. Sometimes that’s not consistent with a coherent culture.”

Is there any danger to lose creative and entrepreneurial culture in hyper
growing ventures by hiring massive talents from big firms?

The hyper growth is fantastic for startups because our past efforts are well
payed off, but, if it may cause the lose of creative and entrepreneurial
culture that we are going to establish at the same time, we have to do
something to avoid. Or I don't have to worry about this?

If it's true, I'd like to know how great ventures in SV have dealt with this
issue more concretely. I will not count my chickens before they hatch. :) I'm
just curious as an entrepreneur.

------
mmahemoff
Video from the session (at Startup School yesterday, conversation with PG):

<http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/298661410> from 16:00 which continues
to: <http://www.justin.tv/startupschool/b/298670703>

