Internet Scale Businesses

"In fact, one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my life, and I think a lot of investors, is be scared by what the big platforms will do."

On Ecommerce and Marketplaces: Look for 1. Positive unit economics on the product, positive contribution margins on products sold. 2. Logistics: how long does it take to get to you? Will people pay for convenience. 3. Ability to browse as a human and connect, products that delight the customer, 4. Hooks the customer going forward, 5. The future is ... See more

In fact, the only thing we look for primarily from a product perspective, does it reduce friction to achieve human needs? The number one you have is are people pulling the product off the shelf? Number two is does it reduce friction? Then number three, of course, is listen, are there smart marketing channels? And once you find that product-market f... See more

But then I look for very interesting other channels like you take DoorDash, for example, I find it very impressive that they use Square Cash App as a way to grow their business. Companies that constantly find the next interesting hack to grow their business also tells me that there's some internet-scale potential in that business.

Scalability is everything with internet scale businesses. An internet scale business is one with audiences around the world and focus on reducing friction. Look at 1. Scale of users (retention), 2. Time spent per day, 3. Supply: quality of tools to onboard advertisers.

What does that really mean? It means that you don't have to put a bunch of marketing into growing your business, which also means that most of the efforts in the company, especially in the early stages happen from a product-driven perspective. Product-driven, customer-obsessed firms generally tend to have the initial potential of becoming internet-... See more

On Hiring: look for these 4 qualities, the rest can be taught

1. Very deep love for learning: love learning and will do it for free, being intellectually curious


2. Incredible work ethic: can test for this


3. Investing is an EQ business not an IQ business, about mental flexibility: persistence and grit: beaten down and pucked in the face, seen hardship, come

... See more

On Internet Scale Businesses

Only two things that matter in ad business. One is scale of users, and therefore time spent. So time spent per DAU per day. That's the one thing that matters. And second, on the supply side, the quality of tools to onboard advertisers, because the first many advertisers are going to be small and medium businesses, you can't sell to big enterprises.... See more