Among other topics, Barry discussed the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Barry is a Managing Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, an early stage venture capital firm he co-founded in 2000 which focuses on disruptive trends in the enterprise and consumer sectors. At Lightspeed, Barry focuses on analytic platforms, cloud, IoT, networking, and emerging infrastructure. Barry currently sits on the Board of Directors of a variety of companies including Avi Networks, MapR Technology, Wearable Intelligence, and Mosaixsoft.
Prior to founding Lightspeed Venture Partners, Barry was Director of Business Development at Cisco Systems, where he developed Cisco’s initial M&A program and led many of their early acquisitions and integrations.
Barry received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles, and an MBA from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
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Among other topics, Larry and Theador discussed the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Everipedia is a wiki-based online encyclopedia that is the largest in the English language. Everipedia leverages blockchain technology to incentivize content generation and ensure democratized access to information.
Theodor co-founded Everipedia in 2014. Prior to that, he was the creator of social gaming networks Hello and Mobafy, and was a web developer at Swedish advertising agency NOGA.
Larry is the CIO of Everipedia and has been focused on developing Everipedia’s blockchain network since joining in December 2016. Larry co-founded Wikipedia with Jimmy Wales in 2001. Larry also taught philosophy at Ohio State University as a visiting professor. Larry received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Reed College and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Ohio State University.
I recently caught up with Theodor and Larry by phone from their office in Los Angeles, California, and our conversation the genesis of and vision for Everipedia, the company’s unique use of blockchain and the value it provides, the key differences between Everipedia and Wikipedia, among a variety of other topics.
Among other topics, Taavi discussed the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Taavi is the former CIO of the Estonian Government, which is widely recognized as the most advanced digital society in the world. As CIO, Taavi was the driving force behind many of Estonia’s e-government innovations such as its e-Residency program, which, just two years after launch, offers a transnational digital identity to over 20,000 e-Residents worldwide.
Prior to his four-year term as the Estonian Government CIO, Taavi was the CEO of Nortal (previously Webmedia), one of the largest software development companies in the Baltic States. Taavi was one of Webmedia’s founding members and served as its Chief Development Officer and Managing Director prior to becoming CEO. Taavi serves as Special Advisor to the European Commissioner for Digital Single Market, advising on issues regarding digital single market issues and e-governance. Taavi was named Estonian Entrepreneur of the year in 2011 by Ernst & Young, the European CIO of the year in 2014 by ICT Spring, and the 12th brightest business mind in North-Europe in 2016 by the Nordic Business Forum.
Taavi obtained a Master of Science in Engineering from Tallinn University of Technology, and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and Information Technology from the University of Tartu.
Among other topics, Taso discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Taso Du Val is the CEO and co-founder of Toptal, an Andreessen Horowitz-backed company that connects innovative companies with engineering, design, and finance talent. Taso is also a founding member and serves as an advisor for Artsy, an online database of art, architecture, and design images.
Prior to co-founding Toptal and Artsy, Taso was a lead engineer at photo-sharing startup Fotolog and a lead engineer at the social media company Slide.
Taso was selected for the Forbes 30 under 30 as a leader in Enterprise Technology, in 2015.
This is the first episode of our “What is?” series, where we tackle topics of rising importance in technology and business, more generally speaking. We will tackle, “What is artificial intelligence?,” “What is Blockchain?,” “What is robotics?,” “What is 3d printing?,” and the like. Today, my question is: “What are microservices?” To answer that question, I will speak with a prominent venture capitalist who is investing in this space, and a leading founder/CEO of a business that focuses on microservices.
Matt Miller, Partner at Sequoia
Among other topics, Matt discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Matt is a partner at Sequoia focused on growth stage investments in technology companies. An avid nerd from an early age, Matt started building computers and writing code at 12 years old in his mother’s kitchen. He has worked as an entrepreneur, an advisor and now an investor. At Sequoia, Matt has worked closely with Barracuda Networks, Carbon Black, Confluent, Docker, Hirevue, Nimble Storage, Okta, Simplisafe and SkyHigh Networks. Prior to Sequoia, Matt worked at Goldman Sachs and graduated from Brigham Young University. In his spare time, Matt is wrangling two young kids with his wife and looking for people with whom he can practice his Swedish.
Jay Kreps, Co-Founder & CEO of Confluent
Among other topics, Jay discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Jay Kreps is the co-founder and CEO of Confluent, the company behind the popular Apache Kafka streaming platform. Prior to founding Confluent, he was the lead architect for data infrastructure at LinkedIn. He is among the original authors of several open source projects including Project Voldemort (a key-value store), Apache Kafka (a distributed streaming platform) and Apache Samza (a stream processing system).
Among other topics, Alan discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Alan is the founder and CEO of Pegasystems, a $750 million provider of strategic applications. Since founding the company in 1983, Alan has grown the organization to more than 4,000 employees, in 30 global offices.
Alan is also the author of “Build for Change, Revolutionizing Customer Engagement through Continuous Digital Innovation.” The book describes a new generation of customers that have the unprecedented power to make or break brands and discusses the changes businesses must embrace to succeed in today’s digital world.
Alan and his wife Pam established the Trefler Foundation, in 1996. The Foundation’s mission is to improve opportunities for young people from urban neighborhoods by helping them develop the skills, knowledge, and values they need to lead productive lives.
Alan holds a degree in Economics and Computer Science from Dartmouth College.
Among other topics, Jeff discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Jeff Pashalides is the Head of Corporate at Sequoia Capital, a global venture capital firm. Jeff joined Sequoia in 2014 to establish, build, and lead Sequoia’s corporate practice. His team works closely with founders, investors, and C-level executives on a broad range of strategic projects.
Before joining Sequoia, Jeff led finance and corporate development at TrueCar and led Blackstone’s software as a service advisory practice.
Jeff has a computer science degree from Brown University.
Among other topics, Ken discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
Ken Xie is the Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer of Fortinet, a cyber security solutions firm. Ken founded Fortinet in 2000 with the goal of making an impactful change in the network security space. Ken has grown the company to nearly 5000 team members and $1.3 billion in revenue.
Ken started his first network security company, SIS, in 1993, while studying at Stanford University. In 1996, he founded NetScreen, which developed network security and access products for enterprises and carriers. NetScreen was acquired by Jupiter Networks for $4 billion, in 2004.
Ken earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Among other topics, David discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
David Trone’s Biography
David is the Co-Founder and Co-Owner, with his brother Robert Trone, of Total Wine and More, a $3 billion alcohol retail company.
In 2016, David campaigned for the Democratic nominaiton in Maryland’s 8th Congressional Distrcit. His unsuccessful bid for the House seat was notable, in part, because David ran an entirely self-financed campaign.
David and his wife run the David and June Trone Family Foundation whose beneficiaries include education, health care, and civil liberties organizations. David serves on the boards of American University and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
David earned a bachelor’s degree from Furman University and an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
Among other topics, Eric discusses the following issues with Metis Strategy:
• Evolution of collaboration through different eras • Differentiation in the web conferencing space • Rationale behind deliberately controlling growth of Zoom in early days • Importance of having a company philosophy to deliver happiness to customers • Possibilities of Augmented Reality in the business world • Impact of Silicon Valley on new and upcoming companies • The need to create a culture of self-motivation for employees • Trade-offs required to build a sustainable company • Hybrid approach to selling to Small Businesses and Large Enterprises • Focus on existing customers rather than only pursuing new customers • Sequoia Capital’s impact on Zoom’s growth
Eric Yuan Biography:
Eric is the Founder and CEO of Zoom, a people-centric, cloud service solution, currently valued at $1 billion, that offers video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across multiple platforms. As CEO, Eric influences and guides his team to be single-mindedly focused on excellent call quality and prioritizes delivering happiness to customers. Prior to founding Zoom in 2011, Eric was Corporate Vice President of Engineering at Cisco, where he was responsible for Cisco’s collaboration software development. As one of the founding engineers and Vice President of Engineering at WebEx, Eric grew the WebEx team from 10 engineers to more than 800 worldwide, and contributed to revenue growth from $0 to more than $800M. Eric is a named inventor with 11 issued and 20 pending patents in real time collaboration.
Eric received an Executive MBA from Stanford University.
I recently caught up with Eric in his office in San Jose, California and our conversation covered World Class IT Principle One, People, as we discussed the importance of developing a company culture where employees are focused on end customer happiness; Principle Two, IT Infrastructure, as we discussed the importance of technology reliability to keep customers satisfied; Principle Four, IT and Business Partnerships, as we discussed the importance of innovation that stems from the partnership between the Business and IT around customer needs, Principle Five, External Partnerships, as we discussed the impact of Sequoia Capital’s funding of Zoom, along with a variety of other topics.
