John Doerr spoke with his usual inspirational passion at the Stanford Entreprenuerial “Thought Leaders” seminar. He asked “What makes a great venture?”. Well, I’ve been around the startup block a few times or more, so that’s easy – team and application. “What makes a great company?” How about focus and execution. And “What makes a great group?” Piece of cake – interdependence and communications. And most importantly – trust.
I’ve heard most of this stuff time and time again, so I was jazzed he wanted to skip a lot of the canned presentation and move on to questions. So my question that got written under the biz catagory was:
“WSJ reported last week that ad revenues are finally moving substantially to Internet / online from print. Does this mean, as some claim, we’re in a “second Internet bubble”, or do you think it’s just the promise of the first Internet rush finally realized – in other words, it just took longer than expected.”
While a lot of others were of the “gee, what’s hot to invest in” and “how about my pet venture” variety (and dispatched quickly), mine made him pause a while and think about it. Can you see why?