David Rosenthal: belief

Transcript context

…Right. I think for many years, that was where they were focusing energy. When really, there's a big potential problem with their current business as things go more mobile. Now, they're looking at all these other moonshot opportunities. I think for a long time, they thought productivity could be a second huge business for them. Yeah. I was going to give this acquisition a B for many of the reasons you initially started talking about. It wasn't a huge succeed, but they didn't spent a lot of money. It's not losing a lot of money for them or consuming a lot of capital like YouTube. I think I'm convinced by your argument because for technology companies where you operate in this battlefield everyday where there this huge fog of war and it's very ... Uncertainty is a way of life. The one resource that you have that's most important for startups and big companies alike, even Apple and Google and Microsoft and Amazon is your focus. This was a pretty major delusion of focus for Google for a long time. Obviously, they've been very, very successful in things like search and android and many others. That resource is very precious, and for both us working with startups, this is what we coach founders all the time, focus, focus, focus. This is the most important thing. It's all that you have as a startup. I think I'm convinced Ben. I'm going to be B minus. Still more generous than me. All right. We have a new section, and this is a section where we talk about things that a media, or a movie, or a TV show, or something we're reading, or a book, or a new publication or something where we find fascinating. In true lingo, we're calling this the carve out. I will start with my carve out from this week. Actually, we'll call it, since the last episode. Bill Simmons launched The Ringer, and for those of you who are not subscribed to The Ringer, it's totally sports focused, but it's really the crown jewel of the Bill Simmons media empire. After Grantland, after his ... For those of you who don't know. Bill Simmons partnered with ESPN to launch Grantland, which was incredible long form content about sports. It was the most incredibly well-written pros about sports you could ever read that would take you on this journey and make comparisons to pop culture, an event that happened 50 years ago and truly relatable. Bill Simmons is a gift as a writer. We saw him launched a podcast. Finally, The Ringer, which is the thing that has ... It's starting as an e-mail newsletter in a website. It's a very small staff and it's a new media publication that Bill Simmons has launched after the tumultuous shutdown of Grantland by ESPN. It has probably made sense as a very expensive property. I'm going to read a quote from the first e-mail that went out, Bill introducing The Ringer. He does this great little section where he talks about all the names that it could have been. This is just one of the reasons why he's a great writer to read. He's talking about several of the names and the paragraph ends with upper echelon. It sounds like a hedge fund. Barnstorm, it sounds like a horse that would be favored to win the Kentucky Derby. Side 2, too insider. Grantworld, too Ludacris. F off ESPN, too easy. I think just rarely do you ever get a startup talking about their ridiculous naming meeting. The first e-mail includes the classic photograph of the whiteboard with all the potential names crossed off. It's just like ... It's some of the most relatable writing, even if you're not a sports person. It's just incredibly entertaining.…

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