Shreyas Doshi: evaluation

Transcript context

…This is going to be big. Let's think bigger about this. Yeah, well, as with anything, right, like there's pluses and minuses. So I worked on the ads team at Google for a number of years. And there was this kind of unwritten kind of rule of thumb that, hey, if it's not going to generate more than $100 million in revenue, it's not worth talking about it. Because the ads business was growing so fast and was so large that we would regularly not pursue opportunities that were just, quote, $100 million. And so why do that? That's because Google had access to billion-dollar opportunities for its ads business. So they were very clear on pursuing the big opportunities. And in some cases, these opportunities were not obvious. So we kind of had to create those opportunities. If you think about some of the innovations Google brought over the years in monetization, including things like video ads and whatnot, right? Like those were not obvious opportunities, but Google decided that it wanted to pursue those big opportunities. And in order to do that, it had to sometimes just let go of these seemingly smaller opportunities. So that tendency to kind of think about, well, yes, there is a $10 million business here, but like, can we make it a $100 million business? Or there is a $1 million business here. Can we make it a $10 million business? What does it take to make it bigger is a habit, I think, that got kind of ingrained for me at Google. Now, of course, there's the other side of it, which is I think Google missed out on some trends simply because of this filter or this high bar where sometimes it's not clear if something is a hundred million dollar opportunity or a billion dollar opportunity. And so that is a downside of this. What I mainly took away is, for instance, even at Stripe when I joined, I was just thinking a lot bigger about the business I was responsible for, Stripe Connect. And that helped us make different decisions about what to prioritize and at what pace to go after it. So that was Google. Moving on to Twitter. I think at Twitter, the main thing that struck me with all the challenges they had, infrastructure challenges and also some challenges around leadership and culture is just the stickiness that comes with combining network effects with core product differentiation. Because Twitter had both. We talk about network effects all the time, and I don't have much more interesting things to add beyond what's already added. But this combination of core product differentiation, because if you think about it, there's still no product like Twitter, despite it now being a long time since the product was launched. And that core product differentiation combined with network effects has what enabled Twitter to have the staying power it's had. And I think unless something terrible happens, I think Twitter will be around for a really long time. So that's something I got to observe very closely when I worked at Twitter. And then at Stripe, d. And I think unless something terrible happens, I think Twitter will be around for a really long time. So that's something I got to observe very closely when I worked at Twitter. And then at Stripe, I think the main thing I took away was that when you combine high energy, sound judgment, low ego and small teams, you just get magic. And so I just Stripe wasn't by any means flawless. But I saw that combination of high energy, sound judgment, low ego and small teams more at Stripe than any other place I've been at. And so that was very impactful in kind of my growth and thinking as a leader. And I can go on with the founders because I know you had asked that question. So let's do it.…

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