My friend Fred Wilson discusses the history of the Internet with Sarah Lacy in the video below. Every investor and entrepreneur should watch it in it’s entirety at some point:
Fred and I go way back and I have interviewed him many times, but I learned a lot of new things as usual.
In 2010, Wired ran a cover Story entitled ‘The Web is Dead’. I interviewed Fred at the time to get his take. I have enclosed the first part of it again.
The markets are now having to come to terms with The NSA and the old Gatekeepers (phone and cable giants) have not shrunk. The global markets have been correcting for a while and the US markets caught the flu this week. I don’t think it will be a smooth ride the rest of 2013, but the stock markets are not everything. Under the surface change is rapidly afoot.
As Fred talks about in the interview, our job as early investors is to pretty much ignore the economy because our companies are too small. What we must worry about is the gatekeepers because they control the gateway between small companies and their userbases. The government remains a wildcard as well.
In 2013, Google is keeping Apple on it’s toes and Twitter the same with Facebook. The mobile social network is stressing all of the incumbents as Snapchat has risen. There is Twilio to can help startups avoid dealing with phone gatekeepers, Netflix to stress the cable companies, as well as Angellist and Kickstarter for entrepreneurs and creatives. The web and social leverage is working it’s magic.
This week was especially wonderful for the explosive new era unfolding in web video. YouTube is magical and will increase in importance, but Vine (twitter) and Instagram Video are about to put web and mobile video on a new global trajectory. On my NewHive blog page I unleash for you the power of both products :) .
Yes, the NSA and our government will carry on with business as usual, but as a consumer and entrepreneur a new chapter of the social and mobile web is upon us. It will be intense and profitable for a huge new batch of companies. While the NSA and our governments watch us, we have the best tools in history to keep an eye on them.
seems like everyone is getting richer than ever in an era of hyperconsumerism and capitalism. The liberals are preoccupied with inequality and opportunity , while the creative class is running loops around the whiny middle class. anyone with an idea and some coding can be worth a 100 million dollars in just three years. It’s a meritocracy in overdrive, a smartest society of limitless wealth creation if only for a few,