Joe Kraus
Joe Kraus
Joe Kraus is the founder of Excite, JotSpot, and DigitalConsumer.org, along with his long-time business partner Graham Spencer. Currently, Kraus is an Investment Partner on the GV team...
argue attract best definitely easier great invest talent
I would argue that definitely they have the best talent. They invest so much because the more great talent you have, the easier it is to attract even more great talent.
gets last market months next seen six talent year
I've never seen such a competitive market for talent as in the last six months to a year. And it's funny, you think it can never get any more competitive. And yet the next year it gets that much more competitive.
loves sad town
The town loves us. It's sad that we have to sever that union.
believing buy buying cash company gigantic hard notion people risky time
I have a hard time believing that they can buy a company with 2,000 people and make it work. The notion of buying a gigantic company with a lot of cash is a very risky proposition.
again creating familiar people time visit
Creating a familiar and comfortable place for people to visit time and again has always been important to Excite.
buying cheap dark data five good
They've been buying dark fibre for a good five years. It allows them to have such cheap communications between all their data centres,
buying cheap dark data fiber five good
They've been buying dark fiber for a good five years. It allows them to have such cheap communications between all their data centers,
acquire help products tend water
They tend to acquire interesting technologies that they help water and fertilize, not necessarily products that are already successful.
consumers control entertainment issue listen music powerful risk
This is an issue where consumers are at risk of ceding control on how they listen to music to the powerful entertainment industry,
based company difficult internet silicon successful
I think it's very difficult to be a successful Internet company that isn't based in Silicon Valley.
casual companies global hallway hard ideas internet ironic lunch meetings pace phenomenon silicon
It is ironic that the Internet is a global phenomenon -- yet if you're not in Silicon Valley, it's really hard to get a sense of the pace and the connections between those companies. So many of the ideas get transferred in hallway conversations, meetings over lunch and the casual interactions of the companies that are proximate.
advice done beta
So my advice to startups in this particular category is if you’re going to put your product in beta - put your business model in beta with it. Far too often we are too product focused and not business-model focused. That’s one thing I definitely would have done differently with JotSpot.
thinking creating people
We are creating and encouraging a culture of distraction where we are increasingly disconnected from the people and events around us, and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking. People now feel anxious when their brains are unstimulated.
fighting squash innovation
Fight piracy; don't squash innovation.