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How do you raise money for something that doesn't exist yet? Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) went out to raise with no product to show and no real answer for how the thing would even work. The pitch came down to one idea: “sunlight is going to power the... show more

Chris Powers

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24,565 次观看 • 1 个月前 •via X (Twitter)

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For months, Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) was trying to build something cheaper than a solar panel. It wasn't working, and he knew the idea was bad. Then it hit him on a run. Stop competing with solar panels. Their real problem is they don't work at night, and putting mirrors in space fixes that directly by sending sunlight down to the solar farms that already exist. That was the moment Reflect Orbital actually became a business.

For months, Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) was trying to build something cheaper than a solar panel. It wasn't working, and he knew the idea was bad. Then it hit him on a run. Stop competing with solar panels. Their real problem is they don't work at night, and putting mirrors in space fixes that directly by sending sunlight down to the solar farms that already exist. That was the moment Reflect Orbital actually became a business.

Chris Powers

24,347 次观看 • 1 个月前

Tomorrow I'm sitting down with Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞), co-founder and CEO of Reflect Orbital - a company putting mirrors in space to beam sunlight down to Earth at night. The reflector that makes it work is the same kind of mirror NASA spent 25 years building for the James Webb telescope. It delayed that $10 billion program for a year and a half because it kept failing. Ben's team builds a new one every three and a half days. This clip is how they pulled it off.

Tomorrow I'm sitting down with Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞), co-founder and CEO of Reflect Orbital - a company putting mirrors in space to beam sunlight down to Earth at night. The reflector that makes it work is the same kind of mirror NASA spent 25 years building for the James Webb telescope. It delayed that $10 billion program for a year and a half because it kept failing. Ben's team builds a new one every three and a half days. This clip is how they pulled it off.

Chris Powers

60,324 次观看 • 1 个月前

When Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) was an engineer on SpaceX's Dragon 2, he was sure it would ship later than Boeing's Starliner. Everything was late, broken, changing by the day. "I was like, there's no way this works." It turned out SpaceX was about five years ahead. Dragon 2 now flies astronauts - some of whom Ben has since met. In this clip, the one thing he'd leave behind from SpaceX, and the lesson he kept: you need a very high pain tolerance to get hard things done.

When Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) was an engineer on SpaceX's Dragon 2, he was sure it would ship later than Boeing's Starliner. Everything was late, broken, changing by the day. "I was like, there's no way this works." It turned out SpaceX was about five years ahead. Dragon 2 now flies astronauts - some of whom Ben has since met. In this clip, the one thing he'd leave behind from SpaceX, and the lesson he kept: you need a very high pain tolerance to get hard things done.

Chris Powers

134,323 次观看 • 1 个月前

At SpaceX, engineers are treated like elite athletes, and held to that standard. Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) joined as a college freshman and absorbed it fast. He still quotes the way President Gwynne Shotwell framed it: “SpaceX engineers are the Navy SEALs of engineering, the professional athletes of the field.” Ben doesn't think that bar is unique to rockets. In this clip, the standard he carried out of SpaceX and into Reflect Orbital, and why he believes any company can run that way.

At SpaceX, engineers are treated like elite athletes, and held to that standard. Ben Nowack (Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞) joined as a college freshman and absorbed it fast. He still quotes the way President Gwynne Shotwell framed it: “SpaceX engineers are the Navy SEALs of engineering, the professional athletes of the field.” Ben doesn't think that bar is unique to rockets. In this clip, the standard he carried out of SpaceX and into Reflect Orbital, and why he believes any company can run that way.

Chris Powers

148,533 次观看 • 1 个月前

Jeff Probst reveals that there will be no epic transporting of the votes to the #Survivor50 reunion. Though, at one point, he was working on a bit where MrBeast stole the votes, and he'd have to figure out how to retrieve them

Jeff Probst reveals that there will be no epic transporting of the votes to the #Survivor50 reunion. Though, at one point, he was working on a bit where MrBeast stole the votes, and he'd have to figure out how to retrieve them

Mike Bloom

234,537 次观看 • 6 个月前

My hero of the week is Ben Shapiro The Ben Shapiro Show for being one of the few standing up and calling out hatred and bigotry whilst this crazy world is trying to normalize it. “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man” Pirke Avot thank you Ben Full episode Jewish News Syndicate

My hero of the week is Ben Shapiro The Ben Shapiro Show for being one of the few standing up and calling out hatred and bigotry whilst this crazy world is trying to normalize it. “In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man” Pirke Avot thank you Ben Full episode Jewish News Syndicate

פלר חסן נחום Fleur Hassan-Nahoum

45,211 次观看 • 9 个月前

.Ben Lerer describes how chasing VC money took the joy out of running one of his early businesses: "Our first few years, we were profitable and stayed small. It was amazing. We had a small community of people that were diehard and advertisers who really felt the needle move, and it was wonderful." "What happened was: the space got attention from big VCs. People wanted to get in on the gold rush. A bunch of people raised a bunch of money, and I was one of them. The idea was - you have to grow into those valuations." "They were not fatal mistakes, but they were ultimately the thing that took a lot of the joy out of the business. We got obsessed with figuring out - how do you keep growing and how do you keep doubling year over year." "The way to do it right is to do what you love and stay relatively small and build a real community-based thing."

.Ben Lerer describes how chasing VC money took the joy out of running one of his early businesses: "Our first few years, we were profitable and stayed small. It was amazing. We had a small community of people that were diehard and advertisers who really felt the needle move, and it was wonderful." "What happened was: the space got attention from big VCs. People wanted to get in on the gold rush. A bunch of people raised a bunch of money, and I was one of them. The idea was - you have to grow into those valuations." "They were not fatal mistakes, but they were ultimately the thing that took a lot of the joy out of the business. We got obsessed with figuring out - how do you keep growing and how do you keep doubling year over year." "The way to do it right is to do what you love and stay relatively small and build a real community-based thing."

TBPN

12,247 次观看 • 6 个月前

GET READY FOR WAR 🇮🇷🇴🇲 Trump Threatens to BLOW UP Oman. Says NO MONEY, NO SANCTIONS, NO Hormuz for Iran and Oman According to this Iran is getting NOTHING. What is the point of making a deal if you get nothing. There was a deal on the table a few days ago. Netanyahu was NOT HAPPY. Now Trump is blowing up the deal with terms no one with a brain will accept. Ben Gvir SAID IT out loud, they will NOT ALLOW Trump to make a deal Israel's government does not like.

GET READY FOR WAR 🇮🇷🇴🇲 Trump Threatens to BLOW UP Oman. Says NO MONEY, NO SANCTIONS, NO Hormuz for Iran and Oman According to this Iran is getting NOTHING. What is the point of making a deal if you get nothing. There was a deal on the table a few days ago. Netanyahu was NOT HAPPY. Now Trump is blowing up the deal with terms no one with a brain will accept. Ben Gvir SAID IT out loud, they will NOT ALLOW Trump to make a deal Israel's government does not like.

Ryan Rozbiani

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Kevin Garnett says he is open to working out with Victor Wembanyama in the summer: “One thing I want to speak on is Wemby’s development. If I’m him, I’m working on core strength.. I’m probably one of the strongest people you could ever run up on, and I look how I look, but when it came down to setting up on that block and then pitching and getting it off down there, yeah, I was the best at that. So I would love to work with big fella, but this generation has a preference on how they want to work out and I have to respect that.” #GoSpursGo #PorVida

Kevin Garnett says he is open to working out with Victor Wembanyama in the summer: “One thing I want to speak on is Wemby’s development. If I’m him, I’m working on core strength.. I’m probably one of the strongest people you could ever run up on, and I look how I look, but when it came down to setting up on that block and then pitching and getting it off down there, yeah, I was the best at that. So I would love to work with big fella, but this generation has a preference on how they want to work out and I have to respect that.” #GoSpursGo #PorVida

Wemby Alien Era

440,821 次观看 • 1 个月前

"YOU DON'T TAKE FIVE GRAND BACK FROM A RAPE GANG INQUIRY" Absolutely. The Rape Gang Inquiry was a success and needed to happen Next they are doing private prosecutions Has Ben put his money back in? No. Ben took that money out while he was still telling us Rupert Lowe was the man to lead Advance and this country. Why was he telling the rest of us to trust him while he himself did not? It was a despicable thing to do, appalling beyond belief.

"YOU DON'T TAKE FIVE GRAND BACK FROM A RAPE GANG INQUIRY" Absolutely. The Rape Gang Inquiry was a success and needed to happen Next they are doing private prosecutions Has Ben put his money back in? No. Ben took that money out while he was still telling us Rupert Lowe was the man to lead Advance and this country. Why was he telling the rest of us to trust him while he himself did not? It was a despicable thing to do, appalling beyond belief.

Basil the Great

26,319 次观看 • 5 个月前

Ryan Bridge from Raise the Convicts is in Mexico for the England game, and he’s unhappy that people are linking Ben Cullen to Raise the Colours. He even took a swipe at Tommy Robinson " don't throw stones in glass houses, little man" and called anyone on the far-right criticising him an "undercover leftist." He’s also claiming that a lot of people want to take pictures with him. But there are videos of him calling Ben Cullen and his Mrs. "good people," and he even went out for a meal with him.

Ryan Bridge from Raise the Convicts is in Mexico for the England game, and he’s unhappy that people are linking Ben Cullen to Raise the Colours. He even took a swipe at Tommy Robinson " don't throw stones in glass houses, little man" and called anyone on the far-right criticising him an "undercover leftist." He’s also claiming that a lot of people want to take pictures with him. But there are videos of him calling Ben Cullen and his Mrs. "good people," and he even went out for a meal with him.

Mukhtar

84,876 次观看 • 1 个月前

Kodai Senga was asked if he'd be satisfied with pitching out of the bullpen for the rest of the season: "It doesn't matter where I pitch. I'm given the ball and I'm going to go out there and pitch."

Kodai Senga was asked if he'd be satisfied with pitching out of the bullpen for the rest of the season: "It doesn't matter where I pitch. I'm given the ball and I'm going to go out there and pitch."

SNY Mets

26,237 次观看 • 1 个月前

The key point that most are missing is not that "wow, that's too high to jump off of." Obviously, we watched someone make that leap. For me, what's most interesting is the commitment, the lack of hesitation, the determination and intention to make that leap. That roof is 16-20 feet high. At no point does the jumper hesitate, or pause to look around and take stock of the situation. Without rehearsal and practice, most people would take a beat here. Not this guy. He headed straight for that corner and did a Peter Pan like he'd done it a hundred times before. But nowhere in the hearing did the prosecution indicate that Tyler had ever even scoped out that spot, or evaluated it as an egress point. Most average people would probable retreat back the way they came. Not our jumper. He knew right where to head, and exactly what to do when he got there. There was no pause. No hitch. No caution. No dithering. No trepidation. No fussing about trying to figure out the best sptot to start hanging down. No exploration of the two sides of the corner. The average person doesn't naturally head to a 16 foot roof and just hope it'll all work out, which is what they're asking us to believe about Tyler: that without rehearsal, practice or evaluation beforehand, he leapt up after his shot and headed straightaway to an unknown corner and knew exactly what to do once he was there, even though nothing would have prevented him from simply running back down the stairs the way he came, like an average untrained "assassin." Go find a 20 foot roof with a rifle and backpack, and see how long it takes you to decide to climb down. Don't blink or hesitate. This guy didn't. He didn't even fumble around with the gun. His foot placement was perfect. His movements to transfer the gun were perfect and efficient. Totally fluid. Again, no bumbling or extraneous actions. You simply won't convince me that these are the actions of a scrawny kid who's never killed anyone before and is a bit of an egghead who's really good at math.

The key point that most are missing is not that "wow, that's too high to jump off of." Obviously, we watched someone make that leap. For me, what's most interesting is the commitment, the lack of hesitation, the determination and intention to make that leap. That roof is 16-20 feet high. At no point does the jumper hesitate, or pause to look around and take stock of the situation. Without rehearsal and practice, most people would take a beat here. Not this guy. He headed straight for that corner and did a Peter Pan like he'd done it a hundred times before. But nowhere in the hearing did the prosecution indicate that Tyler had ever even scoped out that spot, or evaluated it as an egress point. Most average people would probable retreat back the way they came. Not our jumper. He knew right where to head, and exactly what to do when he got there. There was no pause. No hitch. No caution. No dithering. No trepidation. No fussing about trying to figure out the best sptot to start hanging down. No exploration of the two sides of the corner. The average person doesn't naturally head to a 16 foot roof and just hope it'll all work out, which is what they're asking us to believe about Tyler: that without rehearsal, practice or evaluation beforehand, he leapt up after his shot and headed straightaway to an unknown corner and knew exactly what to do once he was there, even though nothing would have prevented him from simply running back down the stairs the way he came, like an average untrained "assassin." Go find a 20 foot roof with a rifle and backpack, and see how long it takes you to decide to climb down. Don't blink or hesitate. This guy didn't. He didn't even fumble around with the gun. His foot placement was perfect. His movements to transfer the gun were perfect and efficient. Totally fluid. Again, no bumbling or extraneous actions. You simply won't convince me that these are the actions of a scrawny kid who's never killed anyone before and is a bit of an egghead who's really good at math.

Sam Parker 🇺🇸🧯

652,134 次观看 • 13 天前

Ben Horowitz on what made Travis different as Uber scaled to thousands of employees: "There was nobody in Uber that didn't feel Travis. You talk to people there and they all refer to him. This company was, what, 10,000, 20,000 people? And everybody is like, oh yeah, we're in the Travis review, or when I talk to Travis." "To have that kind of presence at that scale is something not a lot of founders can do at that kind of turn-up intensity." "If you look at the way he thinks about problems, confrontations, getting out of a hole, how do you get to the future, we're talking about one of a very, very few founders that exist in reality." benahorowitz.eth travis kalanick

Ben Horowitz on what made Travis different as Uber scaled to thousands of employees: "There was nobody in Uber that didn't feel Travis. You talk to people there and they all refer to him. This company was, what, 10,000, 20,000 people? And everybody is like, oh yeah, we're in the Travis review, or when I talk to Travis." "To have that kind of presence at that scale is something not a lot of founders can do at that kind of turn-up intensity." "If you look at the way he thinks about problems, confrontations, getting out of a hole, how do you get to the future, we're talking about one of a very, very few founders that exist in reality." benahorowitz.eth travis kalanick

MTS

436,630 次观看 • 19 天前

So Candace told this whole story about how Ben Shapiro got butt-hurt over a joke she made on Rogan back in 2018 and how Ben tried to block TPUSA from growing and tried to pull Charlie away from Candace. And all of that may be true. I have no idea. But I love how she just conveniently glosses over the fact that she went on to work for Ben? Like did she think we all forgot? How she went on to work for this allegedly awful guy who was trying to rip her and Charlie apart and thwart TPUSA? 😂

So Candace told this whole story about how Ben Shapiro got butt-hurt over a joke she made on Rogan back in 2018 and how Ben tried to block TPUSA from growing and tried to pull Charlie away from Candace. And all of that may be true. I have no idea. But I love how she just conveniently glosses over the fact that she went on to work for Ben? Like did she think we all forgot? How she went on to work for this allegedly awful guy who was trying to rip her and Charlie apart and thwart TPUSA? 😂

Natalie Jean Beisner

186,554 次观看 • 9 个月前

Kevin Garnett says he’s open to working out with Wemby: “I’m probably one of the strongest people you could ever run up on, and I look how I look. But when it came down to setting up on the block and then pitching and getting it off down there, yeah, I was the best at that… I would love to work with big fella, but this generation has a preference on how they want to work out and I have to respect that.” (via KG: Certified, h/t Wemby Alien Era)

Kevin Garnett says he’s open to working out with Wemby: “I’m probably one of the strongest people you could ever run up on, and I look how I look. But when it came down to setting up on the block and then pitching and getting it off down there, yeah, I was the best at that… I would love to work with big fella, but this generation has a preference on how they want to work out and I have to respect that.” (via KG: Certified, h/t Wemby Alien Era)

Legion Hoops

308,479 次观看 • 1 个月前

"That was the hardest thing for me to do in my career... As I mentioned, I was living out my dream... I always wanted to be a Raven... the reality is that it came down to for me is Ronnie Stanley at the time, and even still to this day, is one of the best left tackles in football." Orlando Brown Jr. reflects on his trade request from Baltimore.

"That was the hardest thing for me to do in my career... As I mentioned, I was living out my dream... I always wanted to be a Raven... the reality is that it came down to for me is Ronnie Stanley at the time, and even still to this day, is one of the best left tackles in football." Orlando Brown Jr. reflects on his trade request from Baltimore.

Ryan Ripken

96,535 次观看 • 6 个月前

Ben Horowitz tells the story of Slack’s pivot from a failed gaming app into a $28 billion company Ben recalls investing in Stewart Butterfield’s new company Tiny Speck. In 2001, Stewart began building an online game, pivoted into Flickr, and the company was acquired by Yahoo in 2005 for $25 million. In early 2009, Stewart decided he wanted to try building the online game again. This time, it would be called Glitch. Ben tells the story: “And so he builds Glitch. I love Glitch - it was a marvelous game. But it had two major problems. One, he started it in 2006 and built on Flash before Steve Jobs declared war on Flash. So it wasn’t going to work on the iPhone. And then the other problem was people would finish the game in two days, and so that’s not very good for retention.” After raising more than $15 million to build Glitch, Stewart called Ben to tell his investor that they only had $6 million left: “Ben, I’ve got $6 million left. I have no way to raise money because I’ve made really no progress because of these issues. It’s going to cost me more than $6 million to finish the game. So I’ve got three choices. I can pray for rain and try and finish it. I can shut down the company and give you your $6 million back. Or we build this tool that we use in our engineering team to communicate with each other and make engineering work a little better, and I could just put that out as a product.” Ben replies: “What? You just like built some tool to talk to each other and you want to put that out as a product? And you’re a consumer guy and you want to become an enterprise software guy?” Stewart says, “Yeah, I think it’d be a pretty good idea.” And so Ben said, “$6 million isn’t going to make a big difference in my life. If you really think it’s a good idea and you want to do that, go ahead.” Stewart decided to call the new product Slack, and it soon became the fastest growing enterprise software company of all time before SalesForce acquired it for $27.7 billion in July 2021. Ben points out an important lesson here: “A lot of the process is do you have a secret? Do you know something that nobody else knows? And because [Stewart] was pulling his hair out, literally smoking 8 packs of cigarettes a day, trying to get Glitch out the door, he was doing everything to optimize that development, and so he learned where software development was suboptimal… And that’s a really big key. You have to do something really hard if you want to learn something about the world that nobody else knows or is acting on. That’s when you have a breakthrough. But it starts with hard work.” Video source: UC Berkeley SCET (2020)

Ben Horowitz tells the story of Slack’s pivot from a failed gaming app into a $28 billion company Ben recalls investing in Stewart Butterfield’s new company Tiny Speck. In 2001, Stewart began building an online game, pivoted into Flickr, and the company was acquired by Yahoo in 2005 for $25 million. In early 2009, Stewart decided he wanted to try building the online game again. This time, it would be called Glitch. Ben tells the story: “And so he builds Glitch. I love Glitch - it was a marvelous game. But it had two major problems. One, he started it in 2006 and built on Flash before Steve Jobs declared war on Flash. So it wasn’t going to work on the iPhone. And then the other problem was people would finish the game in two days, and so that’s not very good for retention.” After raising more than $15 million to build Glitch, Stewart called Ben to tell his investor that they only had $6 million left: “Ben, I’ve got $6 million left. I have no way to raise money because I’ve made really no progress because of these issues. It’s going to cost me more than $6 million to finish the game. So I’ve got three choices. I can pray for rain and try and finish it. I can shut down the company and give you your $6 million back. Or we build this tool that we use in our engineering team to communicate with each other and make engineering work a little better, and I could just put that out as a product.” Ben replies: “What? You just like built some tool to talk to each other and you want to put that out as a product? And you’re a consumer guy and you want to become an enterprise software guy?” Stewart says, “Yeah, I think it’d be a pretty good idea.” And so Ben said, “$6 million isn’t going to make a big difference in my life. If you really think it’s a good idea and you want to do that, go ahead.” Stewart decided to call the new product Slack, and it soon became the fastest growing enterprise software company of all time before SalesForce acquired it for $27.7 billion in July 2021. Ben points out an important lesson here: “A lot of the process is do you have a secret? Do you know something that nobody else knows? And because [Stewart] was pulling his hair out, literally smoking 8 packs of cigarettes a day, trying to get Glitch out the door, he was doing everything to optimize that development, and so he learned where software development was suboptimal… And that’s a really big key. You have to do something really hard if you want to learn something about the world that nobody else knows or is acting on. That’s when you have a breakthrough. But it starts with hard work.” Video source: UC Berkeley SCET (2020)

Startup Archive

51,352 次观看 • 7 个月前

Solar is now among the cheapest power on the grid. The catch: it only works half the day. In the hours after sunset, that cheap, clean power simply isn't available, so the grid relies on other energy sources to fill in. Closing that gap is why Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞 started Reflect Orbital. He wanted to produce something that was cheaper than using fossil fuels and worked around the clock. Mirrors in orbit that redirect sunlight back down to Earth, with the long-term goal of keeping solar farms generating energy after dark. In this clip: why the hours solar can't cover are the biggest opening in energy.

Solar is now among the cheapest power on the grid. The catch: it only works half the day. In the hours after sunset, that cheap, clean power simply isn't available, so the grid relies on other energy sources to fill in. Closing that gap is why Ben Nowack ☀️🌎🪞 started Reflect Orbital. He wanted to produce something that was cheaper than using fossil fuels and worked around the clock. Mirrors in orbit that redirect sunlight back down to Earth, with the long-term goal of keeping solar farms generating energy after dark. In this clip: why the hours solar can't cover are the biggest opening in energy.

Chris Powers

25,030 次观看 • 1 个月前

Ben Horowitz tells the story of Slack’s pivot from a failed gaming app into a $28 billion company Ben recalls investing in Stewart Butterfield’s new company Tiny Speck. In 2001, Stewart began building an online game, pivoted into Flickr, and the company was acquired by Yahoo in 2005 for $25 million. In early 2009, Stewart decided he wanted to try building the online game again. This time, it would be called Glitch. Ben tells the story: “And so he builds Glitch. I love Glitch - it was a marvelous game. But it had two major problems. One, he started it in 2006 and built on Flash before Steve Jobs declared war on Flash. So it wasn’t going to work on the iPhone. And then the other problem was people would finish the game in two days, and so that’s not very good for retention.” After raising more than $15 million to build Glitch, Stewart called Ben to tell his investor that they only had $6 million left: “Ben, I’ve got $6 million left. I have no way to raise money because I’ve made really no progress because of these issues. It’s going to cost me more than $6 million to finish the game. So I’ve got three choices. I can pray for rain and try and finish it. I can shut down the company and give you your $6 million back. Or we build this tool that we use in our engineering team to communicate with each other and make engineering work a little better, and I could just put that out as a product.” Ben replies: “What? You just like built some tool to talk to each other and you want to put that out as a product? And you’re a consumer guy and you want to become an enterprise software guy?” Stewart says, “Yeah, I think it’d be a pretty good idea.” And so Ben said, “$6 million isn’t going to make a big difference in my life. If you really think it’s a good idea and you want to do that, go ahead.” Stewart decided to call the new product Slack, and it soon became the fastest growing enterprise software company of all time before SalesForce acquired it for $27.7 billion in July 2021. Ben points out an important lesson here: “A lot of the process is do you have a secret? Do you know something that nobody else knows? And because [Stewart] was pulling his hair out, literally smoking 8 packs of cigarettes a day, trying to get Glitch out the door, he was doing everything to optimize that development, and so he learned where software development was suboptimal… And that’s a really big key. You have to do something really hard if you want to learn something about the world that nobody else knows or is acting on. That’s when you have a breakthrough. But it starts with hard work.” Video source: UC Berkeley SCET (2020)

Ben Horowitz tells the story of Slack’s pivot from a failed gaming app into a $28 billion company Ben recalls investing in Stewart Butterfield’s new company Tiny Speck. In 2001, Stewart began building an online game, pivoted into Flickr, and the company was acquired by Yahoo in 2005 for $25 million. In early 2009, Stewart decided he wanted to try building the online game again. This time, it would be called Glitch. Ben tells the story: “And so he builds Glitch. I love Glitch - it was a marvelous game. But it had two major problems. One, he started it in 2006 and built on Flash before Steve Jobs declared war on Flash. So it wasn’t going to work on the iPhone. And then the other problem was people would finish the game in two days, and so that’s not very good for retention.” After raising more than $15 million to build Glitch, Stewart called Ben to tell his investor that they only had $6 million left: “Ben, I’ve got $6 million left. I have no way to raise money because I’ve made really no progress because of these issues. It’s going to cost me more than $6 million to finish the game. So I’ve got three choices. I can pray for rain and try and finish it. I can shut down the company and give you your $6 million back. Or we build this tool that we use in our engineering team to communicate with each other and make engineering work a little better, and I could just put that out as a product.” Ben replies: “What? You just like built some tool to talk to each other and you want to put that out as a product? And you’re a consumer guy and you want to become an enterprise software guy?” Stewart says, “Yeah, I think it’d be a pretty good idea.” And so Ben said, “$6 million isn’t going to make a big difference in my life. If you really think it’s a good idea and you want to do that, go ahead.” Stewart decided to call the new product Slack, and it soon became the fastest growing enterprise software company of all time before SalesForce acquired it for $27.7 billion in July 2021. Ben points out an important lesson here: “A lot of the process is do you have a secret? Do you know something that nobody else knows? And because [Stewart] was pulling his hair out, literally smoking 8 packs of cigarettes a day, trying to get Glitch out the door, he was doing everything to optimize that development, and so he learned where software development was suboptimal… And that’s a really big key. You have to do something really hard if you want to learn something about the world that nobody else knows or is acting on. That’s when you have a breakthrough. But it starts with hard work.” Video source: UC Berkeley SCET (2020)

Startup Archive

81,759 次观看 • 1 年前