YouSaid · the spoken record

Geoffrey A. Moore

lines on the record: 14
first: 2023-06-15
most recent: 2023-06-15
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Well, so people kind of assume that it was going and kind of equivalent NBA and so forth learning strategies. No, the strategy stuff was all from games because what you want to have in a game is you want to have a theory of how this game plays. You want to have a theory about, okay, what is the way that I'm going to win the game? What are the challenges that I need to overcome in order to do it? And so to some degree, it has been advanced that we are homo-ludins, which is game players, and like Wittgenstein, like language is actually a form of game playing. And you want to take that game and say, okay, am I playing the right game? Do I have the right theory of the outcome? And what are the games other people are playing? And will this game work? And then you have to adjust the game. And classically, like with disruptive innovation, part of what happens is entrepreneurs figure out a way, a theory, how to change the game because of a new technology or a new market, a change in how things are operating or changing the way things could operate. And I think that's the kind of central thing for thinking about game.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And sometimes testing is saying, let's go talk to 10 people who are smart. It's like one of the ways I learned Michael Dell is he saw these LinkedIn invitations coming in. He said, this is interesting. I wonder how this changes things. And he reached out and talked to me. Sometimes it's like to figure it out is to just go ask.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go, oh my God, we have to be everything on mobile because their customers said, Oh, we care about it. Our employees are bringing stuff in. They want to be able to use this from wherever they are. But it will be a gradual adoption. So it isn't a day zero thing. It's kind of a more iterative pattern. And one of the things that I frequently do is I break the kind of three buckets. It's v0 to v1, v1 to v11, v1 to v2, because even that kind of revolution of v1 to v2 is not day one, but it's a major jump. And the way that you play each of these three games is actually, in fact, different. What's your theory of the game? And what is this change, market change technology change, et cetera? What does this mean to me, to our business, and how much of a sharp adjustment to our play of the game do we need to make?”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I usually think about it is kind of what is the theory of the game and is the game changed? So for example, Microsoft, when Bill Gates was CEO, was building an online service called Blackbird because they thought they needed to compete with CompuServe and AOL and so forth. Then they saw the internet coming. And literally Bill had all of the engineers hard disks erased to start working on the new internet services. So it's like, no, no, you have to do this. And that's the hard shift to a new day one. But that's because the theory of the game changed. I was like, oh, we're not doing these online dial-up services anymore. Those will only live a certain amount of time. It's all going to be internet. We need to be going to where the future is going, not to the past. And then obviously there's degrees of that. So when you have a shift to mobile, some things go, oh my God, everything's going to have to end up being mobile first. I need to go mobile right away. And by the way, ultimately that'll percolate to enterprise and else, but like enterprise software companies didn't have to immediately.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of what you do there is you look at if your premium, you say, look, it's going to be so much better, so be priced more than it was before, so it's still kind of a discount of progress towards that. But that may be the reason why the price seems to be.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That. And I think when you look at all of this, it's kind of a question of how do you set the frame for the story about how people will think about what your product is, what using it as a surgeon would be, what receiving it as a patient would be, and the amplification of human beings in each of these cases. And I do think that one part of it is how do you communicate those mindsets? And I think one of the things that's part of the last couple of decades of the internet is trying to get influencers or other people kind of articulating the story, the framework, the point of view is part of what gets that well. I think it's great that you're doing this invention. I look forward to hearing the path of success. And thank you for the question, Alberto.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a classic disruptive innovation that causes people to have these kind of like are you placing people? As a general theme, when you're an entrepreneur is how do you convert challenges into opportunities as opposed to saying allowing the criticism to brand frame you as, oh, you're replacing humans with machines is like, no, no, we're making humans a lot better. It's human plus machine. And the human plus machine will have much better outcomes, will be able to iterate and learn, better, will set new benchmarks. And part of when you're thinking about the initial price, it depends a little bit on what do you think the growth rate's going to be. Sometimes people set very disruptive pricing, like 20% or one-third. I would think in your kind of arena it would be better closer to 80%, but could be 50, where you say, well, what's the cost that we're saving? What's the benefit that we're adding and pricing below that?”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's something for all entrepreneurs to keep in mind, which is it's the value, that's the key thing that technology is only the entrepreneuring character.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I think there's a lot of interesting components to your question. Obviously, it's great if one story meets all constituencies. And so you try to do that, but sometimes you need story architecture. So you go, look, this is our primary. We primarily need it for our customers. That's the one out there. And then we have an add-on, almost like a Lego piece that you add on to it for talent or for investors. And then say, well, it's two pieces. It's not that simple. But it's like you try to make the two pieces simple. So it's what is the kind of the simplest architecture to that. Now, to the kind of broader question as you advance, and I do think that games is a really good way to build relationships and interact. So I think you say, okay, well, to some degree, the technology is never really the selling point. It's the human engagement. It's the how is my world and life different or better by using this product and service? And sure, the technology may literally say, I'm the only one who can do it because I only have this thing doing that. But eventually it's through that ongoing engagement.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
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2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Classically, when the stock market goes down, and then when it starts coming back, you don't actually want to buy at the absolute bottom. You want to buy it as it's beginning to grow back up. So, what you kind of want to do is say, well, okay, we think we're going to be able to get to our new milestones, some interesting marketing, some interesting product stuff. If we accelerate now here and hire some of the talent in the similar way of financial investors buying into that market, you want to be thinking the same way about the marketing, about the talent acquisition, about the product development, about the acceleration, because the thing that's so frustrating as an entrepreneur is we don't quite know when do these turbulent times stabilize and start heading the normal economic growth pattern, in part for because a lot of factors that are totally out of our control. Anna, look forward to hearing the progress and the AI acceleration. Thank you for your question.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Great question, and thank you for asking in part because this is a question that obviously many, many startups are facing right now. Obviously, we'd all like to have a crystal ball into the future to know exactly when the markets will start changing. So you obviously have to kind of say, well, what's the amount that I need as additional insurance during volatile times? And there are people who will say, no, no, you should absolutely maintain a minimum of 24 months right now. When you think, oh, we should hit the accelerator. It's because, well, I'm going to be taking a smart risk. I know that I'll be taking risk. Maybe Putin will do something additionally sinister and crazy in the Ukraine. Maybe that'll undisrupt markets. Maybe factors outside my control affect what's happening. But it's worth taking this risk. It's worth hiring some of this AI talent. And so selectively taking advantage is a good idea. Now, I think what you want to do is not only playing defense, but playing offense on this. I think that you want to also”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That if I take them, I can possibly win large. And how am I monitoring if my theory of the game and the theory of the risks I'm taking is working out so that I might need to pivot or adjust? You have to be responsive to the kind of circumstance you're in. So, George, thank you for your question.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's a great question. And by the way, thank you for the DD call out. The way to think about the risk stuff is to say, okay, first presume that you're not going to be able to make it a purely knowable game. It's useful as an entrepreneur to know that the games are not like chess. They're not fully determined. There's a randomness element, the Ukrainian war, markets, a bunch of other stuff. I have partial risk management, partial control over it, but there's unknown and uncertain things. So then you say, okay, so what are the most key things that I should make bets on? It's almost like risk betting. It brings the investor and the entrepreneur together on it. For example, if it's like AI, what do I think the market demand's going to be like? What do I think customer reaction is going to be like? What do I think government regulation is going to be like? What things might impact me and what I might need to speak up on? So you want to be thinking about which risks are the absolute ones to really invest in to minimize and keep that as thin as possible, which are smart risks that take.”
2023-06-15 · Masters of Scale · To be first to the future, be stubbornly nimble · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT