In this episode of my Foundation video series, I talk with Jawbone CEO and Founder Hosain Rahman. Hosain and I discuss the entrepreneurial environment at Stanford in the 1990’s, The Jetsons as design inspiration, and how his meeting with Steve Jobs shaped the future of Jawbone’s first product designs.
Hosain Rahman on Silicon Valley’s respect for founders:
“The optimism in ‘99 for ideas was incredible. It was unbridled. That optimism turned to darkness for years. I tell entrepreneurs now that it was not a founder-friendly Valley at all. ‘Come up with an idea as a founder, make it, and we’ll take it, thank you very much. We’ll hire a team, and you guys can hang out in the back somewhere.’
It was really frankly Steve Jobs and a few people like that, even [Mark Zuckerberg], who changed the course for how the investment community viewed founders running companies. You could build these great companies if you could help these guys become great managers and great leaders of businesses. I think that has been a wonderful transformation in the industry.”
Kevin Rose is a general partner at Google Ventures. You can watch Kevin’s prior Foundation episode, an interview with Dave Morin, CEO of Path, here.
Hosain Rahman is the CEO and founder of Jawbone, a developer of popular products and services for the mobile lifestyle, and one of the largest venture capital-backed consumer electronics companies in the world. Jawbone’s premium Bluetooth headsets have disrupted the headset market; its JAMBOX wireless portable speaker is the best-selling speaker in North America; and its highly-anticipated UP by Jawbone, a comprehensive mobile health and wellness system that combines a wristband and app for your smartphone, will launch this...
Kevin Rose is a Partner at Google Ventures, where he primarily focuses on early-stage and seed investments. Prior to joining Google Ventures, Kevin co-founded Milk, a mobile application development company in San Francisco. Previously Kevin was the founder of Digg, and co-founder of Revision3, and Pownce (acquired by Six Apart). In addition, Rose is the founder of Foundation, a private newsletter and podcast, and formerly was co-host of the tech news podcast Diggnation.
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