Our live conference call on Google Cloud Next
Last week at its conference in San Francisco, Google Cloud unveiled a bevy of new features, and we also got to hear for the first time from its head honcho, Thomas Kurian. TechCrunch was on the scene, with enterprise editor Frederic Lardinois and enterprise reporter Ron Miller covering all aspects of this major conference.
They conducted a live conference call with Extra Crunch members last week. In case you missed it, we’ve posted the transcript for members.
New Series: The Exit (this time with Dynamic Yield)
We talk a lot at Extra Crunch about starting companies up, but how do startups exit?
Lucas Matney, one of TechCrunch’s San Francisco-based writers, is developing a new series exploring why certain companies successfully exit. In this inaugural interview, he talks with venture capitalist Adam Fisher of Bessemer about his investment in Dynamic Yield, an adtech (but not really ad-based) startup that exited to (of all places) McDonald’s for a reported $300 million.
Lucas Matney: McDonald’s certainly seems like a bit of an unexpected buyer considering the early history of the company, but at what point in the company’s life cycle did it make sense that they would want to buy this tech? Or are you still a little surprised that this is the deal that went through?
Adam Fisher: Oh, yeah, with these kind of things you have to be skeptical until you see it in writing, and even then, skeptical. You know, as a VC, I’ve seen too many deals never mature to an offer, or even after the offer it’s pulled away. I mean, the less traditional the buyer, the more worried you have to be that something strange will happen, that somebody will change their mind, that somebody will get fired, that something unrelated will happen on the macro level.
So, you know, we were obviously skeptical until there was an offer.
But it was very clear, at a certain point, that the level of engagement was so high and so immense that they were serious, that this wasn’t just an idea that popped up after the had met Dynamic Yield, that they had been thinking about making such an acquisition for quite a while beforehand.
Know a great growth marketing agency?
As we have done with brand designers and with startups attorneys, we are beginning the hunt for the best growth marketing agencies in the startup world. Have a firm you’ve worked with and recommend to other founders? Let us know in this quick, two-minute survey.
Profiles of two great brand designers and how they think
While we spool up growth marketing, we have gotten enormous feedback on dozens (well, really hundreds) of brand designers who work with startups. Yvonne Leow started sifting through the data, and we’ve published two new profiles in the last few days.
First, we have Mark Forscher of Under After, where he has worked with startups like Fatherly, Rubicon, and none other than Extra Crunch. In our interview, he talks about his philosophy toward branding and how he works with early-stage startups to build brands that fit their objectives.
Yvonne Leow: Can you tell me about your favorite client project and why?
Mark Forscher: That’s tricky. I have a lot of favorite projects. There are some projects that are just fun. For instance, mascot brands are fun because mascots aren’t too common. One project I worked on was Poncho, a Betaworks company, that was launching a weather service. They knew they wanted to differentiate themselves with the brand because the weather space overall is very utilitarian. They had an idea that they wanted a mascot, and they came up with the name Poncho. At first, I was designing some mascots that looked more human, and that just didn’t work with the name. But I have a crazy little cat, so I was like, “this mascot could be a cat. And why a cat? Because cats don’t like getting wet.” So I presented it and they loved it. It connected with the personality they imagined, and after I did the initial brand, some illustrations and some of the design system, they hired a great team, including illustrators like Jaclyn Kessel who really brought it all to life.
Meanwhile, this morning we published a profile on independent designer Lake Buckley, who has worked on Luminary, Nest, and Droplet.
Yvonne Leow: What do you enjoy about working with founders?
Lake Buckley:I think entrepreneurs are less jaded. They’re putting a lot more on the line and so because of that, oftentimes, they’re going to be a bit more awake at the switch, a bit more passionate, and down to do things in a non-traditional way. I really enjoy the level of excitement that they bring to the table because there is no one forcing them to start their own company. It’s coming from a place of genuine belief in their idea. It’s contagious. I think it’s important to maintain a sense that you’re doing things out of choice, not because you’re forced to. I really appreciate that energy coming from founders.
Douglas Rushkoff on being human in a world of tech
Our resident ethicist Greg Epstein published his latest conversation, this time with noted cultural commentator Douglas Rushkoff, whose new book Team Human just came out. The two discuss a huge array of topics, including what it means to be human, the limits of technologies (and startups) and whether universal basic income is a solution or a disaster in the making.
Greg Epstein: Thank you. Let’s talk about capitalism then.
Douglas Rushkoff: How far back you want to go? The critique of capitalism can go anywhere. I’m glad — a lot of people understand now that growth-based capitalism is not a feature of nature. It was invented by monarchs at the end of the middle ages, to prevent the rise of the middle class.
We kept that operating system of monopoly, central currency and monopoly charters — corporations, we call them now. We kept that going for the last 500 years, so much so that even many intelligent economists don’t know this isn’t the market as nature. That this is a very particular game. It’s no more intrinsic to reality than the game of Monopoly, but we’ve grown so accustomed we just think it is.
It’s part of what makes it so hard for us to see outside band-aids for capitalism. Even universal basic income, which I’m in trouble right now for arguing against.
How to design a career path for your engineering team
Hiring an engineering team is tough, but keeping one may be even harder. Offering clear steps in every employee’s career path is critical to retaining talent, but few startups get this right.
Jordan Cowperthwaite, an engineering manager at CircleCI, discusses how to build a meaningful career path for engineers through the creation of an engineering competency matrix.
Back at the beginning of 2018, we had 32 developers and a plan to double throughout the year, we already had a competency matrix, but it was woefully outdated. It focused on our more junior levels, maxing out at a level which some developers had already reached. It was also misaligned with the skills our organization had grown to value, which meant in practice, we often ignored it. It was time for a re-design.
Building a new competency matrix was a learning process, and a lengthy one, taking about eight months to complete. Along the way we discovered things we valued, as well as what the keys steps to building a career ladder are (and which ones are wasteful). While every matrix is different, and will reflect the values of the organization that wrote it, the process of producing a succinct career ladder to guide your team is consistent.
New guidance at the patent office
The USPTO has issued new guidance that could affect how computer and technology-related patents are adjudicated by examiners at the agency. Greenberg Traurig attorneys James J. DeCarlo and Chinh H. Pham walk Extra Crunch readers through the changes and how they will likely affect tech companies going forward.
The Guidance has been distributed to examiners and training is being conducted. Practitioners and examiners alike will need to understand and adapt to this new Guidance. For example, how will examiners determine what a “practical application” may be? Will there be differences in application across different Art Units at the PTO? As with prior guidance, it will take time before the USPTO and practitioners become adept with this new examination methodology.
Equity: Uber S-1
We have another edition of Equity ready for consumption, this time a special episode on Uber’s S-1 with hosts Kate Clark and Alex Wilhelm. If you missed the interview, be sure to read the conversation.
Thanks
To every member of Extra Crunch: thank you. You allow us to get off the ad-laden media churn conveyor belt and spend quality time on amazing ideas, people, and companies. If I can ever be of assistance, hit reply, or send an email to danny@techcrunch.com.