by Anthony K. Tjan | 11:27 AM March 21, 2011
As research for an upcoming book with Harvard Business Review Press, my colleagues and I have been interviewing entrepreneurs and business builders about the factors that drive success. We talked to David Lawee, vice president of corporate development at Google, about how he got to where he is and the role that luck has played in his career. What follows are excerpts of Lawee’s remarks.
For the most part, I’ve traveled an entrepreneurial career path. After two years at McKinsey, I co-founded a venture capital firm in Canada, moved on to a couple startups here in the Valley, and then ended up at Google. Today I run all of Google’s investments and acquisitions.
Luck and Networking
For me, the most important thing is to be intellectually challenged and stimulated. I do this by finding and focusing on people I connect with, and genuinely enjoy being with — which oddly enough, creates a pathway of opportunity that might not otherwise show up. It was via a serendipitous path — through basic networking, and finding people I liked — that I ended up at Google. I did have a sense of where I wanted to end up, but it wasn’t a 25-year plan; after all, who really understands where he or she will end up 25 years from now? Luck and networking are two critical components to making anything work. But every 10 years, I think you need to have a general assessment and sense of where you want to be. After all, you are always making choices about how to spend time outside your core job. Knowingly or unknowingly you are making tradeoffs constantly, and if you have a sense of where you want to end up, it’s easier to make those decisions.
For me, the most important thing is to be intellectually challenged and stimulated. I do this by finding and focusing on people I connect with, and genuinely enjoy being with — which oddly enough, creates a pathway of opportunity that might not otherwise show up. It was via a serendipitous path — through basic networking, and finding people I liked — that I ended up at Google. I did have a sense of where I wanted to end up, but it wasn’t a 25-year plan; after all, who really understands where he or she will end up 25 years from now? Luck and networking are two critical components to making anything work. But every 10 years, I think you need to have a general assessment and sense of where you want to be. After all, you are always making choices about how to spend time outside your core job. Knowingly or unknowingly you are making tradeoffs constantly, and if you have a sense of where you want to end up, it’s easier to make those decisions.
Coming to Google was very much predicated on where I wanted to be at the end of putting myself in the pathway of opportunity. The thing I find most exciting is engaging in interesting conversations. Being open-minded to networking and having serendipitous conversations isn’t awkward or time-consuming — it’s necessary.
Staying Relevant
My goal is definitely to stay relevant. Since I work in technology, staying relevant is hard, since so much technology is started by 25-30 year olds. And so, you really need to work at it, and again, a lot of networking helps you keep on top of things.
My goal is definitely to stay relevant. Since I work in technology, staying relevant is hard, since so much technology is started by 25-30 year olds. And so, you really need to work at it, and again, a lot of networking helps you keep on top of things.
Head vs. Heart
I was involved in Xfire, which was an early social gaming company that was ahead of its time. The product was great and it was getting amazing take-up, 7 or 8 percent per week. Crazy growth, at scale, not unlike Twitter growth. The pivot point for us came when we had 10 weeks left of cash. We had to choose between bringing the whole company down to three employees and trying to last out for 18 months to build out the user-base, which could have gotten us to where we wanted to go, or to go out and raise financing.
I was involved in Xfire, which was an early social gaming company that was ahead of its time. The product was great and it was getting amazing take-up, 7 or 8 percent per week. Crazy growth, at scale, not unlike Twitter growth. The pivot point for us came when we had 10 weeks left of cash. We had to choose between bringing the whole company down to three employees and trying to last out for 18 months to build out the user-base, which could have gotten us to where we wanted to go, or to go out and raise financing.
Both choices created enormous risk. There was no way we could make the decision with our heads, since both had their merits. Ultimately we made our decision with our hearts. We were just that much more passionate about being involved in something bigger and trying to make it happen faster. So we went for it with the ten weeks, and ended up getting a great round from NEA that allowed us to continue growing the business. A year and a half later, we sold it for over $100 million.
Entrepreneurial Lessons: Going Big
Larry and Sergey are really just phenomenal entrepreneurs. What’s distinguished them is an understanding that doing bigger things is actually easier than doing smaller things. That’s a pretty fundamental insight. Why? Because I think most entrepreneurs, myself included, approach the world from niches, e.g. if I can tackle that niche, and build something, then I’ll have enough scale to do something else and we’ll build off that, and we’ll build it off a series of niches because the big guys are so threatening.
Entrepreneurial Lessons: Going Big
Larry and Sergey are really just phenomenal entrepreneurs. What’s distinguished them is an understanding that doing bigger things is actually easier than doing smaller things. That’s a pretty fundamental insight. Why? Because I think most entrepreneurs, myself included, approach the world from niches, e.g. if I can tackle that niche, and build something, then I’ll have enough scale to do something else and we’ll build off that, and we’ll build it off a series of niches because the big guys are so threatening.
But Larry and Sergey are always focused on doing big things. Their rationale: if you work on a really hard problem, it’s much easier to attract really great people. And if you’re working on a hard problem with really great people, then it’s much easier to attract money. If you’re not thinking big, you’re going to end up working on some small thing that won’t get you the resources you want. You need to be thinking on the scale of: How can I impact one billion people with this product?
What I’m most passionate about is what I’m focusing on right now. Things are constantly in motion. In this next wave of the web, we’ll see lots of the existing players (ourselves included) evolve. Facebook is already and will continue to be a part of so much of the next web. And, if you assume that the mobile/local/geo interface is going to be important, then Apple is a component of everything that is going to evolve. So is Amazon, in terms of how commerce evolves. We are talking about companies that are not only changing the way the world operates, but also the absolute best at what they do. But all of these companies, ourselves included, that enjoy their positions now, need to work hard to maintain, evolve and extend for the ever-changing technology landscape.
ANTHONY K. TJAN
Anthony Tjan is CEO, Managing Partner and Founder of the venture capital firm Cue Ball, vice chairman of the advisory firm Parthenon, and co-author of the New York Timesbestseller Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck (HBR Press, 2012).
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