Using it was a palpably better experience. I remember clearly when a friend first pointed me to Google when I tried to find betting tips, it was a revelation. We invested in DuckDuckGo because we became convinced that it was not only possible to change the basis of competition in search, it was time to do it. The way to compete with Microsoft was to change the basis of competition. It turned out that the way to compete with Microsoft was to not to compete, at least not directly. The venue moved from the desktop to the web and the business model shifted from packaged software to open source. Two things happened that fundamentally changed the game: a shift in venue and a shift in business model. Our confidence in Gabriel and DuckDuckGo is informed by having watched the decline of Microsoft’s hegemony in the 90’s. So, as you can imagine, we had a lot of interesting conversations in the process of evaluating our latest investment in Gabriel Weinberg’s alternative search engine, DuckDuckGo. No where is this more true than in Search.
So as an investor, one has to consider how a potential portfolio company can thrive in the shadow of Google. When I first got into the venture capital business in the early 90s, it seemed to me that half of the deals I brought to the partnership were dismissed with the line “sure it’s cool but what the heck do they do if Microsoft decides to enter this business.” Today the role of the dominant player is played by Google (and increasingly Facebook).
0 kommentar(er)
