The Washington Post

People are Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret

Outside Silicon Valley, commentators obsess about robots, artificial intelligence, big data. Inside Silicon Valley, paradoxically, the tech tribe’s preoccupations often lie elsewhere: less with code than with people. Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg wrote two of the hottest books to come out of the Valley in the past half-decade — one is about women’s professional confidence and the other about coping with bereavement. The late Steve Jobs of Apple is the subject of endless fascination in Silicon Valley, not because he invented stuff but because his quirky New Age perfectionism somehow led him to greatness. Now John Doerr, the Valley’s most famous venture capitalist, has come out with a book that underscores this paradox. To anyone who fears that technology advances at the expense of humanity, it is salutary reading.

Internet Trends 2017

Kleiner Perkins general partner Mary Meeker launched the 22nd edition of the Internet Trends Report at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, on May 31, 2017. Dating back to 1995, when Mary was still an equity analyst at Morgan Stanley, the annual report compiles and analyzes data from a wide range of sources, providing insights on the state of the Internet Economy. The deck covers a broad array of topics, including global internet user trends, advertising and e-commerce, gaming, online media, digital health, and much, much more. This guide is intended to highlight some of the key topics of discussion in this year’s edition – and to help media navigate the report.

How Google Thinks About Hiring, Management and Culture

During Laszlo Bock’s nine years as Google’s SVP of People Operations, the company has won more than 100 awards for its employment practices. Bock, who came to Google after stints at McKinsey and GE, recently collected his thoughts about management and culture into “Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead,” a New York Times best-seller. He expounded on some of his HR-related ideas in a conversation with Beth Seidenberg at KPCB’s recent CEO Workshop.

How Netflix is Trying to End Boredom and Loneliness

Most start-ups would be happy if they were responsible for one major industry disruption. But Netflix [https://www.netflix.com/], under the leadership of Reed Hastings [https://ir.netflix.com/management.cfm], can count already two to its name — how we watch movies and TV shows and how content is produced — and it’s not done yet. In a conversation with John Doerr [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/john-doerr] at our recent CEO Workshop, Hastings discussed some of the things that make for great companies — and great leaders.

Marrying Successful Business with Social Mission

In this episode of “Ventured,” KPCB General Partner Randy Komisar interviews Priv Bradoo, Founder and CEO of e-waste recycling company BlueOak, and Lila Ibrahim, Chief Business Officer of online course provider Coursera, about what it is like to run a social mission-driven startup in today’s funding environment. Halfway through the interview, the interviewees turn the tables on Randy and ask him what it is like to invest in companies like theirs. Both sides agree that although it may be more difficult to find the right financing tools for these types of companies, the fight is ultimately worth it for the founders, investors, and society at large.

Connecting the World's Billion+ Gamers

Video games have always captured the minds and imaginations of multiple generations. I remember my first time playing (then cracking) Castle Wolfenstein, Alpine Encounter and Aztec – all a huge step up from the original game I played – Oregon Trail! These days I’ll find myself playing Minecraft pocket edition with my daughter and xbox one games which are amazing. What has been so intriguing about all of this is the way in which we learn and improve our game play is no different than it was years ago – we learn by watching others in the community.

Brand Building in a Post-Amazon World

In the wake of the e-commerce revolution, the consumer value system has shifted. Consumers want brands that support a “social good” and products manufactured in the US. But the great brands we grew up with have gotten lost in their cost structure, focusing on sales, real estate, and big marketing spends. In the latest “Voices of KPCB” episode, KPCB’s Randy Komisar and American Giant’s Bayard Winthrop discuss how today’s brands navigate this new environment.

How Designers Are Building Careers in Silicon Valley

At a recent event held at Uber, design partner John Maeda presented his “Design in Tech” report and convened designers to discuss the role of the creative class in Silicon Valley. The event featured two panels: KPCB partner Creighton Hicks spoke with Andrew Crow, Head of Design at Uber, and Catherine Courage, SVP of Customer Experience at Citrix, about being a designer at an enterprise company. And KPCB talent partner Jackie Xu discussed actionable tips on Silicon Valley career paths in design with Bob Baxley, Head of Product Design at Pinterest, and Sarah Oppelt, Head of Design at Zumper.

Urban Transportation Will Go All-Electric Sooner Than You Think

Think of the vehicle that will change urban transportation. If the image in your mind is not an electric bus, you’re thinking of the wrong vehicle. The electrification of the passenger vehicle has made headlines for good reason. Vehicles like the Tesla Model S and BMW i8 are beautiful and fast, and cars like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf offer compelling value to commuters. But we’d be lucky if plug-in vehicles represent more than 5 percent of passenger vehicles sold in the United States over the next five years.

Why Design Matters More than Moore

From the beginning of the semiconductor industry a half-century ago, Moore’s Law has propelled Silicon Valley into the future. The impact of Gordon Moore’s observation that engineers learn how to double the number of transistors in an integrated circuit chip every 18 months without doubling the cost is astonishing. Today, however, with all of the computing power already at our fingertips, we’re discovering that ever-faster technology may matter far less than beautiful, intuitive, easy-to-use products and services. In short, we’re learning that design may matter more than Moore.

Welcome to Ground Zero for Changing the World

I loved my time in school but it wasn’t until I left graduate school at the University of Washington that my real education began (beyond having learned how to learn). Looking back at it, I’ve had a great career working on Microsoft’s early cloud-computing efforts, founding and then selling my own company, leading software development of webOS at Palm, then engineering at Twitter, and now, investing and advising young start-ups. In each and every experience, I made mistakes, fixed them, and made some more. I may have even notched a few wins along the way.

The Best Lesson I Learned From Joining a Board

Push the boundaries: join a board. I strongly recommend that all professionals get involved with work outside of their day job and, when they can, join a board – the right board – as a way to keep highly motivated at work. A few years into my career at KPCB–just when I was starting to really hit my stride (and probably my comfort zone)–my KP partner John Doerr came to me with a completely out-of-the-box request: Would I be willing to speak with Bono and Bobby Shriver about the “Product RED” initiative they recently launched in the U.K.?

The Rise of Design in Tech: Choosing “The Dirt” Over "The Cloud"

When I went to Silicon Valley at the end of 2013, I had that feeling that comes every so often in one’s life: of not being too early, and not being too late. I had listened to the co-founder of Airbnb, Joe Gebbia, as he visited the Rhode Island School of Design each year as an alumnus and later as a trustee, and he would tell me that Silicon Valley was amazing. Frankly, I didn’t believe him. I had spent twelve years of my life at the MIT Media Lab, ubiquitously known in the tech world for being “amazing,” and by the mid-2000s “the cloud” was getting boring for me. I wanted to be closer to creation — “the dirt” of the physical world.

The Dawn of a New Era for Data Storage

In this edition of the “Voices of KPCB” podcast series, KPCB partners Creighton Hicks [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/creighton-hicks] and Wen Hsieh [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/wen-hsieh] talk to Peter Godman, CEO of Qumulo, about the new era of data storage we’re in. In fact, they agree that “data storage” is no longer what consumers and enterprises most urgently need – instead, we’ve moved on to an age in which data analytics and searchability are of paramount importance to the ever-expanding mass of big data.

Managing Engineering Talent at a Fast-Growing Company

KPCB partner Mike Abbott [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/mike-abbott] recently hosted a panel discussion about the intersection of engineering and management in front of an audience of leaders of KPCB’s portfolio companies. The panelists included Mike Curtis [https://twitter.com/mikecurtis], VP of Engineering at Airbnb, Jeff Huber [https://twitter.com/jhuber], SVP at Google X, and Alex Roetter [https://twitter.com/aroetter], VP of Engineering at Twitter. This podcast captures the highlights of their conversation, which focused on the excitement but also the challenges of successfully managing engineering teams at a fast-growing company.

Your Media on Every Screen

We live in a world awash in media, from music to photos to home videos to TV to movies. We may download the media, or stream it, or create it ourselves. It’s a world of unparalleled choice, in our living room and on the go. But accessing and enjoying all of this media is not always easy. The amount of content keeps growing, stored in different formats and across devices. It’s difficult to remember where we’ve stored our media – and even if we do remember, often we have to take the time to move content from one device to another, especially when we share it with family and friends. We all want to access our content in a beautiful, elegant, intuitive way, at any time and on any screen.

Food for Thought: Why Investing in Agriculture is the Next Big Thing

In this edition of the Voices of KPCB [https://soundcloud.com/kleinerperkins] podcast series, KPCB partner Randy Komisar speaks to Brook Porter, partner in KPCB’s Green Growth Fund, and Amol Deshpande, CEO and founder of Farmers Business Network [https://www.farmersbusinessnetwork.com/], about innovations and advancements in agriculture. The three discuss new Ag Tech applications, approaches to big data, supply chain transparency, and other hot topics of interest to anyone looking to break into the space – or consumers who are interested in learning where their food comes from and what to expect in the future.

Best Advice: Think About the World

I had just finished my second year on the faculty at MIT, and one of my colleagues who had joined the academy at the time had just shared the fact that he was departing for industry. Naturally, I felt a bit like quitting too – as the second year of being a professor was proving harder than the first. And boy did my friend sound happy that he was leaving behind all the institutional politics he was just being indoctrinated into. It certainly sounded enticing, and when I told my mentor, Professor Whitman Richards, that I was thinking of leaving, he said something that stuck with me for years: “If you leave, the field that you represent leaves with you.”

How To Grow The Number Of Top-Notch Women Engineers At Your Startup

Everyone in tech acknowledges that we need more women working in our startups. Studies show that organizations are stronger when they are diverse. In the four years since our firm launched the KPCB Fellows program [https://kpcbfellows.com/] – which identifies the best college-age talent, pairs them with one of our portfolio companies, and connects them to our network – the two of us researched and carried out several approaches to increase the number of female engineers in the program. This year, we will welcome our largest percentage of female engineering Fellows, all while holding to the highest standards of excellence.

Why We Invested in Qumulo

Several trends – the decline in the cost of data storage, the growth of the Internet of Things, and the rise of consumer-generated data – have converged to double the amount of data in the world every two years. Enterprises feel comfortable storing everything as the cost of doing so keeps falling. The Internet of Things will account for ten percent of all data by 2020 as more of our devices get connected. And the worldwide adoption of smartphones, the 10x growth in the App Store in the last five years, and the ability to produce high-quality images across devices means that it’s never been easier to store pictures, videos, music, and files. It’s an exciting time, as Big Data promises to transform how we live and work.

Physical Design Meets Digital

KPCB Design Partner John Maeda [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/john-maeda] hosted a conversation on design, technology and leadership with four visionary leaders in the design industry at Ammunition’s offices in San Francisco. Carl Bass, CEO of Autodesk, Erin McKean, Founder of Reverb/Wordnik, Robert Brunner, Founder of Ammunition, and Margaret Stewart, Director of Product Design at Facebook, participated in “baton relay panels” in which they took turns interviewing each other on the importance of design and how they see their role as designers.

What Artisanal Brands Can Teach Us About Using Technology to Humanize Business

Technology is playing a critical role as an enabler of a more personalized way of doing business — one that lets consumers connect with products as their father’s father once did at the local country store. The trend underscores one of the great paradoxes of the digital age: In an increasingly automated world of interconnected everything, consumers are craving new products that they can have an emotional connection with — items that are customized to their personalities and tastes. And consumers are beginning to look beyond markets driven by mass production and low cost for everything from clothes to cars.

Foundation Medicine Enters Strategic Collaboration with Roche in the Field of Molecular Information in Oncology

Foundation Medicine, Inc. (NASDAQ:FMI) and Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) announced today that they will enter into a broad strategic collaboration to further advance Foundation Medicine’s market-leading position in molecular information and genomic analysis while providing Roche a unique opportunity to optimize the identification and development of novel treatment options for cancer patients.

How to Mix Engineering and Management at a Fast-Growing Company

When aspiring entrepreneurs envision their future companies, they tend to think about the products they will build. Not too much time is spent thinking about the fact that if the company grows, they will have to introduce a management layer into the organization. These changes introduce many new levels of complexity into company-building, so a recent KPCB Engineering Meetup gathered Mike Curtis, VP of Engineering at Airbnb, Jeff Huber, SVP at Google X, and Alex Roetter, VP of Engineering at Twitter, on a panel moderated by KPCB Partner Mike Abbott [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/mike-abbott] to share tips and tricks from those who have been through the process.

What Kleiner Perkins Thought About CES 2015

After just getting back from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, KPCB Partners Wen Hsieh [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/wen-hsieh] and Michael Linse [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/michael-linse] had some thoughts to share about their experiences. They discussed the process that Venture Capitalists go through when returning from a conference like this and trends they noticed in a variety of areas like automotive technology, wearables, and IoT. Wen even suggested that the conference should be renamed “Connected Everything Show,” emphasizing that connected devices was the theme of the year.

What young designers need to know about the tech industry

Shortly after I joined KPCB, I wrote a post about design in the new economy. Since then, I’ve immersed myself in the culture of Silicon Valley to experience first-hand how designers work and think in this region. My simple conclusion: Get involved with technology early, and get close to what Silicon Valley has to offer early. If you have the chance to intern at a high-tech company in this region for a summer job, I suggest you do so because you will learn what I have learned — that the speed and scale of technology development is so fast that you’ll want to start early or you’ll miss out on a lot.

Advice from Entrepreneurs on How to Secure Your Digital Health Startup

In the latest edition of the “Voices of KPCB” podcast series, KPCB partner Beth Seidenberg speaks to Jason Oberfest, Co-Founder and CEO at Mango Health, and Shanit Gupta, Senior Director of Security and Site Reliability at Practice Fusion, about digital health startups. They discuss privacy and data security, working with partners in the healthcare ecosystem, data-sharing, and other hot topics of interest to anyone looking to break into the space – or patients who would like to know how their digital health data is actually handled.

The Reinvention of Entertainment in the Age of New Media

In a panel discussion at a recent KPCB event in Los Angeles, Albert Cheng, EVP and CPO of Digital Media at Disney, Neil Young, CEO and Founder at N3TWORK, and Sam Rogoway, CEO and Founder at Victorious, talk about what’s in store for the entertainment industry in the future. Will second screens disrupt traditional viewing habits? Where will funding for new content come from in the age of new media? And what is the role of virtual reality? The panel is moderated by KPCB partner Mike Abbott and concludes with an impromptu poem written and performed by KPCB partner Bing Gordon.

Storytelling in a Digital Age: A Conversation between Al Gore and Brian Grazer

At a recent KPCB event in Los Angeles, former Vice President and KPCB partner Al Gore interviewed film and television producer Brian Grazer on what it’s like to be a storyteller in the digital age. How has YouTube changed talent scouting? How does entertainment content spread across platforms? Al and Brian tackle these and many more questions in a conversation bookended by impromptu poems written and performed by KPCB partner Bing Gordon.

How Scared Should We Be of the Growing Cybersecurity Threat? A Conversation Between Security Experts

In the latest edition of the Voices of KPCB podcast series [https://soundcloud.com/kleinerperkins], KPCB partner Ted Schlein speaks to Adam Ghetti, founder, chairman, and CTO of Ionic Security, about the growing cybersecurity threat. How scared should we really be? Is the threat volume growing – or just the damage attacks can do? How serious was the recent JP Morgan breach? And which challenges lie ahead as we enter the era of the Internet of Things?

You Should Share Your Health Data: Its Value Outweighs the Privacy Risk

From genome-based therapeutics and diagnostics to pulse-monitoring smart watches, health data is transforming medicine. But it is also alarming patients, who—aware of the recent cyber-attacks against Target, Home Depot, and JPMorgan that stole personal data from millions of people—are scared that their privacy will be invaded. Our health data is our most personal asset. Why, in the midst of all of this, should we continue to share it?

Five Easy Steps to Secure Your Startup Right Now

Every startup today should be thinking about its approach to security. This is especially true for companies with access to sensitive information about individual consumers. Sumit Agarwal, Co-Founder and VP of Product at Shape Security, addressed this issue at a recent KPCB 12-200 CEO Workshop. “If you’re like most of the people I talk to, security is a little bit like getting in better shape,” he said. “You know what you need to do – but that’s not going to happen, not this year.”

calling all engineers: uncle sam needs you

a year ago today, i began one of the most interesting stints of my career: i became part of the technology surge [https://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/blog/2013/10/technology-surge-for-healthcare-gov.html] team brought in from the private sector to fix HealthCare.gov. my time in washington was an eye-opener because i saw firsthand the endemic problems that undermine the government’s IT efforts, and i also saw what we need to do to overcome those problems.

How Are Non-Healthcare Professionals Creating a Revolution in Healthcare Through Consumer Apps?

As part of the Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Leadership Salon series, KPCB Partner Beth Seidenberg hosted a panel of leaders in the booming digital health field. Ray Bradford, Founder & CEO of Spruce Health, Jason Oberfest, Co-Founder and CEO of Mango Health, and Andrew Rosenthal, Group Manager for Platform and Wellness of Jawbone, discussed the genesis of their various products, the increased need for privacy and data security, as well as how digital health can help revolutionize how consumers interact with their medical providers.

Why We Invested In Magic Leap

Learning to race a sports car by the seat of your pants, finding the open receiver between the arms of giant pass rushers, swimming with whale sharks, climbing Everest without oxygen, taking your wizard owl from room to room, actually having a monster sleeping under your child’s bed, mining asteroids in orbit, warping the space time continuum, walking through your dream house before hiring a contractor, picking a college without buying a plane ticket, remembering the name of your boss’s spouse and your ex-boyfriend, learning by doing.

SK Telecom acquires shopkick: memorable journey with a great entrepreneur

On Friday, the WSJ leaked news [https://online.wsj.com/articles/sk-telecom-agrees-to-acquire-shopkick-1411781933] that SK Telecom was acquiring shopkick, and it was confirmed over the weekend. I’m thrilled for Cyriac and the team, and believe this is the next exciting chapter in their effort to reimagine mobile shopping; specifically, the interaction between the mobile and the physical shopping world. shopkick is a special company to me and Kleiner Perkins. It’s what we call an “incubation,” where we bring in an entrepreneur and work closely with him or her over several months to develop a compelling business concept. It’s been a trademark of our firm over the years, starting from our earliest days. Genentech was started this way.

Why the Apple Announcement Was The Biggest of the Past 6 Years

On September 9th, 2014, KPCB partners got together to discuss the major implications of the Apple Announcement for the technology industry. The iPhone 6, Apple Watch, and Apple Pay will collectively change the human experience forever. Emily Chang from Bloomberg TV interviewed design guru and KPCB partner John Maeda [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/john-maeda] to discuss why Apple is the best at making us feel something about technology. Meanwhile, in an exclusive podcast discussion, KPCB Investment partners Mike Abbott [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/mike-abbott], Matt Murphy [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/matt-murphy], and Anjney Midha [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/anjney-midha] weighed in on the software opportunities for developers and applications for consumers.

Being a Designer in Silicon Valley: Fly Solo or Join a Start-Up?

In this edition of our KPCB podcast series, KPCB design partner John Maeda and KPCB Recruiting Partner Jackie Xu talk with Alex Cornell, freelance designer, co-founder, and creative director at Firespotter Labs. They dive into the question of whether it is better for designers in Silicon Valley to work independently or join start-ups – and whether there is a golden middle way that allows designers to reap the benefits of both paths.

The Evolution of Messaging and Sharing

In this podcast, KPCB Partner Anjney Midha chats with Jared Morgenstern, former PM at Facebook who launched the “like” button, to discuss how communication technology has evolved and will continue to change the way we connect and share with one another. Among other topics, they explore the shift from a culture of infrequent broadcasting to large audiences to a culture of frequent messaging within small groups. Morgenstern contends that we’ve created an “intimacy market” and analyses why we are migrating back to emotionally driven messaging.

How are Designers and Engineers Teaming Up in Today's Technology World?

In this podcast, KPCB partners Mike Abbott, John Maeda, and Anjney Midha discuss the increasingly critical intersection between technology and design – and what it takes to be a strong leader in this new phase of the user experience. Among other topics, they evaluate the evolution of the two disciplines, what happens when engineers and designers fail to work effectively together, and whether or not open sourcing is an inevitable result of this collaboration.

How Design and Venture Capital Go Hand in Hand

On June 7th, KPCB Design Partner John Maeda hosted a conversation on design, craft, and technology with some of the design industry’s biggest luminaries at fuseproject’s offices in San Francisco. In front of a packed crowd, panelists participated in a game of “conversation ping pong” in which they took turns interviewing each other (and being interviewed by John Maeda) on the future of creativity as well as how they see design and venture capital evolving together.

The Five Tough Truths Of Cybersecurity Software

Building a successful security software company is notoriously hard to get right over the long haul. Computer security is a fast-moving target. You still need anti-virus software, for instance, but it won’t necessarily keep you safe. The same is true for firewalls, and malware detection, and spam blockers, and various other security measures. For better or worse, there is never-ending opportunity here, as the good guys race to keep up with the bad guys.

What is the Future of Education Technology?

As part of the KPCB Leadership Salon series, KPCB General Partner John Doerr led a panel of education technology innovators to discuss how technology has – and will continue to – fundamentally change the way we approach education both in the U.S. and abroad. Panelists included Daphne Koller, Founder at Coursera and professor at the Stanford School of Engineering; Brett Kopf, Co-Founder and CEO of Remind101; and Dan Rosensweig, President and CEO of Chegg.

The Tech Sector Needs More Women; Here's How You Can Make It Happen

Despite years of continuous discussion and a number of high profile female leaders, most Silicon Valley technology companies still lack widespread diversity. Women remain sparsely represented at venture capital firms, in corporate boardrooms and in executive suites – and they remain a distinct minority among rank-and-file programmers and engineers. Sadly, the situation simply is not improving. But there’s a way forward – and women in tech business can make it happen.

KPCB ProductWorks Design & Tech Talk

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) Design Partner John Maeda and Quirky founder and CEO Ben Kaufman recently co-hosted a discussion with four business leaders operating at the intersection of design and technology. The participants gave a series of TED-like talks, each of which revealed a gift from the speakers to the audience. Gift-givers included Juliet de Baubigny, KPCB recruiting partner; Ayah Bdeir, founder and CEO of littleBits; Doreen Lorenzo, President of Quirky; and Tina Roth Eisenberg, founder of swissmiss and other side projects.

KPCB Education Leadership Salon

As part of the KPCB Leadership Salon series, KPCB General Partner John Doerr [https://www.kpcb.com/partner/john-doerr] led a panel of education technology innovators to discuss how technology has – and will continue to – fundamentally change the way we approach education both in the U.S. and abroad. Panelists included Daphne Koller, Founder at Coursera and professor at the Stanford School of Engineering; Brett Kopf, Co-Founder and CEO of Remind101; and Dan Rosensweig, President and CEO of Chegg.

Why Apples Don't Grow on Trees

I’m often asked, “What’s another successful design-led company besides Apple?” And I have to pause—not because companies like Ferrari and IKEA aren’t great examples of design-led organizations but because I find myself wondering why Apple dominates popular conversation about design to the extent that it does. After reading Hartmut Esslinger’s “Keep It Simple” and Leander Kahney’s “Jony Ive,” however, it all made sense. What we love about Apple isn’t necessarily the…