eran's posterous

The Dapper Team Manifesto

Recently I was asked to define what is my leadership 'style'. I wrote the following: "My mission is to create great work environments, where great teams can efficiently collaborate and have fun, challenge those teams with the most compelling, impactful, problems, I can come up with, and then get out of the way as they solve those problems.". I strongly believe that great leaders are curators of work environments. They set the stage, hire the actors, help define the framework, and get out of the way. I tend to like this worldview also because it means if I do my work well, I will have less and less of it with every day. 

At Dapper, curating the environment was an ongoing process that was always on my mind. During the four years of running Dapper, our thinking about how to do things have become more and more structured. When we joined Yahoo, we felt it will be a good idea to put down in writing our values, culture and way of doing things, so that people around us will know what to expect, and we will have a baseline to iterate on. 

With that, came to the world the "Dapper Team Manifesto", a 13 pages document which describes the "Dapper Way". Finally, after running with it for few months, I decided to publish it online. You can get it on scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/56279594/Dapper-Team-Manifesto. 

Building a team manifest is a risky business, and the only way to do it so that a "word becomes a bond" is to do it in a collaborative manner. As such, I feel very lucky to have such a great team who worked with me on articulating and defining this manifest. Many of the good ideas are theirs, but all of the mistakes and errors are mine. And in any case, since this is a living document that we constantly review and tweak, mistakes are just 'early versions'..

If you read this and feel this kind of team culture jives with you, feel free to drop me a note on twitter - @eranshir, or find my email address :)

Highlights from the Lean Startup Conference

Yesterday I attended Eric Ries' lean startup conference, "Startup Lessons Learned". Obviously, I'm a big fan of Eric and the lean startup movement he helped bring to life in the last couple of years.
There were some excellent presentations today that I would strongly encourage you to take the time to view. 
Here are some that really stood out:
1. http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/286508924 – A conversation with Mitch Kapor. Mitch was an investor at Dapper so obviously I like him a lot, but he's also one of the smartest and most experienced people in tech. He's out there with Gates and Jobs, as the founder of lotus, but he's not afraid to get down and dirty with the young folks. 
2. Votizen - http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/286510301 – This was one of the best presentations I've seen recently. A great presenter talking about the realities of executing lean startup. Lots of entertainment value
3. WealthFront - http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/286511488 – WealthFront is revolutionizing mutual funds – a highly regulated industry. And they're managing a lot of money, more than $200M. So they're highly regulated etc. but nonetheless they manage to do continuous deployment. I really liked this presentation because it shows a great execution, and I could relate to it as he uses terms that are near and dear to my heart. His concept of minimizing 'code inventory' - which he defines as code that was checked in but is not in production yet is very similar to the definition of "velocity". Their monitoring system kind of resembles ours (to an extent, theirs is more structured and helpful to analyzing deployments). 
4. Brad, Intuit CEO -  http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/286513357  - He did a great job showing how you can stay innovative and lean within a big company. If we can transform yahoo to be a bit more like intuit in that sense, we'll accomplish a lot. 
5. Lean UX - http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/286523771 – some cool ideas on how to do ux dev.
6. Steve Blank - http://www.justin.tv/startuplessonslearned/b/286526299 – Steve Blank is doing it again, with a new idea on how to revolutionize the board meeting process. This is just a fun talk. Don't miss the stupid question towards the end..
7. Eric's opening (and closing) remarks are very good too – in the main page.

Other than that, some good case studies etc. if you have extra time.

Great content. Hardly felt the itch to check email throughout the day, which says a lot :)

Slow Food, Loved Women

I met Katka (Katherine for you), almost a decade ago through her picturesque daughter, Petra. For a while, Petra and I shared a thesis advisor, though I believe he liked her much more, given she was both a much better student than I was, way more beautiful and most importantly, an Italian. In my mind, Katka and Petra have always been my very own Gilmore girls. Living in their big old house, in a small village in Northern Italy, surrounded by endless greenery and endless stream of friends and visitors that gave their house the feeling of an old world road inn, but one you pay in warm fuzzy feeling, rather than cold coin.

Back in the beginning of the century, Katka took on her the task of organizing our expat wedding, which took place at the city hall of Pavia, and conducted, thanks to Katka's connections, by the mayor of Pavia himself, wearing the Italian traditional tri-color banner. How I got to meet thanks to that, a real Sicilian mafioso, is probably a story for some other time.

Over the last few years, as we moved to silicon valley and Petra went back to live in Italy, we didn't get to meet. So obviously, both Katka and I were excited to learn we will happen to be in Israel at the same time for the first time in a long while. This called for a celebration. And what better way to celebrate with an Italian connoseur than arguably the best dinner in Tel Aviv, circa 2011 - Catit's 12 course chef dinner.

A chef's dinner in a restaurant like Catit is nothing to trifle with. It aims to create a lasting cultural experience, not to quench your hunger. You want to come prepared, not full, so you will be able to enjoy 12 courses (which grow to 14-15 by the end of the night), but also not starving, so you'll be able to stop and savor the tastes and textures. 

For such a dinner, a companion is required. Katka smartly chose a new Israeli boutique wine - "Garage De Papa Blanc 2009" - Ido Lewinsohn's excellent Chardonnay, which he actually makes in his father's garage, in Hod Hasharon :)

And so it began. With a series of creations, coming one after the other, slowly but surely. The obligatory green capcucinno started us off, followed by "oysters in fog", great oysters accompanied by wasabi infused tobico wrapped in a foggy, dry ice plate which made one feel of early morning hours near the atlantic shores of France. Incidentally, if you want to taste wasabi infused tobico in a massive amount, there's a great jewish deli called "Russ & Daughters" in NYC that will make a mean bagel filled with this stuff for you. Ask for the Fancy Delancey.

(download)

Back to dinner. Next we got a cloud of potato and black truffles. Heavinly indeed. And a great use of truffles. If you read my baume review post, you may have noticed we had a risotto and truffles dish there, which was exactly the opposite - a brute force usage of truffles, with probably half a truffle grated over a teaspoon of risotto. Totally dried my pallet. At Catit, however, the ratios where just right, and you could really enjoy the contrast between the earthiness of the mushroom and the fluffiness of the potato. Great dish.

(download)

A lovely, picturesque salad paved the course to the main event(s) of the evening, composing of a series of heavier and heavier dishes, comprising of fish, sea food and beef. All wonderful but probably the one most remembered was the porchine crusted fish fillet. A great execution to a lovely idea.

(download)

And then, as we were under the impression we are done, the waitress happily notified us we have just two more courses to go before dessert. Now, just to give some context, this was about 9-10 courses and four hours into the evening, so we didn't really think we could cope with two more AND dessert. Eventually, the negotiation resulted in an agreement that we will get one more course, each a different one, and that way somewhat survive the evening. Oh was I happy we didn't fold and kept on, as the star of the evening was about to make an appearance. An unforgettable stew of veal cheek. If you have a chance, do try it out, you won't regret it. 

At that point, Katka couldn't keep herself anymore and asked for the cook who prepared the dinner for us. A lovely young girl came out and introduced herself as Lilach, Catit's sous-chef. Obviously, the two started off an impromptu love affair, and realized that an idol of Lilach, a chef called Nadia who is considered the top woman chef in Italy, runs her restaurant less than 30 minutes from Katka's house etc. etc. 

I for one, was quite satisfied having the dessert mostly to myself.

(download)

It was a night to remember. A night of slow food and loved women, one artistically creating it, the other enjoying it with me. Thank you Lilach and Katka for a wonderful night.

For those interested, I've embedded below the menu (in hebrew) of that dinner, which Catit's manager was so kind to go and print for us.

(download)

10 ways to know you are taking part in Summit At Sea

10. There is no internet and cellular reception and you do not feel you are detoxing
9. You are overwhelmed by the usage of synonyms like "legendary", "epic", and "awesome". After a while, you start using them yourself
8. You come to people you never met, introduce yourself, and you don't feel like a cheesy sales person
7. You see your business idol dancing like a college kid
6. You see all around you beautiful women in bikini and realize they actually paid to come, rather than got paid
5. You see a super model passing by, you remain focused on a small man in a wheel chair. You later find that model and you hookup
4. You're constantly inspired not to do what you do better, but to ask yourself why you are doing it in the first place
3. There's a hot tub in the place, and it's heavily 'used'. There's also a room full of pillows
2. Even if you're the most successful person in your field, you come back from it feeling painfully underachiever
1. It is on a fucking boat!

Catit

(download)

Catit is arguably the best restaurant in israel. But regardless of whether or not it is the best in israel, it most definitely is eligible for a Michelin star or two. With the perspective of visiting several star spangled restaurant in France and Monaco last month, it is quite apparent that meir adoni's food is short of nothing to ducass's or robuchon's.

It was the worst storm israel saw in years. The streets down the road were flooded so much so we had to change our clothes before sitting down to eat. The light flicked from the resulting power outages. In short, it was a magical dinner, with best of friends, and best of food, that I wholeheartedly recommend anyone who happens to visit israel to experience.

Catit has an even more magical chef dinner, 12 courses, 5 hours, long. Alas it is only served Monday-Friday, and only by pre order.

Insights from the Monaco Media Forum - Take 2

Last week the world's media moguls and wannabes went back to Monaco (aka disneyland for people with too much money and too little taste) for the Monaco Media Forum. You can see the entire event, pretty much, on the MMF youtube channel at: http://www.youtube.com/user/monacomediaforum - or just go directly and watch my panel, "Analyze This": 

As always, it was an impressive, important event. Impressive, because of the high level production of the panels and keynotes. Important, because of the meetings in the halls, where media execs discussed what worries and them, what they are planning to do, and most importantly what they're hearing others are doing. I always find it amazing how in our world of endless connectivity and openness, there is still a huge gap between what people 'in the know' are aware of and what is reported in blogs/news/twitter etc. In some places, it is worth this rich context is worth a year's work. That said, you will never get it from attending panels, you actually need to engage and talk to people.

So what were the themes this year? Obviously, a lot of people were interested in mobile and TV, mainly because of the wishful thinking that the same people that are not willing to pay for content on the web, will suddenly pay for content when it's packaged for mobile or TV. Sadly, given there was no one from Apple around, the forum felt somewhat like a prom dance without the prom's queen. Another small theme that ran was the resurgence of the importance of the creative. We were happy the Dapper Yahoo deal played a role in putting the creative front and center, as, obviously, was the introduction of iAd, again, by our missing prom queen. 

Seven short things:

1. Heard a really impressive analysis from Eric Hippeau, Huffington Post, about why people will not pay for general news, regardless of the consumption form factor. 
2. Michael Wolff easily grabbed the trophy for the worst interviewer ever. He had the rare opportunity to interview Yuri Milner, from DST/Mail.ru fame, who single-handedly revolutionized the VC/PE/IPO space, and he totally blew it. He was pompous, full of himself, tedious and gossipy, asking questions like "Are you an oligarch?", and totally missing perhaps the most important sentence anyone said in MMF "This is the era of mathematicians, not social networks". 
3. I managed to get from Yuri his field as a physicist - Quantum Chromodynamics - respect!
4. I'm not sure Yahoo!'s PR folks were ecstatic about this quote of me on stage: http://bit.ly/eranOnPrivacy :)
5. Even though I totally understand the manipulation and the irony of giving a reward to an African leader in Monaco from all places, one could not escape being moved by Ory Okolloh, founder of http://www.ushahidi.com/, who received this year's MMF's award and captivated everyone with her straight, sober and optimistic remarks.
6. Keep an eye on Paper.li - this (still small) swiss company is going to make it big.

And last but not least:
7. A Taxi from Nice airport to Monaco (30 min) costs more than 100 Euro. The same ride in a Helicopter costs "only" 90 Euro. Go figure..

Finally, no conference will be considered a success without a Terry Kawaja video: http://www.bit.ly/LUMA-MMF - Enjoy!

How Dapper Helped Me Meet Marshall Kirkpatrick

I just finished reading Marshall Kirkpatrick's blog post about how Dapper broke his heart. It is probably the most personally moving text I've ever read on the Web. I felt truly humbled, and I felt a strong sense of accomplishment, not due to all of the dreams we still haven't fulfilled, but for the fact that we manage to inspire those dreams in people that are not us, and to give them a glimpse of what a fulfillment of these dreams might look like. 

Back in early 2006, many months before we launched Dapper, I was asked about the business model of Dapper. More than once. And while already at that time we demoed how semantic ads could be more useful than the typical ad, I candidly answered that we still haven't figured it out, and we are just building something we believe will provide a lot of value to people, and the details of how we are going to extract some of the value are TBD. One thing I knew then, and remained true: we weren't willing to become a technology that will only be used inside closed networks, intranets and enterprises. We wanted to make an impact on the web at large. We still do. 
Marshall writes in his post: 
"It was beautiful, but people didn't want it, they didn't understand it. Because people are stupid. It's maddening. If you tell people: take this tool, use it to get real-time notifications of changes to the tiniest part of any web page, use it to pull down sets of data from the web with a snap of your fingers, use it to work fast and get first movers' advantage. Scrape, then grab the fruits of that scraping, then enjoy a fast-growing career and meet your childhood musical heroes! But no, if there's an unclear step between a technology of empowerment and profit, a step that requires creativity and hard work, then the market at large throws a fit and demands that profit be instead put directly into its spoiled-child's hand. "I want an ad network!" people say, effectively, "Give me the money directly!"

It is true, to a large extent. 2006-2007, for some reason, saw a renaissance of companies and projects that gave a lot but demanded a lot. Dapper was one, Y! Pipes was another, Swivel was a third. And there were probably others. Apps that were aiming to the cerebral and the creative in each of us, to the John Galt in each of us, not the James Taggart. In our case, even though we managed to capture the imagination of quite a few more people than just Marshall, to the point that today, the Dapper open service hosts more than 150,000 APIs, we understood early on that we cannot leave the vision of a semantic, connected web, to a random, invisible hand. Rather, we decided we want to have an impact on all of the web's passive users. We wanted to impact people that are not willing to do more than write 140 characters, or click on a like button. We wanted to make the web more connected and sentient, more semantic. Not only semantic by understanding and relating the web's content, but also by understanding and relating it to people's intent. 
Now RSS is great, widgets are cool, and mashups are amazing, but truthfully, when we looked around we identified the web's ads as by far the largest vehicle for content distribution on the web. Think of how transformative it would be if into every ad slot on the web, the most relevant content and functionality will magically flow. That you'll be able to interact not with one, but with five or eight different web experiences simultaneously, and they'll all be related and relevant. Wouldn't that be a better metaphor to navigating the web than the current star like navigation we're all trained to, with Google in the center? Wouldn't that move us a great deal further towards the vision of a semantic web? That's what we thought, back in 2007 when we started working on revolutionizing display advertising, and that's what we still believe in. I know it's not an easy path or a quick one, and it may not be the obvious one, but it is the path we chose and the one we believe to actually have a chance of succeeding. 
And as for Yahoo, we think there's a good chance becoming part of Yahoo will be the best thing ever happened to Dapper's core service. Yahoo is the company that gave birth to Pipes, to YQL, to searchmonkey, to BOSS, to YDN, and to many other open, developer friendly, initiatives. Yes, we're getting in the door because we are going to make a lot of money for Yahoo, because we are going to allow them to scale advertising experiences that are relevant and engaging to the web's users. But as one of Yahoo's leaders told us, there's so much more in Dapper than just advertising. We might not be able to get everything we want and wish, but we're giving it an honest shot, rather than dying in the flame of our self-rightous fury. 
So Marshall, I am full of empathy for you. Hell, I've been there. But I am not without hope, or sad. I am actually quite glad, if anything, because thanks to Dapper, I got to meet you..