I enjoyed this wide ranging conversation between Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, and Tyler Cowen, which covers their partnership, how Marc and Ben thought about a16z’s differentiation when they founded the firm, how VC has evolved, and what’s next for [insert your favorite tech or industry here]. There are several gems in this episode (which somebody painstakingly captured on Breaker) and worth a full listen. Here’s one that I found particularly useful…
From Marc, in response to Tyler’s question, “Did you invent the tweet storm?”:
“I literally couldn’t shut up, so it sort of catalyzed. The big lesson for these internet platforms is […] emergent behaviors is incredibly important. The really successful platforms let users surface the behaviors that the creators of the platform could have never thought of. Twitter has had issues over the years, but […] the compelling ways people have used Twitter have been invented by users. […] It’s not just Twitter. It was true of the personal computer. It was true of smart phones. It’s been true for many of these Internet platforms. It’s a useful principle for product design: let the users innovate.”
Emergent behavior extends far beyond product, and is a useful principle across a number of domains. For me, top of mind are community building, advocacy and organizing, but I do wonder how one tracks and responds to these interactions in an offline environment. You’re operating in an environment wherein the data isn’t (1) readily available, and (2) as responsive, so how do you know when that behavior is indicative of a larger group behavior? What is real and what is noise? If you want to co-create with your community, how do you set up a response system for that kind of interaction?
In any case, as a person that’s constantly holding everything in her head, planning everything from A to Z, I appreciate the reminder to let go, enjoy the magic of improvisation, and make it up as I go along (with co-conspirators, if possible).
(P.S. I just realized that my blogs ask a lot of questions but rarely suggests a hypothesis or attempts to find the answer. I’m going to try to do that more in 2019.)