welcome back for lightning well let’s
get right to it all right so ash is AOL
a good candidate for private equity only
if the private equity firm has amnesia
and forgets the massive amount of wealth
destroyed and I’m not saying this to be
rude to you well I think it made sense
but I think that a lot of the guys who
were going to make the decision remember
the time warner deal where they lost so
much value i think it would have made
more sense when AOL was spun off from
time warner like 22 years ago or
whatever i think right now you’ve seen
40 plus percent evaporation of wealth
financially it makes sense i think
there’s just too many people in the
decision-making process that feel like
this is a falling knife it’s we’re going
to get cut what’s the point fair enough
my turn to ask you a question so there
was a recent study in forbes that said
that social heavy social media users on
Facebook in particular are actually less
social in real life are you shocked no
I’m not shocked at all and I’m going to
sound a little bit cynical here but
intuitively it kind of makes sense I
said a heavy social media user is
someone who’s constantly wired in there
a little bit of a geek and you know the
stereotype of a geek kind of stipulates
that you have no life offline in a
similar vein I’ve been to a lot of
conferences and you get all these people
in a room and they’re so excited to be
in a room to with each other because you
are we going with this well this is
before they have too much to drink and
they tweet with each other and they
Facebook each other all year long they
finally get in a room and what do they
do they pull out their phones and they
tweet about how they’re in a room with
everyone but no one’s actually having a
conversation so no I doesn’t surprise me
at all that heavy social media users are
a little bit reclusive and almost have
this duplicitous personality between
online and offline nothing to add to
that ok now for you Ashton Kutcher
recently wrote about some technology he
didn’t disclose which ones he invested
in how much disclosure is enough how
much is too much ok I think it should
always be safe and disclose what you
think should be disclosed but I’m gonna
take a different angle with the answer I
think the bigger issue is when you’re on
the internet basically everything is a
google search away so if you’re reading
this you’re like wait a second is
actually saying this because he’s got
skin in the game or does he genuinely
feel this way he’s impartial you could
do a search and more or less land on his
crunchbase profile or whatever and
whether or not he’s got money behind the
company or not but I think in a magazine
again you could be reading this in a
plane you could be reading this
somewhere with no additional sort of
resources so I think if you are writing
for that medium you should be a lot more
careful with disclosure because once
that goes out you also can’t add it
after the fact whereas on a website if
somebody starts subjecting you could add
an updated blog entry post whatever so I
think not all mediums are created
equally when it comes to disclosure sad
the truth I would even argue that when
you’re online because you can quickly
link to all your references you and it’s
that easy you should be that much more
transparent that’s true so let me ask
you something you advise a client do you
tell them to basically either focus on
let’s say media and content or do you
tell them you know or technology or do
sometimes tell like a client no you got
to own it all you got to own the content
the media the tech the software how do
you have an overriding philosophy on
these things I I generally advise
clients to focus on whatever however
they make money first and once they have
that down pat then they can branch out
and other things for example if you’re a
major publication focus on your content
that’s what you do your content
producers outsource the technology
preferably get something that’s open
source if it’s available and you you
know trust the guys who are customizing
it but yeah don’t get bogged down in
creating you know reinventing the wheel
have someone in-house who understands
what’s being sold to you who understands
what’s being built for you but don’t get
your hands into it yeah I will comment
on this because this past week ooh y
Allah basically land deal there are 0 BP
online video platform they landed to
deal with ESPN which is a unit of Disney
and I think there’s any steam bold
venture fund initially invested in all
these tech plates building their own
platform and all that but I think they
get to a point where they realize that
they’re better off handing it off to
someone that’s just you know
best-of-breed focuses on that so they
can focus on content I agree with you I
think if you can make money from
something then why not sort of put in
some resources but if it’s just going to
be a cost unit then I think you’re
biting off more than you can shoot yeah
I would be like watchmojo getting into
making video cameras to try to save them
themselves some money 15 years down the
line yeah but then why did we launched a
video player we’re stupid okay we’re
gonna take a short break we’re going to
come back for the email of the week
get right to it all right so ash is AOL
a good candidate for private equity only
if the private equity firm has amnesia
and forgets the massive amount of wealth
destroyed and I’m not saying this to be
rude to you well I think it made sense
but I think that a lot of the guys who
were going to make the decision remember
the time warner deal where they lost so
much value i think it would have made
more sense when AOL was spun off from
time warner like 22 years ago or
whatever i think right now you’ve seen
40 plus percent evaporation of wealth
financially it makes sense i think
there’s just too many people in the
decision-making process that feel like
this is a falling knife it’s we’re going
to get cut what’s the point fair enough
my turn to ask you a question so there
was a recent study in forbes that said
that social heavy social media users on
Facebook in particular are actually less
social in real life are you shocked no
I’m not shocked at all and I’m going to
sound a little bit cynical here but
intuitively it kind of makes sense I
said a heavy social media user is
someone who’s constantly wired in there
a little bit of a geek and you know the
stereotype of a geek kind of stipulates
that you have no life offline in a
similar vein I’ve been to a lot of
conferences and you get all these people
in a room and they’re so excited to be
in a room to with each other because you
are we going with this well this is
before they have too much to drink and
they tweet with each other and they
Facebook each other all year long they
finally get in a room and what do they
do they pull out their phones and they
tweet about how they’re in a room with
everyone but no one’s actually having a
conversation so no I doesn’t surprise me
at all that heavy social media users are
a little bit reclusive and almost have
this duplicitous personality between
online and offline nothing to add to
that ok now for you Ashton Kutcher
recently wrote about some technology he
didn’t disclose which ones he invested
in how much disclosure is enough how
much is too much ok I think it should
always be safe and disclose what you
think should be disclosed but I’m gonna
take a different angle with the answer I
think the bigger issue is when you’re on
the internet basically everything is a
google search away so if you’re reading
this you’re like wait a second is
actually saying this because he’s got
skin in the game or does he genuinely
feel this way he’s impartial you could
do a search and more or less land on his
crunchbase profile or whatever and
whether or not he’s got money behind the
company or not but I think in a magazine
again you could be reading this in a
plane you could be reading this
somewhere with no additional sort of
resources so I think if you are writing
for that medium you should be a lot more
careful with disclosure because once
that goes out you also can’t add it
after the fact whereas on a website if
somebody starts subjecting you could add
an updated blog entry post whatever so I
think not all mediums are created
equally when it comes to disclosure sad
the truth I would even argue that when
you’re online because you can quickly
link to all your references you and it’s
that easy you should be that much more
transparent that’s true so let me ask
you something you advise a client do you
tell them to basically either focus on
let’s say media and content or do you
tell them you know or technology or do
sometimes tell like a client no you got
to own it all you got to own the content
the media the tech the software how do
you have an overriding philosophy on
these things I I generally advise
clients to focus on whatever however
they make money first and once they have
that down pat then they can branch out
and other things for example if you’re a
major publication focus on your content
that’s what you do your content
producers outsource the technology
preferably get something that’s open
source if it’s available and you you
know trust the guys who are customizing
it but yeah don’t get bogged down in
creating you know reinventing the wheel
have someone in-house who understands
what’s being sold to you who understands
what’s being built for you but don’t get
your hands into it yeah I will comment
on this because this past week ooh y
Allah basically land deal there are 0 BP
online video platform they landed to
deal with ESPN which is a unit of Disney
and I think there’s any steam bold
venture fund initially invested in all
these tech plates building their own
platform and all that but I think they
get to a point where they realize that
they’re better off handing it off to
someone that’s just you know
best-of-breed focuses on that so they
can focus on content I agree with you I
think if you can make money from
something then why not sort of put in
some resources but if it’s just going to
be a cost unit then I think you’re
biting off more than you can shoot yeah
I would be like watchmojo getting into
making video cameras to try to save them
themselves some money 15 years down the
line yeah but then why did we launched a
video player we’re stupid okay we’re
gonna take a short break we’re going to
come back for the email of the week
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