Keynotes from the Web 2.0 Summit

Well, I've read my fair share of O'Reilly books (mostly about the LAMP stack), but this is the first Tim O'Reilly keynote that I've attended. Mercifully, the keynotes for this conference are after lunch and not the usual breakfast keynote. (I guess these guys like to sleep in as well.) So here I am sitting next to Martin in the Palace Hotel's grand ballroom, listening to the keynotes. During this afternoon's keynotes, Tim and John Battelle are interviewing several guests in a format similar to a late-night talkshow. Here are some highlights from the keynotes:

Larry Brilliant - Google.org. 1% of the equity of google, 1% of the profits, and 1% of employee time will be used for non-profit purposes. The 1% model was "borrowed" from Marc Benioff at Salesforce. They use a VC-like model to decide which causes to fund. They go after "big problems" that need solving where Google can make a unique difference.

Mary Meeker - Morgan Stanley

• Lots of financial data on the economy. (slides)
• Facebook: 161M visitors
• Youtube: 329M visitors
• Skype: 370M visitors
  
• Paypal: 65M visitors - $15B total payment volume (TPV). Non-eBay payment volume up +49% Y/Y.
• Ad supply > demand, so CPM's are dropping.
• China added 73M Internet users in 2007. USA added 9.8M.
  
• China added 86M mobine subscribers in 2007, India added 68M.
  

Rajesh Jain - MD Netcore Solutions

• Novatium: $100 network computer for Indian market. 50M middle-class households in India, but only 8M have computers. Their market: the 30M households who visit cybercafes.
  
• NetCore: using SMS for news channels & search on cell phones. SMS is also being used for advertising on phones in India. 4x the traffic of twitter.
  

John Doerr - Kleiner Perkins
His priorities

• Increase US government spend in green energy to $1B/yr. (E.g., healthcare: $32B/yr)
• Double the number of engineering and science graduates in the USA (from 30K/yr to 60K/yr)
• Restore DARPA to its former self as a research driver, but focused on energy.
• 2000: $100B VC money invested (50% in Internet ventures)
  
• 2007: $37B VC money
• 2008: $15B VC money
• 2009: $8B VC money
• Doesn't think there will be a market for exits for a couple of years. Prepare and "hunker down"
• Kleiner: spending 30% in digital, 30% in green, life sciences a little smaller.
  

Tips

1. Act now. Get a loan or secure more financing.
   
2. Protect the vital core of the business. Cut once, cut deep enough.
3. Make sure you have 18 months of cash on conservative revenue forecast. Talk to current investors and ask for additional funding now.
   
4. Defer facilities expansion, capital, and software.
5. Re-evaluate R&D priorities.
6. Renegotiate any and all current contracts & leases.
7. Everyone in the company should be selling the company's value prop.
8. Offer equity instead of cash.
9. Secure cash in government-backed securities instead of money-market funds. Still thinks a major bank will fail.
   
10. Know your revenue plan. Understand the leading indicators. React quickly.
    
11. Over-communicate. Do not sugarcoat.