<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything can be traced back to a guy called Frank Marshall. He\u2019s an amazing guy and was on the board of the Silicon Valley company that laid me off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t really know me, but he knew my name. We targeted him as we knew that he could put us in touch with people who could help the business take off.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He was speaking at Carnegie Mellon University and we just crashed the event. He gave us an hour of his time, heard us out and put us in touch with VCs who would give us their time.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We got pretty close with Sequoia, maybe seven out of 10. That\u2019s not bad. They introduced us to Google, which is where it got interesting.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The reason that Sequoia didn\u2019t want to invest in us was exactly the reason Google wanted to buy us. Google didn\u2019t have anything like that at the time and they wanted to keep up with what others were doing. It was a blow to lose the investment, but we had found another way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore Google, we ran the business on my severance pay, my brother moved in with our mum, he sold his car, maxed out his credit card and cashed in a pension. We had no money.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Every night I\u2019d lie awake thinking about the pension I wasn\u2019t paying into. That\u2019s why I always have a lot of respect for people who will change their life to do something new and different.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Once I got to Google, everything changed. In many ways, it was the most enjoyable time of my career. I had the resources, a had a few engineers and we were left to our own devices.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was so much fun. We set up an office in Sydney and decided we could change the world. In a way I was worried because none of the big guns were paying attention to what we were doing, which made me think \u2018are we doing the right thing here?\u2019<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Since then, Google has become 10 times bigger than the small model, but the teams didn\u2019t scale. There was a pretty dramatic shift to central control where everything was directed from the top. I\u2019m not sure I would\u2019ve enjoyed it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When they launched Google+, it went straight up on the toolbar, which was unheard of when I was there. Before, you had to prove yourself \u2013 Google didn\u2019t link to Maps. Even if you searched for it on Google, you got another mapping provider.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t get traffic until we\u2019d proved ourselves, which was good in a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty tense when Google shut down Wave. I can\u2019t say they were really wrong to do so, but it was very hard. I knew it was time to move on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I was disappointed as it was my creation and it failed. It was ambitious, and you should be ambitious, but the mistake was to rely a lot on the resources we had. We grew the team very quickly and based the idea on the resources we had and it\u2019s not clear that it worked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sergey (Brin, co-founder of Google) always said \u2018scarcity brings clarity\u2019 and I wish I\u2019d understood that a bit better. I still believe email is outmoded and we could do something better. But it was painful.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cYou let time pass after failure and then come back with a vengeance. No one is a harsher critic of me than me. You learn and you grow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
People told me that Maps wouldn\u2019t work and if you want to be entrepreneurial, you have to prove them wrong. If people say \u2018this hasn\u2019t been done before, it won\u2019t work\u2019, you need to get past that.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
You try something and it\u2019s a big deal or it\u2019ll fizzle. If it fizzles, it will be painful, but it\u2019s better to have tried and failed than never tried at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m involved in a lot of exciting stuff at Facebook. We are working one project at the moment that was conceived on the inside that is very exciting. No, I can\u2019t tell you what it is. But I\u2019m having lots of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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