My favorite speaking gigs are ones where I can have real-life conversations on stage with peers, journalists, and the audience. One such event was the most recent Geekwire Summit in Seattle. Even better was this conversation wasn’t just with me, but included my good friend Bill Gurley from Benchmark. I joined Benchmark as a Venture Partner after I left Expedia and have had the pleasure of working with Bill and the rest of the team for years. Bill is the rare wicked smart guy who can also communicate his analyses and opinions through compelling analogies and in with a “hat in hand” Texan’s drawl. Check out his influential blog, Above the Crowd. He’s added huge value on the boards of several of my companies.
I appreciate John Cook, Todd Bishop and Jonathan Sposato for creating the great forum to have such a fun and lively dialogue. Let’s all help make the Geekwire Summit a northern rival to Techcrunch Disrupt. John posted about the conversation on Geekwire, and you can see the full replay below.
While this type of format seems a little Shark Tank-esque, it is always interesting to hear from entrepreneurs, especially when they must pitch their business in six minutes or less. It’s really, really hard. Tech Crunch puts on a great event, and it was great to catch up with folks I haven’t seen in awhile. Especially enjoyed chatting with Tech Crunch’s Colleen Taylor on TCTV.
My recent “Kill the Squirrel” comment at the Washington State Technology Alliance lunch has nothing to do with animal cruelty – trust me. But, it does have everything to do with being steadfast in business strategy. As the phrase was making the Twitter rounds, Geekwire’s John Cook documented it. To clarify, I merely borrowed a phrase my dad used years ago when teaching me to drive.
The luncheon was a great afternoon, and my conversation with UW Professor Ed Lazowska was terrific, thanks in part to the questions that came in via Twitter. The video of the event is below.
