JayWeintraub.com - Internet Advertising Analysis and Growth Insights

Zuckerberg versus Disney: Why Facebook Should Buy Netflix

Beginning today, Mark Zuckerberg begins his potentially historic appearances before Congress. Under different circumstances, it would probably be an honor to be called before top lawmakers in the land. But, certainly not today.

Zuckerberg will first appear before a joint hearing led by Senate Committee on the Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee Chairman John Thune (R-S.D.) It is titled, “Facebook, Social Media Privacy, and the Use and Abuse of Data.”

After the Republican hosted Senate hearing, Zuckerberg will then not just appear but testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a bi-partisan session led by E&C Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ). The House’s version of the hearing is slightly more Facebook friendly, entitled “Facebook: Transparency and Use of Consumer Data.”

There is definite irony that political gain is at the heart of the issue in both the root of the scandal and these hearings. In any event, the public (maybe) wants a face, and Zuckerberg is giving the elected officials and the throngs of reporters that will watch the live streams of the hearings, a face.

The now 33 year old CEO of Facebook is no stranger to the spotlight in some ways (he had a book about his life come out when he was just 25), but he has thus far followed in Jeff Bezos’s footsteps — his name is widely known, but far less is known about him. Zuckerberg’s passion and belief in the mission of Facebook will either be the saving grace or give the regulators something to focus on in an era where there are far more pressing dangers than Cambridge Analytica.

My wife, an Ivy League educated lawyer and mother to our almost five-year old twins, uses Facebook as a primary channel for digital consumption. I asked her whether her network was up in arms and all abuzz over Mark Zuckerberg testifying. She knew about it but not from her network on Facebook. It was from her husband assuming that her network must have given up posting details personal and profane to talk about this. One interpretation — the bar is really high for people to really care about the cost of using free services so long as it doesn’t feel like direct harm is happening. I don’t enjoy political ads, but it’s hard to actually feel as though I might have seen more of them as a result of the current scandal. (Then again, based on where I live I probably didn’t.) But, were I a politician, I could see getting really upset about this.

Where does Disney come in? Even with more than 2 billion monthly active users, I would argue users don’t actually love Facebook, and as a result of or vice versa, its CEO. Facebook helps you stay in touch with and up to date on those you love and those you long to be with or be like. You love the photos on Instagram. You love how it can make you seem and what it can make you see. You don’t love Facebook or Instagram, though. You use Facebook and Instagram. You love someone else.

All of this is why, despite the near ubiquity of platform he founded and now leads, the hearing room won’t be full of “Thank You’s” to Mark and congratulations on what he has achieved.

But if Disney were there though… do you think the questions would be as tough, the tone so (presumably) combative?

Disney as a person made millions, and the firm bearing his name now makes billions, from hooking users even earlier than Facebook does; his legacy will be hard to top even though he did not take the 1% pledge and who was in many ways not himself anywhere near as good of a human being as Mark aspires to be. Even the mere mention that Disney (the person) was flawed creates the type of cognitive dissonance that is hard to reconcile. That is the power of love.

So where in all this does Netflix fit? The prosaic answer is content. The business answer is the power of distribution plus content together. It is also being able to connect people and shared experiences in ways like never before. It is digital vertical integration in the vein of Amazon.

The real answer though is love. People love characters. People love stories. People don’t love non-exclusive delivery channels of the things love. They need them, but they don’t love them.

Should Net Worth Be about Your Worth or Your Worth to Others?

One of the many things that has struck me about Donald Trump is the quickness and frequency with which he likes to say, “I’ve made a lot of money.” Every interview, every debate, every rally, ever present is his desire for everyone else to know just how wealthy he is. This, ironically, stands in stark contrast to both old money and the newer tech billionaires — if anything, the enlightened mega-rich have focused far less on conspicuous consumption than conspicuous giving.

True Wealth Creation and the Net Worth Fallacy

Sociologists and evolutionary psychologists could do a far better job than I explaining why we as people care so much about net worth. Similarly, many others can proffer why individual net worth is potentially an antiquated notion. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn’t. But we will certainly not be giving it up any time soon. Instead, I’d like to suggest that net worth is an incomplete metric, and I have to thank Trump’s constant reminders of his net worth for this idea.

I would wager that we as people assume that not only does net worth describe an individual’s wealth, it also describes a person’s contribution to economic and social life (i.e. the creation of jobs). And that is the fundamental problem with net worth. While it describes an individual’s wealth, it doesn’t tell us what they have made or contributed elsewhere. I’m not talking about how much they have given away charitably, but how much additional wealth has been generated as part of their personal accumulation and subsequent impact. This is why I think Silicon Valley respects entrepreneurship so much, perhaps without even knowing it.

Now, back to Trump. Should net worth be a qualification for office? Should we think of him as better qualified because of his individual success? No. We should think of him as better qualified because of the impact his individual success has had on others — how many jobs his wealth has directly created. After all, isn’t that what we’re hoping for in a President?

For illustrative purposes, let’s compare Trump to Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. In both cases, the individual has a greater net worth than any employee, and in many cases, a greater net worth than the sum of their employees’ net worth. But, have Trump’s businesses created 1,000’s of millionaires as a result of his individual vision and success? Not likely, however this is precisely what happened when Facebook IPO’d in 2012.

Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Mark Zuckerberg via Facebook created more millionaires than Trump has created in long-term, sustainable employment. More important to me is what happened after the IPO and thousands of new millionaires were created. Both they and many of the “rank and file” went on to build new businesses, creating even more jobs and wealth. In the case of Bill Gates, we are talking at least 100,000 jobs and almost two generations of employees. Today, that is a quantifiable metric that matters and one that we can also now track.

Takeaway

Not all wealth is created equal. Some forms of wealth creation engender ongoing sustainable businesses, as well as industries and activities that go well beyond how much a founder has in their bank account. One’s true impact cannot be measured just in dollars and cents, but in the way he or she enriches others and society over the long term. As a result, we should be tracking not just how much wealth someone has but how much they have created.

A net worth metric that simply tells you how much a person extracts for themselves is an impoverished way of measuring things. It tends to encourage a superficial attitude. The tired notion of “if you have it, flaunt it” might work for Donald Trump, but I would argue that if we want to “make America great again,” the answer isn’t focusing on one’s self.

Just imagine what might happen if we track how much wealth one has created not in place of how much one has obtained but in addition to it. Imagine what would happen if that led to even a small change in behavior. The impact would be exponential, and if there ever could be real top-down economics, that would be it. After all, simply being rich shouldn’t engender admiration. It is what a person does to make other people better off that deserves praise.

Are You a Singer or a Juggler?

I’ve been a huge fan of America’s Got Talent ever since it came out a decade ago. Now in its 11th season, the show provides what I believe is a great representation of what America should stand for: embracing diversity while acknowledging that we all have something to offer and that  hard work pays off.

But what I most love about the show is the fact that it has transformed reality. The media used to pick talent. Now, the discovery of talent has been thoroughly democratized. Everyone—or at least a much larger group of people who are innately talented—now have the chance of being discovered and “making it.”

The cost of discovery used to be so high. Now it’s not, which is a beautiful thing.

 

The Juggler

As fans of the show will know, this year was the first time that a juggler made it to the final stages—spaces usually reserved for singers. Ukranian-born Viktor Kee took the country by storm with his amazingly choreographed juggling act.

Why is he the first one to make it that far?

There are a few groups of performers—like comedians, magicians, gymnasts, dancers, and musicians—that appear on the show regularly. Musicians always tend to do well. Is it because music is something everyone can relate to?

Music evokes emotion and moves us more than most other things. It gives us energy and releases serotonin. At its core, we become the instrument, clapping our hands and tapping our feet. Before we can even speak, music affects us.

Musicians can get away with a slightly off-pitch note or a missed lyric here and there. But jugglers? Drop a ball and your whole act is finished.

Juggling taps into a narrow band of emotions. If you have ever watched juggling acts, the emotion you are most likely to experience is suspense. And, that is because juggling has binary outcomes; even worse, a successful outcome is not necessarily rewarded. Instead, they just didn’t screw up. It’s like an animal in the Savannah that ventures out to the watering hole. There is no joy, just danger.

What set Kee apart from other jugglers was the fact that juggling turned into a part of his act. He told stories, danced, and contorted his body—evoking emotions to go further than other jugglers had gone before. Really, Kee was more of a stage performer who happened to be skilled at juggling.

 

Are You A Singer or a Juggler

Lesson learned: If we’re just juggling in life, our outcomes can be limiting. Drop the proverbial ball—however slightly—and it can have a direct negative impact on our success.

Here’s an example from my current life: My company has been planning an event (InsureTech Connect) where we envision entrepreneurs and venture capitalists getting to meet one another in a productive and collaborative setting. As we began hammering out the details, we were forced to consider a slew of questions:

 

• How many VCs should be invited?
• How many entrepreneurs?
• Should we only do it one time?
• Should we do it over both days of the conference?

 

The “juggling” aspect of this all became very noticeable. We believed it was a great idea, but if there was one slip up—let’s say not enough VCs showed up—the entire experience would feel off. There’d be empty spaces where you’d be able to envision a VC should be.

 

Ultimately, we decided to hold the event over one day with half the number of VCs than we initially planned on targeting. That guaranteed that everyone would show up. The worst-case scenario now became the chance that the event was too busy and you couldn’t find the time to chat with someone. Those who would be able to meet with a VC would value their time that much more.  

 

With everything you do, there’s always an execution risk. Elements that are more juggling-related, where there can be a slight miss, tend to have a larger shock impact when things go wrong and the ball is proverbially dropped. Those impacts can overshadow everything else that you’ve done.

 

Bottom line: Be cognizant of what your misses are and whether or not they have the ability to dwarf everything else you’re doing. Adjust your plans accordingly, and you’ll be that much likelier to make it to the championship.

 

Tech Didn’t Invent Growth Hacking—It Just Popularized It

Though it might have been called something different back in the day, growth hacking has been around for quite some time. A lot of us just mistakenly pair the term with today’s tech ethos.

 

Despite what you might think, growth hacking has been an integral part of business for at least four decades—and probably a lot longer.

 

How do I know that?

 

Over the July 4th weekend, I was able to spend time with my family, including an uncle I have not seen but a handful of times, as traveling with infant twins is not the most fun for me. He has great stories and life experiences.

 

I love listening to stories from different generations because there always seems to be a parallel that spurs thought. And it turns out that through this conversation with my uncle, I ended up finding out about some unexpected truths of growth hacking, or as I now define it, the process of investing time and energy to produce non-linear yields.

 

Growth Hacking in the Past

My uncle had to attend college at night in order to support his ill parents, my paternal grandparents whom I never met. He ended up turning a family tchotchke shop run out of their garage into a 27,000 square foot fine china store and the go-to place in town for high end offerings. The business and brand became so strong that he ultimately sold it.

 

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, my uncle’s shop was collocated with a jeweler. At the time, my uncle knew a sales rep who worked for a now-well-known brand that was struggling back then. Jewelers didn’t want to carry the, at the time, unknown and presumably unpopular brand.

 

Rather than giving up, the rep devised a pretty slick scheme to make sure jewelry stores started carrying his watches. He hired a bunch of people to pretend to be customers and call area jewelry stores telling them they saw people wearing the brand’s watches and asking whether they carried them.

 

The stores told the faux customers they didn’t carry the brand. But eventually, shop owners asked the rep whether they could indeed sell the brand.

 

Today, we’d call this growth hacking.

 

Growth Hacking Isn’t New

As mentioned at the start of this piece, we tend to think of growth hacking as internet-driven phenomenon. But it’s really not. If anything, an understanding of tech helps, e.g., the watch sales rep leveraged phones and understood caller ID workarounds.

 

But it wasn’t the primary driver.

 

Growth hacking, in the truest sense, is not an internet or tech mechanism. It’s not about a viral coefficient. To drive business, you need to understand your market, your product, and growth. You also need an innate understanding of how people react.

 

Once you realize your product isn’t seeing success on the market, turn to growth hacking to try and figure out how to make it work. But you need to remember that no growth hack is going to catapult a terrible product to the top. You need to have a solid product in the first place.

 

Back to the watch sales rep: The watches weren’t in stores, but the rep knew they were great. Thanks to his growth hacks, stores started carrying them and they took off. But that never would have happened, on any sustained basis, if the watches were terrible products.

 

Real Growth Hacking is Timeless

In the end, there is a timeless to growth hacking. But it also means we need to get beyond the term “growth hacking”—which is often associated with quick wins and unscalable models. I had that connotation, which meant I missed that perhaps growth hacking is so popular is because it’s been going on forever.

 

The tech industry just decided to give it a name.

 

It bears repeating: Growth hacking will only work if the product deserves the fit. You can’t hit scale with a bad product. The only reason the term is so sticky is due to the fact it describes smart, savvy people building businesses. It is about more than “grit” and “hustle.” It is also about market insight and strategy.

 

So, while technology didn’t create growth hacking, it certainly made it more accessible by lowering the bar—which is both a blessing and a curse. That is why, today, anyone can become a “growth hacker.” But, not everyone has implemented any real growth hacks.

Putt-ing Golf’s Most Famous Saying To Use

This post originally appeared on Medium. 

---

“Drive for show and putt for dough”

This famous maxim, familiar to all golfers and golf enthusiasts, was coined by Bobby Locke, a legendary PGA golfer and the first South African to win a major. In some ways, Locke’s saying is golf’s version of “It ain’t over ’til the fat lady sings”. The main idea is that it doesn’t really matter how far you hit the ball off the tee if you can’t finish it off with your putter.

And as summer approaches, another year of golf’s most exciting tournaments sit right around the corner. Just look at Dustin Johnson’s historic collapse at the 2015 U.S. Open last June - nothing in golf is crueler than traveling hundreds of yards in a few strokes only to pay the price in mere feet and inches on the green.

Unlike celebratory expressions such as “Nothing but net” however, golf’s “drive for show, putt for dough” isn’t just an external observation praising a sweet swing or a clean putt.

Instead, I think Locke’s saying can actually be construed as internal reinforcement, and a method for doing business.

Golf’s Shiniest Object

Driving the ball straight down the fairway (aka teeing off) is golf’s equivalent to an ace in tennis, or a slam dunk in basketball. Everyone can appreciate the loud sound the ball makes coming off the clubface, flying high into the air out of sight.

Done especially well, it is a movement worthy of admiration: with one swing, the ball rockets off the tee, soars into the air, and (if you’re Rory McIlroy, or Tiger Woods back in his prime) travels the length of three football fields before landing - hopefully - near the hole.

The drive is effectively golf’s version of the silverback male. Everyone, from novice to expert, is impressed by its raw power, its controlled aggression, and the precision with which pros power the ball to a pinpoint spot on the far away green.

While I was lucky enough to play competitive golf in college, I was unlucky enough to be surrounded by a lot of tall guys - which meant I was almost always the shortest golfer off the tee.

I can’t even count the number of times where I tried to suppress the thought that it would be a hell of a lot nicer to be down the fairway with the other guy who had casually hammered his ball a mile and half further than me. Man, I thought to myself, the game would be so much easier if only I could hit the ball further.

Mistaken Priorities

Serious golfers spend fortunes on the latest drivers. They commit hours and hours of practice at the driving range in the hope of extending their reach just a few feet. Crowds ooh and aah admiringly when they see a massive 300-yard thwack from the tee. Why wouldn’t they?

Yet, even if drive competitions are televised, the championships, the golfing careers, and ultimately the all-important pay-checks are usually won or lost with putting. If a golfer really wants to lower his handicap, he’d reallocate that driver money to better putters, and more discipline practicing around the green.

Whereas envy is measured in yards (the measure of drives), legends are made in the game of inches, i.e., in putting. This is why I think “drive for show, putt for dough” is a mantra for business.

It is a way to remind one what really matters. It is a way to avoid the noise, the obvious distractions, the easy comparisons. It is way to achieve mastery and success without being the loudest, most impressive person in the room.

An Adage To Live By

Far from being just about a golfing tip, “drive for show, putt for dough” can easily be seen as an analogy for life, and is especially apt for business.

Every day, we are surrounded by the things that feel like they matter. These are the equivalent to the long drive. Your instinct tells you they matter. It tells you need to do that in order to be good, to be successful and get recognition.

But, in reality, they aren't actually what will help you win. They may feel good. They may look good to others. They may even make you look good to others.

But it isn't what makes you look good to others that will make the difference.

It is those things that aren’t sexy, aren’t surface level, those things that are the game of inches that will make your legend. It comes down to the time you spend perfecting the little things on your own, while everyone else watches the big attention-drawing show.

So my advice - and something I work on daily and credit for our successes - is to stow your driver and find the things in your area of business that are ‘the putt for dough’.

 

I'm the CEO of NextCustomer, creators of leading summits for future industries and platforms. 

Join 1000+ insurance industry leaders this October 5th & 6th in Las Vegas at THE next-gen insurance event. Find out more at InsureTechConnect.com

Related articles

Lessons in Life and Leadership from Second Place

What You Know Gets Your Hired. Who You Know Makes You Rich.