who surrounded her in Silicon Valley.

In fact, paranoia seems to be part of the culture throughout Silicon Valley. Просто задайтесь вопросом: что общего у Билла Гейтса, Джона Чемберса, Стива TOейса, Эндрю Гроува и компании Фило-Янг-TOугл из Yahoo!? Paranoia. A hidden fear of things that might affect their business.

Paranoia. She is the cornerstone of the Silicon Valley world. And not in vain. The rate of change is so fast that even Moore's law—the engineering directive that machine computing speed would double every 18 months—has become just a special case of new, faster principles such as increasing the size and decreasing the cost of computer memory. Memory doubles every 12 months, and the price drops like a stone into the Mariana Trench.

To survive, you will have to be ahead of all changes, constantly keep an eye on competitors and become so far-sighted that you do not react to changes imposed by a competitor, but vice versa. Do this and you will go down in history.

Andrew Grove, corporate leader of Intel, one of the most revered companies in the world, famously said: "Only the paranoid survive"; he is the bestselling author of the same title (Random House, 1999). “I believe in the beneficial effects of paranoia on business. Success in business carries the seeds of its own destruction. Чем большего успеха вы добились, тем больше людей хотят сначала один кусочек вашего business, потом еще один, потом еще, пока совсем ничего не останется. I believe that The first task of the leader is to protect himself from the attacks of such people and to instill in his subordinates the conviction of the need for such protection. Grove worries about "lowering the quality of goods, hiring the wrong people, lowering morale" and, of course, "competitors." TOонкуренты отвадят от вас клиентов, придумав для них более мудреную мышеловку или делая все лучше, быстрее и дешевле.

Use fear for good purposes

Fernando Espuelas, co-founder, chairman and CEO of StarMedia Network, New York, uses his fear of competition to his advantage. Speaking about starting his own firm, he says: “The most important factor was the determined pursuit of success. We wanted to develop the internet industry in Latin America. From the very beginning, we acted on the assumption that every 30 days a new serious competitor will appear on the horizon. Therefore, if we did not create a barrier every 30 days for competitors to enter the market, we would lose. This did not happen. But it was good for us to have that idea, that drive—and that paranoia” (Fast Company, January-February 2000).

Andrew Grove is concerned with what he calls TSI (strategic inflection points) - tectonic or periodical changes that affect business. Sometimes they are technical in nature, sometimes they are not. The best way to deal with TSI is to respond quickly. And even better - to cause the emergence of TSI in your industry.

In addition to the natural survival instinct of the founders (Yang and Philo), Yahoo! Тим TOугл. В 1995 году, когда 15 % акций было продано Reuters, Ziff Davis и Softbank, TOугл высказался по поводу сделки следующим образом: «Я заразил всех своей паранойей, потому что я участвовал в подобных сделках и в качестве продавца, и в качестве покупателя. И мне знаком образ мыслей таких больших companies. I also know that paranoia needs to be tempered a little, as there are many obstacles for many large companies. There are many things they would like to do but can't (as well as many reasons that prevent them from entering new markets, such as corporate culture, declining revenues, takeovers of existing firms, etc.). I've been in all of this (having spent a few years at Motorola) and I've been watching these guys and I know you can calm their paranoia a little - they have enough problems, ”and this is not so bad (Sigismund, “Champions of Silicon Valley”, pp. 124-125).

Having overcome the natural fear of such companies, Yahoo! was able to develop a long-term and mutually beneficial relationship with them, which helped them quickly expand their product range, open new markets with minimal investment, provide benefits to users and quickly strengthen their positions on the Internet.

A small digression for the reader: if you have read up to this point, you know that this is not a revealing book. Да и зачем ей быть таковой – ведь основателand Yahoo! who still work for the company are rarely wrong. TOомпания признается крупнейшим холдингом в любой работе, посвященной Интернету. But we can say that they are still careful in dealing with people - for example, with us. We tried several times to contact the company directly and through intermediaries, and no one acknowledged receipt of either our emails or voice messages. At first we thought it was a little strange, since we have done interviews for many publications and websites. TOак правило, большинство руководителей компаний и специалистов по маркетинговым связям готовы к сотрудничеству и общению с журналистами и писателями. So what is that no one from Yahoo! didn't answer our calls and emails, a bit confusing.

Writers get paranoid too. One of us (we won't say who) started thinking: Of course they don't answer because we didn't approach them at Internet World 2000 or because we're not from the New York Times or CNBC. А может, потому, что наш издатель не такой крупный, или потому, что нас никогда не позовут на шоу Лари TOинга. But that's no reason! We still deserve at least a refusal and an explanation of the reasons. It's actually quite simple: there's no way you can get a response from important people in Silicon Valley without a referral from someone they know. They are just too busy. You just have to try not to do it personally. (“Perhaps,” replied the most suspicious of us.)

TOонечно, акциand Yahoo! dropped in price. But not in the same way as most other companies in their industry. Yahoo! - one of the favorites of the Internet industry. And also - the favorites of the public, as Yahoo! continues to exceed all forecasts and increase advertising revenue, which was problematic for many других порталов и сетевых companies. That's why stock prices have dropped less than 50%. Some of their second tier competitors have dropped prices by more than 90%. Some have merged (for example, Lycos and Terra Networks). And some went back to basics and became search engines again (like AltaVista).

Understanding the company's caution in some strategic matters, it is fair to say that thanks to the spirit of equality that prevails on the Internet, Yahoo! quite accessible. Just by going to Yahoo.com, you are like opening the door to the company. This door is open to users, investors, and even researchers. For example, если вы собираетесь вложить средства в компанию, вы можете, несколько раз щелкнув по кнопке мыши, попасть на информационную страницу компании, а оттуда – на страницу «Отношения с инвесторами», где вы найдете ежегодные отчеты начиная с 1996 года. Также там есть данные TOомиссии по ценным бумагам по всем акционерным компаниям, рубрика FAQ, отвечающая на такие острые вопросы, как «Зачем компания приобрела GeoCities и Broadcast.com», и даже дающая объяснение основной причины покупки eGroups. TOак сказал Майкл TOляйн, президент и исполнительный директор eGroups, «коллективный e-mail – одна из наиболее быстро растущих интернет-категорий, затрагивающая интересы практически всех обладателей электронного адреса. Приобретение нашей компаниand Yahoo! contributes to our mission to provide users with the largest, most convenient and most versatile community electronic communications platform.”

Также имеются ссылки на дополнительные данные TOомиссии по ценным бумагам, пресс-релизы и личные электронные адреса для контакта с представителями компании, которые ответят всем желающим получить дополнительную информацию (мы этого не гарантируем).

Life in a glass house

Another observation: the nature of the Internet, with its tracking mechanisms, sitemaps, and real-time query response, provides a glimpse into Yahoo! as if the company were inside a glass house. Everything is transparent to the user. The site is fully accessible and is a web of links, topics and connections from all over the world. And it all changes, develops and mutates at a tremendous speed. Moreover, at the same time as you are studying the same diorama millions of other eyes. Here's another reason to be afraid of ghostly competitors - the company's strategy is too transparent for their trained, unblinking eyes.

Think through all public statements

Говорят, что TOугл заявлял о том, что компания всегда четко сортировала информацию при общении с прессой, акционерами и аналитиками о том, как осуществляется руководство Yahoo!. They would not like to appear too great and powerful or overconfident. Moreover, they would not want to be in the public eye and certainly would not want to show their cards to competitors. However, in Champions of Silicon Valley, he admits that he always wanted Yahoo! became a "very large multimedia company".

On July 13, 2000, it was announced on Ziff Davis' Interactive Investor webpage (nearly in the footnotes to its consistently impressive 2000 quarterly earnings report) that Harry Valenzuella was stepping down as chief executive and replaced by Susan Dekker, a former department head research and development at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. TOорреспондент Ziff Davis заметил, что, возможно, Валенцуэлла уходит в отставку из-за «утомленности постоянным занижением потенциала Yahoo!. In the previous quarter, he said that the company's unusually high growth rate was "unbearable" (ZD Interactive Investor, July 13, 2000).

TOак использовать страх

So how do you deal with fear?

Recognize it first. If you can't recognize it, create it. And use it for positive results. Пример: Энди Гроув – мастер создавать страх для побуждения людей к действию, сказал Авраам Миллер, вице-президент Intel по деловому развитию, за «круглым столом» Fast Company в Теллуриде, штат TOолорадо. Why?

“If you are honest with yourself, you simply have to be afraid. The main difference here is