John Lilly
Partner at Greylock, former CEO at Mozilla, dad, husband, son, nerd
Discussion
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
Hi! I’m John, one of the general partners here at Greylock. I’ve been an investor here for the last 4 1/2 years, and invest in a variety of different consumer and enterprise companies — Tumblr, Instagram, Dropbox, Jack Mobile (in stealth), Sparks, ClearSlide, and a few others that will become more public shortly.
Before this, I ran Mozilla for a few years, starting there in 2005, shortly after the launch of Firefox 1.0 — I was lucky to help build it up to ~25% of Internet usage by 2010. Other stuff I’ve done includes starting my own company, Reactivity (sold to Cisco in 2007), working at Apple when SJ came back, and teaching at the Stanford d.school. My educational background is from Stanford in Computer Science, Design & Electrical Engineering.
Mostly, I’m a nerd & love software and hardware of all sorts. Ask me anything. :)
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Josh Elman
@joshelman · Partner, Greylock
Hey John! Right now it seems like most investors just focus on growth and metrics but not all great things grow quickly. Even more it can take years of building something first. What do you say to entrepreneurs building products that take more technology to build up front?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@joshelman Hi Josh! :) Mostly I think that all of these overnight successes are, generally, experiencing that in about the thousandth day or more of existence. Everything interesting takes time. So have a view of the world you want to build, and start to figure out how to make it. Find people who believe in your vision, get them to come along with you. Raise enough money to go. Don't grow burn too fast. But mostly: make sure you know what your north star is; why you're doing it; what you want to build eventually.
Mike Payne
@loveofweb · Mobile, UX & UI Designer, ClearSlide
@johnolilly What are some of your favorite mobile apps out there right now?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@loveofweb There are some great ones. I have loved Pocket since it was ReadItLater. I use Wunderlist every day. I LOVE Quip (as an app & a system) and think it's under appreciated. Timehop is one of my very favorite emotionally. I use the hell out of Feedly, all day every day. And right now, Yahoo Fantasy Football, but I use that because I have to, not because it's Amazeballs.
Mike Payne
@loveofweb · Mobile, UX & UI Designer, ClearSlide
@johnolilly and of course ClearSlide Mail :)
Casey Newton
@caseynewton · Silicon Valley editor, The Verge
@johnolilly Hi John! What is the origin of your classic Twitter catchphrase, MFBT?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@caseynewton Casey, you're the best. As you know, MFBT stands for Motherfucking Booze Time. It's a classic that (our Canadian, I'm pretty sure) folks at Mozilla started back in 2005 or 2006? Means, roughly, "Screw it, I've had enough of this for today." Now we just use it as a phrase to have fun with each other. And of course, a Google search yields Mozilla Framework Based Templates. One of my favorite trolls. :)
Casey Newton
@caseynewton · Silicon Valley editor, The Verge
@johnolilly Fantastic! Thanks.
Mike Connor
@mconnor · Various Things, Mozilla
@johnolilly 100% Canadian Mafia. The inspiration came from http://www.marriedtothesea.com/i... .
Ryan Hoover
@rrhoover · Founder, Product Hunt
John! Welcome. Before Product Hunt, as I was exploring what to do next after PlayHaven, I considered getting into venture capital. In your opinion what type of person makes a good investor and for those VC curious, what advice would you have for those trying to break in?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@rrhoover for folks trying to break in, the short answer is do whatever it takes to be around & involved with as many interesting companies as you can. As for what type of person makes a great investor, I think all the really great investors are different. My partners David & Aneel & Reid & Asheem, all astonishingly great investors, are very very very different in make up and thought process and approach. And they're different than, say Mike Moritz or Bill Gurley or others. Lots of ways to be successful -- I think the core is figuring out what you are really, really good at that's differentiated, and figuring out how to work that angle as hard as you possibly can.
Tomas Ruta
@tomasruta · Growth Lead @ Founders Factory
@johnolilly Do you have any "Requests for Startups" - ie things that you would like someone else built (or problems someone else solved)?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@tomasruta Nah. I want people to build the things that they think the world needs. VCs are incredibly, incredibly bad at thinking about what needs doing.
Tomas Ruta
@tomasruta · Growth Lead @ Founders Factory
@johnolilly What’s it like to work with Reid Hoffman?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@tomasruta Reid's terrific, obviously. One of the great thinkers of our industry and broader society, but also just a great human and collaborator. We've worked together on a lot of things -- Mozilla, Greylock, a bunch of other stuff. He's fundamentally generous and helpful. Great partner to have. (Lots of my other partners and collaborators also amazing, just less well known.)
Ray Garcia
@raygcreative · Founder @teleporme
@johnolilly Being able to find the right partners in a business is priceless. You're a lucky man.
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@raygcreative It is everything. The people you work with & live with are the most important thing.
Ray Garcia
@raygcreative · Founder @teleporme
@johnolilly I couldn't have said it better myself. Those two groups of people make up about 90% of the folks I spend my time with on a daily basis, and I'm sure that's accurate for most people. Being able to maintain good and healthy relationships with them can only have a positive impact on all the other aspects of life.
Paul Robert Cary
@prcary · CEO, Findie | www.findie.me
@johnolilly Hi John. Thanks for doing this. How big of a threat is Popcorn Time to Netflix, Apple, HBO, Amazon, Hulu etc and what can they do about it?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@paulrobertcary Hi Paul! Interesting. I think it shows that people want easier & easier ways to watch videos. But I guess I'm sort of a simple guy, and think that in the main, most consumers want to pay for things that they value (like videos), because it's fair. Right now, I think that networks and distribution platforms make it harder to do the right thing than the wrong thing, but I think most people do want to do the right thing. So...I think that Popcorn Time will mostly be on the margins, not the mainstream, and it will mostly put pressure on the networks to figure out how to really deliver easier & better ways to view content.
Paul Robert Cary
@prcary · CEO, Findie | www.findie.me
@johnolilly Thanks. I see it on the margins perhaps in certain countries but not others. I think everyone who's traveled and done business around the world has a view on which countries have a culture that looks favourably on those who don't pay for things if they don't have to, and digital is one of those products that can be replicated and distributed n times, almost instantly, at practically zero cost.
WallyDZ
@wally_dz · Developer, SYS Admin @ Popcorn Time.io
@paulrobertcary , I think Movie industry should start think about a global payment method ( Example : Bitcoin ) , I think as a Popcorn Time Team member i will be glad to add a button where people can pay ( If They want ) for a watched movie , i still think that everyone will benefit from that and specially Hollywood ( we are not Looking to take any commision ) not like All those companies ( Rightscorp )
Paul Robert Cary
@prcary · CEO, Findie | www.findie.me
@wally_dz Why isn't there already a payment button in Popcorn Time? Even if it just connected to a central PayPal account where you deposit money first and then figure out the rights management later, at least you would be able to measure your users' willingness to pay for content that they cannot otherwise access by legitimate means. I don't think big movie distributors make it easy for consumers globally to access what they want, but Popcorn Time should self-police and block itself in countries where content is available through legitimate channels. When you start doing that, people's opinions may change. The CEO of Spotify was the CEO of uTorrent. It happens.
Kevin Kwok
@kevinakwok · Playing with puppies at Greylock
Who are the people who've most shaped your path?
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@kevinakwok well, my parents (awwww) & grandparents. my wife. now, my kids (I am *excellent* at Mario Kart 8 and ping pong). Work-wise, way too many to mention. My manager at Apple, Jim Spohrer, was seminal. My co-founders at Reactivity Bryan Rollins (now GM of Jira), Brian Roddy (now VP OpenDNS/Cisco), Mike Hanson (now CTO at Jack Mobile). Mitch Kapor, my first investor, taught me a ton about how to build companies that I care about. Terry Winograd, my advisor at Stanford, where I first learned design. And Reid for sure -- my partner now, but also coconspirator on many projects including Mozilla. Mitchell Baker at Mozilla. We all stand on the shoulders of giants.
Sydney Liu
@sydney_liu_sl · Co-Founder of Commaful
Hi John,
Thanks for doing the AMA!
Your business partner Reid Hoffman said that he learned a lot about great products integrating strong technology as well as design.
What product do you think integrates tech and design exceptionally well and what makes it great?
Thanks!
Sydney
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John Lilly
@johnolilly · Partner, Greylock
@sydney_liu_sl my favorite is Sonos. Not because of the UX, which I think is kind of a mess, but because of the systems thinking of the whole product. It's resulted in our house being full of music everywhere, nearly all the time. The quality of life increase is meaningful. And now our 3 & 10 year old sons are DJing a fair amount, which is fun -- although it results in probably more Maroon 5 and Frozen Soundtrack than you'd really say was ideal.