Back in 2014, I gave a presentation at First Round Capital’s CTO Summit on engineering recruiting, which the talented First Round content team then turned into this article: The Simple Numbers That Could Change How You Hire. Seven years later, I still reference it during conversations with founders because that age-old entrepreneurial question of how to hire engineers is still a frequent topic of interest. As long as startups need technical talent, they’ll also have questions on best practices for how to hire them.
While that article is still useful many years later, I found myself wanting to update it…
Last week, I said goodbye to my colleagues at Facebook, the end of a nearly two year adventure after they brought me and my startup Packagd on board. During my time, I had the privilege of creating a new commerce incubation group responsible for building and launching features like Live Shopping, Gifting, and most recently Super. I also got to see how the 6th most valuable company in the world, with nearly a trillion dollar market cap, operates and it was impressive to experience.
Coming from a startup, it was an adjustment working in a 60,000 employee organization. But Facebook…
Last week, my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (UT ECE), shared with me an incredibly flattering, delightful, and truly unexpected recognition of being inducted into their Academy of Distinguished Alumni. UT ECE is a Top 10 nationally ranked undergraduate and graduate engineering program that in its 100+ year history has produced exceptional, world renowned engineers including:
- James Truchard, co-founder and former CEO of National Instruments
- Hector Ruiz, former CEO and Executive Chairman of AMD
- Bob Mansfield, Apple hardware engineering legend
- Archie W. Straiton, IEEE Edison Medal winner
To see my name…
“NFTs have literally taken over my entire mind and soul. I’m obsessed. It’s all I think about.”
Paris Hilton, crypto expert
For those of you who need a primer on Non-Fungible Tokens (or NFTs), click here for a good overview from the Verge.
In Q1 2021, NonFungible.com reported that a record $2 billion worth of NFTs were sold, the first time that over a billion dollars of NFTs have ever transacted in one quarter. That number represented an eye popping 134 times year-over-year growth, and 22 times quarter-over-quarter growth.
Those are certainly impressive stats about the rising demand for NFTs…
I love listening to great startup pitches from founders. The very best of them don’t just talk about unmet needs and giant market opportunities. They also combine data, facts, and strategy with a memorable personal journey that’s shaped their worldview. It’s business storytelling at its highest form.
One of the very best entrepreneurs I’ve ever witnessed at startup pitches is Flipboard co-founder Mike McCue, who I had the privilege of working with for several years. Mike’s had noteworthy success at starting, financing, building, and exiting multiple companies, a rare entrepreneurial feat aided not just by his terrific product instincts, but…
On January 26th, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki shared her 2021 company priorities in a letter to the YouTube community. In it, she called out a number of noteworthy accomplishments and also identified a few key objectives for 2021, including one section called “Building for the YouTube of the future” where she outlined 3 areas of interest: mobile creation, commerce, and the living room.
That’s a provocative thought exercise to think about what changes could be made this year to prepare for a future version of YouTube, a service that’s used by more than 2 billion people a month who watch…
Picture this situation: you’re in a confined indoor space wearing masks with a group of strangers. Tensions are high because there’s danger in the room, maybe even deadly danger. Many of those strangers surrounding you are trustworthy and trying to protect everyone’s wellbeing. But other strangers are not and instead being intentionally reckless and destructive. It’s up to you to figure out who’s friend or foe in the interest of everyone’s safety.
Sound familiar? In the crazy, unprecedented, and unforgettable year that is 2020, this stressful situation could happen to anyone, anywhere. Maybe you’re at a grocery store, or a…
Singles Day, the annual Chinese shopping festival that happens on November 11th, kicked off this year on October 21st. It might sound strange for a one day festival to start 3 weeks early, but Singles Day has grown into a nearly month long shopping season with multiple presales events that are celebrated throughout China and even in Southeast Asia and parts of Europe.
And in regions where it’s not celebrated, Singles Day is still closely watched because of the record setting sales volumes it generates. For example in 2019, Singles Day resulted in more parcels shipped (1.66 billion) than there…
On September 23rd, Pinterest officially launched a new feature called Story Pins to make it easier for Pinterest creators to “share their talent, passions and creativity”. A day later on September 24th, LinkedIn announced Stories to provide their users “a more human way of sharing”. And with those two releases, an important milestone happened: every single one of the Top 8 most popular social platforms in the US now offer their own version of Stories. …
One year ago this month, Hollywood was counting their box office tally for the all important summer movie season that contributes nearly 40% of domestic theatrical revenue. The results for the summer of 2019 were exciting: US moviegoers spent $4.86 billion, which effectively tied the all time summer box office record of $4.87 billion set in 2013. That was thanks in large part to a little flick you may have heard of called Avengers: Endgame that eventually went on to become the most successful movie of all time. The theatrical movie business was booming.
Eric Feng
Leading Commerce Incubations at $FB. Was co-founder at Packagd (acq.), GP at Kleiner Perkins, and writing messy code at Hulu, Flipboard, Erly (acq.), and $MSFT.
