The Preface to Blitzscaling: First Prize Is a Cadillac; Third Prize Is Getting Fired

Back to Blitzscaling~ I’m actually still in the preface. I haven’t even reached the main text yet. XDDD In a scene from Glengarry Glen Ross, the boss is addressing a group of salespeople: First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anyone want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is that you’re fired. Got it? Take social networking: Facebook wins first prize. MySpace may have won second prize, but that no longer matters. Friendster wins third prize. Does anyone still remember Friendster? This is an age in which you need to win first prize to survive on the internet. Competition can sometimes seem extraordinarily intense, but the internet age also lets companies earn astonishing returns faster than at any previous time. The strategy and mindset for achieving this is “blitzscaling.” (Robin: Because of network effects, the internet age will have no perfect competition or oligopoly, only monopoly and market domination. In social networking and search, there is only a number one far ahead of everyone else. That makes a blitzscaling strategy especially important.) Robin: Because competition is fierce and brutal—only number one wins—and because the rewards are extraordinarily rich, you have to pursue a blitzscaling strategy rather than move forward at a leisurely pace. In the internet age, if you advance slowly and are still not number one when time runs out, there is basically little left for you. As an investor, that leaves you applying intense pressure to make the company move fast; otherwise, the investment goes down the drain.