Interesting business writing - on Salesforce, Amazon, Jet, Twitter & Datanyze

Some of the most interesting business writing I've seen lately included three really well-written feature stories, two insightful opinion pieces and a cool short piece about asking.

The first of the features to note here was for Businessweek with "Marc Benioff's Philanthropic Mission: San Francisco" by Brad Stone on efforts by the Salesforce CEO and it was a solid look at efforts by Benioff to give back.

The other two features definitely are related with Austin Carr for Fast Company writing "The Real Story Behind Jeff Bezo's Fire Phone Debacle And What It Means for Amazon's Future," a story perhaps somewhat disquieting for Amazon shareholders, and then Brad Stone in the latest Businessweek writing "Amazon Bought This Man's Company. Now He's Coming for Them." Stone's piece is on the forthcoming eCommerce site Jet.com which will follow a Costco-like model of steep discounts (that can escalate depending on shopper choices made) and membership dues. It's definitely an intriguing idea that's being launched by Marc Lore, formerly of Quidsi, a company that Amazon acquired to get its Diapers.com site.

The opinion pieces I found particularly interesting recently were about Twitter, which I love using and marvel at what it can do. "There’s Something About Twitter" was by venture capitalist Fred Wilson for his AVC blog and Ev Williams (one of the founders of Twitter and I guy I find to be brilliant) wrote to Medium "A mile wide, an inch deep" about user metrics for the site and the point of the whole thing.

The final piece to note here was by Eugene Kim for Business Insider with "How Cold Emails Led This 29-Year-Old To Get Funded By Mark Cuban And Google." About Ilya Semin, CEO of the startup Datanyze, and his asking for product and business concept feedback from experts, it was a really interesting piece in which Kim attributed sage advice to the company founder with "Semin says people are generally always willing to help, especially when you're not asking for money. He always asked for feedback first, and that's what propelled his business to early success."

"Hatching Twitter" by Nick Bilton

Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton was about some compelling people that came up with a pretty revolutionary business. Reading the book reminded me of my thoughts about what I wanted to do with blogging when I began in 2008 and just over 20 of my posts since have included Twitter as a label, with many of them linking to writing (the most memorable to me being this by Clay Travis) about Twitter as a platform for disseminating all types of communication.

Bilton in Hatching Twitter writes a highly entertaining book that I found myself at times wondering how accurate it all was, but the people portrayed (with the possible exception of a seemingly batty CEO Coach) and their actions struck me as quite plausible, especially given the presence of power, prestige, money and strongly held beliefs.

Detailed in the book is how Twitter began in 2005 out of a podcasting startup, Odeo, that was founded by Noah Glass and funded by Ev Williams who made his money by starting and then selling Blogger to Google. With $200K in Odeo, Williams became CEO and around this time, Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone joined the company and then the podcasting website idea basically got killed when Apple said they were going to have Podcasting on iTunes, leading to Dorsey’s idea of building something around a “status update” message similar to what was up on AOL instant messaging. Glass came up with the name Twitter for the venture and was completely enthused about the human connections the idea could foster, but then fired from the company by Williams as the lead investor lost confidence in and disagreed with Glass on many things.
 
Twitter hit big at the 2007 South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX and when roles and leaders were then established, Dorsey was the first CEO with 20% of the company, Williams as the lead investor 70%, Stone and Jason Goldman around 3% each with the remaining 4% split up among other employees. Not long after this, Williams and Dorsey began to have disagreements and Venture Capital investors Fred Wilson and Bijan Sabet came into the picture and sided with Williams on feelings of unhappiness with the CEO.

In 2008, Dorsey was forced out as CEO, but not from the company and he then accepted any and all press requests that came his way and burnished his reputation and perceived role at Twitter at the same time that he began the payment processing company Square. Additionally, Peter Fenton came in as a Twitter investor and would prove a Dorsey ally as the former CEO began to undermine Williams and, along with the aforementioned unbelievable CEO-coach Bill Campbell, force Williams out as CEO with him being replaced in Summer of 2010 by then COO Dick Costello.

There are lots of salacious details throughout the story from Bilton and it makes for entertaining reading that of course portrays some people in a better light than others, but all seems plausible and makes a fascinating read on the people behind a remarkable communication tool.

Fast Company Writing

The past few issues of Fast Company Magazine had a number of features and short pieces that stood out far a variety of reasons.

Going furthest back, the Feb issue had both an interesting interview piece and really well-written feature story. The interview was by Charlie Rose with Biz Stone and Ev Williams who co-founded Twitter and begins with Stone and Williams making the extremely important point that Twitter not simply about 140-character expression of thought, but also the linking to content of all subjects and length around the web. Also noted in the interview was the blogging site Medium and the feature story from this issue was by Max Chafkin with "The Zen Master of Silicon Valley Chatter" on Kevin Rose. It was a detailed and interesting look at the Digg founder and internet investor who first backed early stage companies on his own and now as part of Google Ventures.

The March issue had "Working Beyond the Cube" by Greg Lindsay on co-working and Fast Company's annual "50 Most Innovative Companies" list.

The April issue had three different feature stories that stood out. Cover story was a lengthy piece by Nicole LaPorte title "The Rebels Saving Hollywood" and then Max Chafkin wrote "Why Kickstarter Won't Sell" on the crowdfunding website (with both features referencing Angel Investor Chris Sacca). Finally, Danielle Sacks contributed the feature "'Fifty Percent Of 'The Tipping Point' Is Wrong' Jonah Berger Shows You Which Half" on the author of Contagious: Why Things Catch On.

Finally, an interesting mention from the May issue was the short pieces "What's Hot in Alaska" on startup companies in the state.