关注了一个 Substack 站点 techemails.com,解密了很多公司(比如苹果、微软)历史上的内部邮件 / 短信,有一些是科技圈经典历史时刻背后的故事(如 1997 年微软投资苹果、乔布斯写给盖茨的谈判邮件),也有一些是时间线比较近的、如马斯克收购推特前后及尝试私有化特斯拉的短信。元旦假期几天把 Tech Emails 的文章看了遍,一些内容非常有趣,值得一记。
1. Mark Zuckerberg: Could Facebook move faster?
扎克伯格 2012 年写的,脸书能否加速创新的邮件。文字里有很多关于国内厂的美言,事后看有一些是走眼了;小扎提到人人网快速复刻了 Pinterest 和 Tumblr. 邮件里小扎也提到了 Messenger App,又讲从李厂长这里关注到了刚刚起步的微信——
… Apparently Tencent QQ has also released a Voxer-like app which is really blowing up in China. Robin Li confirmed that a lot of people are using it, although he wasn’t sure if that was because it’s relatively harder to type in Chinese or if it’s a universal need. Still, interesting that it’s taking off here.
扎克伯格 08 年的这封 “speed and strategy” 邮件,也可以看出来他对效率和执行力的一贯关注。
前面 2012 邮件的回信里也有一些对中国特色的 “Copy2China” 的讨论;2010 年代是互联网 / 移动互联网的黄金时代,时来天地皆同力,运去英雄不自由。
2. Sergey Brin: “There is a social networking bubble”
而从 2012 向前推及 5 年,可以看到脸书一飞冲天时谷歌对此的反响。认为社交网络的泡沫造成了很大的人才流失危机,不过也反省怎样给予员工更多的激励、并聚焦在眼下工作,而不是梦想着去泡沫里捞一笔——
… Finally, we (or basically I) have not done a good enough job of high rewards for high performance.
This is just one small step but one we can do quickly and I think will refocus people’s attention to how much they can accomplish within Google. Any thoughts?
3. Google looks at acquiring YouTube (2006)
看 Tech Emails 发现大佬们的邮件主题非常直接,比如这个主题为 “youtube?” 的 邮件 在几番讨论之后转给 Larry Page,然后就是跟 Eric Schmidt 讨论怎么出一个严肃报价。
另外同样是经典收购,小扎跟他的 CFO 讨论 Instagram 的收购,聊到了一些收购策略:Mark Zuckerberg and CFO David Ebersman debate acquisition strategy (2012);CFO 提到他认为的有效收购考量无外乎 a. 消弭竞争 b. 人才收购 c. 产品整合,小扎的回应是为了融合创新并把握时间窗口——
… Above, I didn’t mean to imply that we’d be buying them to prevent them from competing with us in any way. Buying them would give us the people and time to incorporate their innovations into our core products, which is how we’d do the integration rather than actually combining the products. I’m mostly excited about what the companies could do together if we worked to build what they’ve invented into more people’s experiences.
4. Bill Gates gets a product demo
一封看起来是 Windows Media Player 团队的内部信,颇为有趣的一个中层汇报的场景,内部讨论给盖茨老板做产品演示的一些准备事项。比如提到盖茨对 WMP 功能认可、但认为 UI 无趣(bill was comfortable with the feature set, … wasn’t excited about the UI),以及哪些竞品(iMovie, Napster)会是他关注的,并且叮嘱怎么管理老板的预期及认知(…whoever did the demo told him that iMovie isn’t using QuickTime as the native format)
5. “想 Java 想得睡不着觉”
盖茨说 Java 的 portability 会破坏 OS 的商业模式,1996 年的这封邮件主题直接是 “Java runtime becomes the operating system”. 回信的大佬做了很多 BillG 的心理按摩,一些对行业热潮的泼冷水的逻辑、放在今天依旧管用。这封邮件牛在于,除了给大老板的 “Java 焦虑” 降温,也提到了很多微软的后续战略设想。
另一篇 Bill Gates on “hard-core detractors” 主要是讨论 PR 及公众形象的,不过盖茨提到的一些怎么避免让微软走向 IBM Track 还是很有洞见力的。
6. Scott Forstall’s initial requirements for in-app purchases
最后贴一个苹果 IAP 的故事(2008),可以看作是非常优秀的系统设计案例,不仅考虑 Functional / Non-Functional requirements,还要关注到业务价值——