What gates the takeoff of a new software category: underlying technology readiness or the quality of the products shipped?

Phil Libin · Jan 4, 2017

The bot explosion is happening because a basket of underlying technologies — NLP, AI, messaging, text-to-speech and speech-to-text — all crossed the 'good enough' threshold in roughly the past eighteen months, letting general engineering teams combine them commercially

Each component technology existed for decades academically; once they all became good enough to combine, a general-purpose engineering team could build products, producing exponential growth

Scope: components have existed for decades; crossover happened in roughly the last 18 months

7:16 20VC: Evernote's Phil Libin on The Pros and Cons Of Moving To VC, The Future For Bots & Having Marc Benioff & Reid Hoffman As Mentors

Jeff Jordan · Jan 16, 2023 · hedged

Instacart could not exist without the mobile phone — the same consumer proposition failed as Webvan a decade earlier largely because the shopper-side execution was impossible without it

Directing a shopper on what to pick and where to go would be torturous without a mobile device

Scope: 'I don't think you could'; execution differences beyond mobile also cited

23:18 20VC: a16z's Jeff Jordan on The Ultimate Guide to Investing in Marketplaces, Two Core Features to Look for in All Marketplace Investments, Why Fragmented Supply is so Important & Lessons from Airbnb, Pinterest and Instacart on What Makes the Best Cohorts

Phil Libin · Jan 4, 2017

Bots haven't taken off yet simply because very few good ones have shipped — most are gimmicks, toys, or app ideas botified for no good reason

Same pattern as apps in 2008, when the spectrum was iFart, Evernote and the Obama campaign app and most output was low quality even though some saw the potential

12:23 20VC: Evernote's Phil Libin on The Pros and Cons Of Moving To VC, The Future For Bots & Having Marc Benioff & Reid Hoffman As Mentors

Jean-Michel Lemieux · Mar 20, 2024

Meaningful innovation can come from products that aren't deep tech but completely change how you work

Equals is subtle — you only see the value by using it day in, day out, and it changed how he works

Scope: based on personal daily use of Equals

53:00 20Product: Why Process is Killing Your Product Team and How to Remove it | Three Product Decisions Every Team Needs to Make | Why the Best Companies Build Movements and Lessons from Shopify and Atlassian on How to Do It Right with Jean-Michel Lemieux