Panel on 'Disruptive'

Author: Peter Bihr

In a high-level session, four disruptive entrepreneurs discuss what disruption is all about: Mitchell Baker (Mozilla), Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Niklas Zennström (Atomico) and - also moderating the discussion - Yossi Vardi (DLD Co-Chairman) all have created organizations or products that disrupted their industries. It turns out there are a few things all of them have in common: Serving a huge user base with a very small organization; getting the users actively involved in the main business of your company; and an open mind to collaboration and partnership over competition. Session Video: Read the full live blog below.

5:30 PM: fk
9:33 AM: pb The panelists are entering the stage. This is going to be good...
9:34 AM: pb Vardi kicks off - what did you do to destroy industries?
9:34 AM: cb Mozilla, Wikipedia, Skype - WHO doesn't know them? There we're all DISRUPTIVE .... hence name of the session well chosen ... whole industries changed completely
9:35 AM: pb Niklas: It's not about destroying - it's about increasing efficiency.
9:36 AM: pb "How many companies did you ruin, Niklas?" Quite a few, given Niklas' background with Skype and all..
9:37 AM: pb NZ: Prices have come down quite a bit, "but no companies have actually gone out of business because of Skype"
9:37 AM: cb ALL guests appreciating Skype's success ... taking down prices on telephone calls ...
9:37 AM: pb ... and it looks like the audience is happy about Niklas' pushing down prices for communication services.
9:37 AM: cb BIG round of applause for Niklas ZennstrÃ¶m ... now Mozilla with Mitchell Baker
9:38 AM: pb Mitchell Baker (MB) is next. Mozilla actually set out to disrupt their industry. "The key to disruption is the control point!"
9:38 AM: cb "We also want disruption! Not on cost mainly, but on the control point, crack the monopoly open!"
9:38 AM: cb Firefox has pretty much done that, right?
9:40 AM: pb "We're building a slice of the internet where the only agenda is individual control of the experience"
9:40 AM: cb Mitchell grew up in a family business, entrepreneurship learned step by step growing up, "hands on" ...
9:40 AM: hauspost missing The disruptors Panel because of loooooong Lines At check-in Â #DLD10 ... keep liveblogging!
9:40 AM: cb Now "Jimbo" Jimmy Wales ... Wikipedia founder
9:41 AM: pb @hauspost: no worries, we've got it all covered!
9:42 AM: pb How did Wikipedia disrupt an industry? The encyclopedia industry is fairly small compared to telcos, notes Jimmy Wales.
9:42 AM: cb Jimmy: "Disrupting the pretty small encyclopedia economy ... small but a very important part of culture, very traditional ..."
9:42 AM: pb "Wikipedia is very different to a traditional encyclopedia." Oh yes.
9:43 AM: cb "How many of you have used Wikipedia in the last five days?" ... All hands up ;)
9:43 AM: pb JW: Wikipedia is integrated into our lives much more than paper encyclopedias ever were.
9:43 AM: cb "Your Brockhaus?" ...... and then some ....
9:43 AM: pb "It's not about disrupting that old industry, but about doing a whole new thing."
9:44 AM: cb 250 people working at Moziall
9:44 AM: cb Skype: 600 employees
9:45 AM: cb Wikipedia: 30
9:45 AM: pb 350 million users (wikipedia, mozilla), half a billion users (skype), and just a few employees. (skype is biggest with 600 employees, wikipedia just about 30. pretty amazing...)
9:45 AM: cb Why only 30? Jimmy: "Because I'm a very fast typer!" ;)
9:46 AM: cb Wikimedia Foundation mainly busy keeping the servers running and "some" legal stuff
9:46 AM: jk
9:46 AM: pb all three have in common that they have comparatively tiny companies but a huge audience that's very involved.
9:46 AM: cb Community is king ... for all of those Corporations on stage
9:46 AM: pb "The mindset in the market is really world-wide, you don't have to care as much where your users are."
9:47 AM: pb "The software lives on the net, that's why you don't have to have as many people."
9:47 AM: cb That's right : WP has millions on public staff ;)
9:48 AM: pb Mozilla does produce a lot of software inhouse, but the community is very much involved here as well.
9:48 AM: cb Baker: each employee is a seed to encourage other people to contribute to the work, the products - Key is user engagement and to create a feeling of ownership
9:49 AM: pb Yossi is running a tight ship on stage ;)
9:50 AM: jk
9:51 AM: cb about 50 watchers here on the liveblog, btw, Scribblelive offering a great service!
9:51 AM: pb Quick interlude with JP Rangaswami: en.wikipedia.org
9:52 AM: jk
9:52 AM: cb Yossi naming all industries getting disrupted, even already in their second round ;)
9:52 AM: cb Books, Telcos ... and much more
9:52 AM: pb AV: About 3% in the house are "disruptors", 2% are "disruptive". The rest "don't understand my accent." Yossi on stage is always good fun.
9:53 AM: jk
9:53 AM: cb Baker: Mozilla was ignored for a long time, they just kept going, gaining user base ...
9:53 AM: pb MB doesn't really like the idea of the film industry trying to fight their own audience. Good point there.
9:54 AM: cb Baker trying to find biz models that are not disruptive, but in partnership
9:54 AM: pb MB: At Mozilla we try very hard not to be disruptive, but rather to create industries...
9:56 AM: pb Another thing all three have in common: Work strong through collaboration and partnerships.
9:56 AM: pb JW: When I was starting Wikipedia I was hurrying to do it because I thought the idea was so obvious that someone would do it soon..
9:57 AM: cb Jimmy: stealth mode for WP first, too, "nobody noticed us until Britannica woke up when we were at 20x their traffic"
9:57 AM: jk
9:57 AM: cb Oh, great, Johannes shooting pics for the live feed here, give it up ;)
9:58 AM: cb Yossi asking Mitchell: "Is Facebook as Social Browser disrupting part of your claims?"
9:58 AM: pb MB: Doesn't see the Â browser as anywhere as disruptive as for example Facebook, which is a platform that bundles a lot of services.
9:59 AM: cb Baker: "No, not the browser business, but the way we in general move about and behave on the web ..."
9:59 AM: pb NZ: If you're in a successful position in the market you should always be aware that your market might get disrupted.
9:59 AM: cb ZennstrÃ¶m: "You have to continue improving your services, Â not lay back once your big, you don't want to disrupt yourself!"
10:00 AM: pb For all bloggers and tweeters out there: official hashtag is #DLD10. Looks like it's being used a lot already.
10:00 AM: pb JW: "Wikipedia is a very, very, very bad business. Everything is free."
10:01 AM: cb JW: "Browser and Telco markets very lucrative, WP field not so ... "
10:01 AM: pb Audience question: Why are there no ads on Wikipedia? JW: "The audience hasn't asked us to yet". Also, Wikipedia is set up as a non-profit, so there's no need to get rich.
10:01 AM: cb Why no advertisers on WP? "The customers have not asked us yet." JW: "We don't the money to do what we're doing, but to complete our charity mission."
10:03 AM: cb Oh, we're on Twitter, too: twitter.com ... Bubble with you there!
10:03 AM: cb reaching 60 watchers btw ...
10:03 AM: cb NZ: "Don't go the copycat way, do sth easy to understand and with impact on people's life, making it easier, bringing a benefit"
10:04 AM: cb BUT: Timing is key ...
10:04 AM: pb NZ: "The key factor is timing" to get that nice, holistic growth. But if you're in the middle of it, you don't know if it's the right timing.
10:04 AM: cb but Timing is luck many times ;)
10:04 AM: pb YV: The circulation of newspapers is going down. What are you going to do about it?
10:04 AM: cb C'est la vie in business .... time your risks I'd say ;)
10:05 AM: pb Audience: "Our print revenue has gone up 35% over the last four years" - sadly didn't hear who said it, but it looks like not everybody is doing badly...
10:06 AM: cb Unfortunately we can't really see who is holding the mic in the audience sometimes, Sorry!
10:07 AM: pb Another member of the audience: "We used to have 2 streams of disruption (in the valley), now we have a dozen!" Example: the Genome project...
10:07 AM: cb ... and the Green Industry ...
10:07 AM: cb What's going to be the next disruption? - Yossi asking the audience
10:07 AM: pb Open question by Yossi to the audience and all of you: What are the next big disruptions going to be?
10:08 AM: cb TV?
10:08 AM: pb Yossi asks the audience to scream out what's going to be disrupted. So far, no clear winners in the yelling ;)
10:08 AM: cb Energy?
10:09 AM: pb YV: "You'll be able to tell your kids I was there in Munich and I saw three great disruptors!" Well put...
10:09 AM: pb That's it for disruption. Next up: "Re-Brand"
10:09 AM: cb Yossi is a great animator ... looking forward to more of this talks, as always ;)
10:12 AM: pb And here the conference continues:
10:12 AM: pb Live blog "Rebrand": www.dld-conference.com
10:13 AM: fk nextup: Claudia Gonzalez from The Global Fund on 'Re-Brand' we are switching: www.dld-conference.com

Panel on 'Disruptive'

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