Geoff

Yang of Redpoint Ventures is Documented@Davos Transcript Documented@Davos 2012 RANDI ZUCKERBERG: Welcome to our Documented@Davos coverage. I'm Randi Zuckerberg. And we're here with Geoff Yang, partner at Redpoint Ventures. Thanks for joining us. GEOFF YANG: Hi. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: I was admiring your shoes. It seems to me that this is not your first year at Davos, because you have the footwear down to a T. GEOFF YANG: Yeah, I think the first year I came I brought regular shoes, and they got sopping wet. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: Did you do a wipeout? GEOFF YANG: Yeah, I wiped out all over the place, so I've learned. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: Now, can you set the scene for our viewers? What's it like here? GEOFF YANG: Well, it's an incredible scene and environment here. I come because it's so out of the box from our day-to-day lives. And I'd say things in Silicon Valley are relatively insular. The technology business is relatively insular. And you come here, and you realize how big the world is and how meaty some of the issues are. And I come, really, to expand my horizons. But, increasingly, you're seeing a lot of things that are relevant to the rest of the world, because our markets have all of a sudden become very global in nature. And our target demographics is pretty much everybody, in terms of the applicability of the technologies in which we invest, that it has all of a sudden become relevant. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: So you raised a great point. So most of your companies, while they are US consumer tech, there's really no such thing anymore as just a US company. So it is becoming increasingly important. Is there anything interesting that you've picked up here on trends or new things that you're seeing?

GEOFF YANG: Well, first I have to say that historically, our investments have been mainly US-based. But over the years, we've expanded into a China office. We're opening something in Brazil. We have investments in Western Europe and Israel. And so we're kind of investing globally right now. And probably about a little over a quarter of our investments are non-US-based investments. But generally, I think just seeing the impact of technology in not only business and consumer behavior, but also cultural and political, is really interesting. And listening to people and talking about the importance of a lot of the social media tools and a lot of social media companies is really interesting. I was just watching a panel where Shimon Peres was talking about Facebook. That's kind of different. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: It's pretty amazing. GEOFF YANG: Yeah it is. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: The president of Israel mentioning social media. GEOFF YANG: Right, exactly. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: Now, you said you've been investing for 25 years. You've clearly seen a lot of trends. Do you think Silicon Valley and America will continue to remain the hub of innovation, or do you think we're going to see that traveling elsewhere? GEOFF YANG: Well, the interesting thing is that today technology is probably the only thing that matters on, a relative basis, on other venture capital markets. It used to be one of the segments in which people invested. And now it's grown to be so big. I mean the biggest change from when I first got in the business was that we used to go after relatively cottage-based markets, things that would address millions of users. We're now in a market where the companies in which we invest address billions of users. And it's everybody. And it's all-pervasive. And the other interesting thing is that the center of power, at least for platforms, is moving back to Silicon Valley, for instance, smartphones, mobile phones. The center of power is kind of moving from Helsinki and Schaumburg, Illinois, to Cupertino and Mountain View. You think about the internet and social media and all the major companies in that space that really matter, and most of them are in the Bay Area, whether that's

Google, or Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube, or Apple, or Android. And you look at even on the enterprise infrastructure, they're all moving there. So the interesting thing is that a lot of the core platform technologies are moving back. The center of gravity is moving back to the Bay Area. Now, you'll see a lot of other companies, applications and services, like e-commerce or a lot of the e-tailing, e-commerce types of companies are all over the place. But you would expect to see that. But I think a lot of the platform technologies and direction is moving to Silicon Valley. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: Now, a final question. Being invited to Davos is a huge marker of success. You've had a lot of your portfolio companies you've invested in have been invited here, including Scribd, which we're here supporting. What do you think really defines a successful company? GEOFF YANG: Well, a lot of companies can be successful in a pure financial sense, but the really successful companies, I think, are companies that change the landscape and ones that really define industries. And when you define an industry, and you are able to change behavior, either in the way people live their lives or in the way companies do their business, it's an incredibly fulfilling thing. Because, after all, that's the essence of innovation, creating a different way for people to do things. And so it's really exciting when you come here and the World Economic Forum highlights a few of these companies that they think are really the leading innovators in changing the way people live their lives. And ultimately, that's the way I define success. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: Well, you've had a very exciting career and have been involved with some great companies. GEOFF YANG: I've been lucky. RANDI ZUCKERBERG: So it will be thrilling to follow you over the coming years. Thank you so much for joining us. And please stay tuned for the rest of our interviews, scribd.com/documentedatdavos or #davosdocs.