TypePad HTML Email Two observations. First, each of the companies I will profile – including Akamai – are based in a major technology hub (and therefore had access to strong local talent) and made numerous acquisitions along their path. M&A is a key tactic for rapid talent growth. Second, your questions about cultural shift and keeping focus are great ones. I should explore these more in the future. I will observe that in each case, the leadership has been a constant. Paul Sagan has been Akamai’s leader for 13 years. Trip Advisor’s founder, Stephen Kaufer, still runs the firm. The third company I will be profiling is a similar story. It is very rare for a founder or (in Paul’s case) near-founder to have that long a leadership run in such a dynamic environment. From: TypePad

TypePad HTML Email Hi Jarek – You raise an excellent question. I would note that there are certain market characteristics where scaling fast is critical, but B2C vs. B2B is not one of them. When there are network effects in a market (which Akamai had in building its two-sided network), scaling fast is critical. When there are high switching costs (e.g., enterprise products which require deep integration), scaling fast is critical. When you have high barriers to entry (e.g., medical devices with deep IP), scaling fast is less critical and avoiding waste even more important. The state of the capital markets and the cost of capital also factor significantly in that choice, obviously. From: TypePad