Brian Grey Blog

The highlight of the week for me had to be Kara Swisher’s onstage interview of Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz at the AllThingsD Conference. It’s been no real secret that Carol was pretty fired up (to put it mildly) early on in her Yahoo! tenure about the “leaks” that helped fuel Kara’s insightful – and generally spot on – blog posts about Yahoo!.

So when Kara scored the Bartz interview for the afternoon panel at D on Wednesday this week it was a must attend for conference goers. I fully anticipated a defensive Carol, backed into a corner fending off Kara’s body jabs about how she was going to save Yahoo! from it’s death spiral. Oh, and at a minimum I projected the over/under at about 5 F-bombs from Ms. Bartz.

Now I have to say I was pretty impressed with Carol. Charmed I might say. She was witty, funny, sassy and brassy. She kept Kara moving around the proverbial ring, only allowing a glancing blow here and there. Certainly nothing that required her to retreat to her corner stool and yell: “Cut me Mick!”.

Even as Kara pushed Carol to the edge and even received for her efforts a complimentary “f@&k you” from the Yahoo! CEO, the crowd only roared with laughter. Smitten with every wry smiling glance she made, I really started to believe Yahoo! was on it’s way back. Heck, I could just sense the operational rigor that was being slathered over the company even as we all sat there in Carlsbad.

But then Carol lost me a bit. Right there at the D Conference, a Wall Street Journal affiliated event no less, she pulled out the front section of the Journal and turned it around to show the audience the full page Gatorade ad on the back page. She then asked why Gatorade was running this ad in print and not on Yahoo!. After all she stated, Gatorade couldn’t get any clicks on a newspaper ad but they could online.

And that’s when I realized there was more work to be done at Yahoo! by Carol and team. I suspect there are a number of reasons Gatorade preferred the WSJ ad over a Yahoo! ad:

- the creative was as a tall as a todler and when compared to a 300×250 ad online the brand impact was much bigger in print

- clicks isn’t what Gatorade was buying here – they want brand lift (see the point above)

- perhaps the sales process – including lead time and audience metrics – weighed in the Journal’s favor (in fact, Carol alluded to Yahoo! needing to be an easier media opportunity to buy for marketers)

Ultimately, I really liked Carol Bartz. And while the Gatorade example had a few holes in its thesis, I got the sense that she is more than equipped to patch them up in the months ahead. Or at least until somebody shows up with a ton of money as she alluded to near the end of the interview.

This post has been a long time coming, well, say four months in coming. I get a lot of questions from my friends regarding what is life like as an EIR with Polaris Ventures. Well, take a walk with me as I share with you what today — a typical “day in the life” entailed:

8:21 am — Drop daughters off at SF Friends School. Yes, I did bring the Prius to a full stop to let them out. Some mornings I make them jump out as I am still rolling at 15 mph — all part of the tough love program (insert visual of Robert Duvall in “The Great Santini” here). I am waiting for the Friends School exchange program where the “Obama Girls” do a swap with the “Grey Girls” for a weekend.

8:49 am — Met with Kara Swisher at Philz Coffee on 18th Street…yes, that Kara Swisher of BoomTown and All Things Digital fame. Had a rousing chat with Kara about some our mutual friends at YHOO and other fun topics related to the digital world that we both live in. Gave Kara a lift home in the messy Prius (sorry Kara) — but forgot to ask her if she’s at all related to former Cubs catcher Steve Swisher? or current Yankee outfielder Nick Swisher?

9:39 am — Was late for my 9:30 am call with PITCH #1 (name of company concealed to protect privacy …and so some other sneaky VC doesn’t bid up the deal!). To be fair, this company is moving slowly in to the fundraising stage and I had the honor of bestowing a bit of my sports and EIR expertise on the young co-founder.

10:03 am — Dropped by the offices of TRUE Ventures at Pier 38 to meet up with Tony Conrad, founder of Sphere and TRUE partner. Tony and I cruised over to Crossroads Cafe for a tasty beverage where I think we were able to solve at least six or seven of the most pressing issues in the Valley.

11:51 am — Met with the two guys from PITCH #2 (again, PITCH #2 is not really the name of the company…it’s a placeholder name so that other VCs reading this blog don’t weasel in on the deal). Really enjoyed the conversation with the guys — who were in town visiting from another U.S. city (that shall remain nameless for fear of savvy VCs figuring out who I met with!). Hint: we met at the SF Ferry Building, so if anyone saw me there with two guys you can try to pull a “CSI SF” and figure it out.

1:05 pm — Conference call with PITCH #3 — a company from a U.S. city that is east of the Rocky Mountains. That’s as much as I will tell you. I will say that my colleague Jon Lim from Polaris was a bit late joining the call, and since he was the host, I got to jam out to some of the best “conference call wait music” I’ve ever heard.

2:04 pm — Drove from Ferry Building to SOMA part of SF for my 2:30 pm meeting. Walked to Peet’s for a large hot tea and snack. Peet’s card after the transaction had $0.80 left on it, so I of course joked “well, I’ll be sure to not spend it all in one place”…to which the lady behind the counter reminded me that since it’s on my Peet’s card, well, yah, I do need to spend it in one place! Touche Ms. Peet’s cash register lady!

2:37 pm: — Was late in meeting with COMPANY #1 (again, apologies for the stealthy nature of this entry, but the company in question is still in stealth mode — kind of, at least as pertains to this blog post) because I couldn’t figure out how their door worked. Once I got in the building I was able to figure out how to make the elevator work (thankfully) and then spent some time catching up with the co-founders of said company over tea. Have you noticed the fact that as an EIR it’s critically vital to be discreet?

4:05 pm — Met with one of the newest hires of a PVP company over coffee at South Beach Cafe. Had a good chat talking about “go to market strategy” and “pricing models” for this company. Isn’t it cool when you’re able to write about how you spent part of your day talking about “go to market strategy” and “pricing models” with someone?

4:31 pm — Met at the exact same cafe as my 4:05 pm meeting with Paul DePodesta — former Dodgers GM and currently with the SD Padres. Got introduced to Paul by Billy Bean — and since I met with Sandy Alderson last spring, as Paul rightly pointed out I have now met with the triumvirate of Oakland A’s baseball brains that have helped the A’s become the template for how to run a team. Still think Paul got a real raw deal with the Dodgers. Check out Paul’s blog here — I am impressed by the fact that he blogs…as you know, I feel strongly that bloggers are cool! What’s not cool, however, is that Paul isn’t publishing his blog on WordPress (a PVP company). I made it clear to Paul that would have to change in the future.

6:09 pm — Back in the Prius heading down Townsend Street for home. Called the wife via the Bluetooth car phone — reminded that I had indicated that I would be home a bit earlier to help with older daughter’s math homework. There goes my nomination for father of the year. Again.

Well, there you have it. The glamorous life of an EIR. Notice that there were no breakfast meetings at Ella’s or lunches at Chaya today. No, only a full day of meetings spanning a mix of networking, hearing pitches and even some advising for already funded companies.

Actually, it was a really intellectually stimulating day — and tomorrow I get to do another one just like it!