Don’t forget Microsoft - by John Luttig

It was not a venture capital success story: Microsoft was too profitable to raise real VC money, so the founders owned 70% at IPO. It is the oldest of FAMGA, hidden away in a different state. But there is a lot more to Microsoft than meets the eye. If it plays its cards right, Microsoft can become the first $10T company. And startup founders would be wise to learn from the behemoth in Redmond. This piece undertakes a daunting set of tasks: 1) understand what Microsoft is, 2) chart a path for its global domination, and 3) apply learnings from the company to the startup ecosystem. Even to avid Silicon Valley historians, Microsoft is hard to define succinctly. No singular power law product defines Microsoft like Google’s Search, Apple’s iPhone, Amazon’s e-commerce, or Facebook’s social network. Understanding Microsoft’s hundreds of products is daunting. With historical context, we can learn what Microsoft was, in order to discover what it is today. In the early 1970s, most people thought

It was not a venture capital success story: Microsoft was too profitable to raise real VC money, so the founders owned 70% at IPO. It is the oldest of FAMGA, hidden away in a different state. But there is a lot more to Microsoft than meets the eye. If it plays its cards right, Microsoft can become the first $10T company. And startup founders would be wise to learn from the behemoth in Redmond. This piece undertakes a daunting set of tasks: 1) understand what Microsoft is, 2) chart a path for its global domination, and 3) apply learnings from the company to the startup ecosystem. Even to avid S