Founders at Work.pdf

190 Founders at Work
freedom. But they both had a vision of creating something great that people
would love. That attitude from the three of us permeated the rest of the organization.
And the organization functioned well. On top of it, we had a strong
business model and good execution on the technology. We were actually profitable
18 months after we launched.
We could have had all the technical talent and engineering know-how and
business knowledge, but, if we were acting like Chinese fighting fish in a tank
together, the whole company would have failed. And through those really difficult
things that I told you about, where we were running out of money, when
we got the certified letter of rejection from Sony—all those different things I
think would have easily knocked over a weaker triad. We persevered through all
of it, and we never stopped. None of us ever doubted that we were going to succeed.
And none of us ever stopped to question whether or not we trusted the
other. We never had to look at our back. And that is what allowed WebTV to
persevere.