Hey, I'm Dan! I'm the CEO of Plus and a venture partner at Madrona. I write the DL, a newsletter about tech in the Pacific Northwest

Featured Posts

Find Stuff

Built with Webflow

Zoom Crushes; Bill Gurley Called It in 1994

Zoom hosted their Q1 earnings call last week, and they announced $328M in revenue - compared to analyst estimates of $202M. Apparently, this is the largest beat vs. consensus estimates in the history of enterprise software.


One of my favorite responses to this news was Bill Gurley posting a link to an equity research report he wrote in 1994. Really fun to see the predictions he made back then, like:

  • Yes, people will order PCs by phone, even though they don’t buy TVs that way
  • Yes, PCs will become multi-function devices even though people don’t use combination blender/toasters in the kitchen
  • And of course… Yes, people will use video conferencing as a sales tool even though people prefer the intimacy of meeting in person


I also love his commentary on Twitter: “Wrote about it 25+ years ago, & somehow still missed @ericsyuan as an investment. 🤦‍♂️”


Liked this article? Sign up for the DL, my weekly newsletter 📬

Thank you! You'll receive your first issue of the DL on Monday!
If you want to check out older issues - click here for the archives.
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.