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XColumn: How CEOs of Public Companies Should Think About Their Stock Price
Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.

Congratulations! You've gone public, something to which many founders aspire but few achieve. In addition to the extra wind in your sails from the capital markets and the quarterly scrutiny of your performance (both huge factors to adjust to), you have a third concern: the stock price.
The stock price is a brand new unknown for founders of newly public companies, and (like everything else) no one really gives you a guide on how to do it well. For instance, how do you handle the balance between retaining the stock you own personally to show confidence in the company with your prudent desire to sell some stock and diversify? How do you keep in check your own PR, which can distort your perspective? And perhaps the most important to the health of your company, how do you mitigate the stock price's effects on your company's culture and prevent it from becoming a daily distraction which can impact employee morale and motivation? These are all questions I grappled with in my journey leading Zillow as a public company, and they are questions I receive periodically from CEOs of newly public companies.
1. Preset a Plan To Protect Yourself.
The roles of founder and personal shareholder will inevitably lock horns from time to time, and you need to protect both. My advice is to pre-set a plan for selling stock and creating liquidity for yourself, because every sale you make as CEO will be subject to scrutiny. A programmatic 10b5-1 plan helps you do this, as it allows you to sell a predetermined number of shares at a predetermined time. You don't have to pick and choose a date or price, and you don't have to explain to anyone -- shareholders, hedge fund managers, employees -- why you sold because it's all programmatic.
With a predetermined plan, you still need to decide frequency and quantity. It's nearly impossible to give blanket advice here, because everyone's situations are different. I've always opted to sell small amounts of stock along the way, and even though I've sold plenty of stock at lower prices than today's, I've never regretted a single sale. With a distributed approach, you can't really "mis-sell" at the "wrong" price.
In terms of how much to sell, if you haven't taken much liquidity to date, think in terms of what percentage of your holdings you'd want to sell in a given period of time. For example, a starting point could be aiming to sell 10% of your holdings each year for the first five years post-IPO, then reassessing this approach two or three years in. Taking more liquidity early on puts a premium on building your nest egg, enabling you to let plenty of stock ride in the long term but still putting away potentially life-changing money in the short term.
2. Invest in Objectivity To Keep It Real.
I cannot emphasize enough the importance of an outside advisor to help with personal money management and investment strategy. As a founder, you are the number one believer in your company because you brought it into existence. Of course it can be worth $100 billion someday. Why would you ever sell a single share of such a promising venture?
An outside advisor provides the more conservative end of that spectrum, tempering your unshakable conviction in the reality that most companies don't reach that stratosphere. Neither one of you is absolutely right, but representing both perspectives will land you somewhere in the middle where you're committed enough to the cause but diversified enough to protect yourself.
Please don't think you're immune from this blind spot; even the most cynical and risk-averse founder will believe their own PR and fall victim to it in the absence of objectivity.
3. Don't Let Stock Seep into Your Culture.
For newly public companies, stock is a valuable lever for attracting top talent. But once that talent is in the door, they shouldn't hear about stock anymore, outside compensation statements. Owning and selling stock is their business because they've earned it, just like they've earned their salary. Never give your people, including executives, a hard time for selling stock. Sometimes I hear stories about CEOs berating employees for selling shares, and I think it's one of the most ridiculous and damaging things you can do as a leader. As with everything in your culture, you set the tone for this at the top.
At Zillow, it was taboo (intentionally) to even talk about the stock price; we discouraged focus on the stock among our leadership and employees because it's terribly short-term, and companies that last focus on the long-term. There was, however, a time when I broke my own rule: The year we launched Zillow Offers, a game-changing evolution that expanded Zillow's business from media into hard assets, our stock price plummeted and many newer employees were completely underwater. There was anxiety afoot, and we needed to address it.
At our annual meeting, I showed charts of Amazon's stock price when it launched major innovations like third-party marketplace, Amazon Prime and AWS. In each of these instances, the stock took significant dives: -94%, -56% and -60%, respectively. I then showed Amazon's ascent to current day to make a point we'd made all along: Stocks go up, and stocks go down. Take care of our customers and focus on the long term, and the stock price will take care of itself.
My team and I debated the decision to break precedent and discuss the stock price internally because on the surface talking (at length!) about the stock price went against what we'd ingrained in our culture. But a couple days after our meeting, an employee emailed me with a heartfelt thank you for doing so. He appreciated the message to focus on the long term while recognizing the short-term realities of the stock fluctuation for employees -- in his example, money he and his wife were counting on to pay off student loans. Stock can be life-changing for many of your employees (not just you), and sometimes you need to talk about it.
The final point to this story, and to all of this advice, is that stock is personal. Sometimes you need to change the plan. Sometimes you have to break your own rules. Be strategic, not dogmatic, and you'll find the best path for you and your company as a public founder.
Spencer Rascoff serves as executive chairman of dot.LA. He is an entrepreneur and company leader who co-founded Zillow, Hotwire, dot.LA, Pacaso and Supernova, and who served as Zillow's CEO for a decade. During Spencer's time as CEO, Zillow won dozens of "best places to work" awards as it grew to over 4,500 employees, $3 billion in revenue, and $10 billion in market capitalization. Prior to Zillow, Spencer co-founded and was VP Corporate Development of Hotwire, which was sold to Expedia for $685 million in 2003. Through his startup studio and venture capital firm, 75 & Sunny, Spencer is an active angel investor in over 100 companies and is incubating several more.
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TikTok Parent ByteDance Eclipses $1B in Mobile Games Sales
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
TikTok parent company ByteDance’s big bet on mobile gaming is paying off.
The Chinese tech giant’s growing portfolio of mobile games has brought in more than $1 billion in revenue over the past 12 months, according to a report by data analytics company Sensor Tower, which examined player spending from Apple’s App Store and Google Play dating back to June 2021.
ByteDance has invested heavily in gaming in recent years, establishing its Nuverse game development and publishing unit in-house and acquiring other gaming companies. Those investments have yielded successes like its most downloaded and most lucrative title, “Mobile Legends: Bang Bang,” which generated 78 million downloads and $318 million in revenue in the past year.
While the company’s mobile gaming revenues climbed 16% year-on-year, it still has some way to go before catching up with Chinese industry giants like Tencent and NetEase. Those firms’ mobile gaming revenues hit $7.9 billion and $3.1 billion, respectively, in the same period, according to Sensor Tower data cited by CNBC.
Still, ByteDance’s growth indicates that it is becoming a major player in the industry. “It’s built up its games operations so quickly that it’s already becoming a significant mobile games publisher, particularly in China and Asia,” Sensor Tower Mobile Insights Strategist Craig Chapple told CNBC. “It has a long way to go to catch up with heavyweights like NetEase and Tencent, of course, but it’s moving in the right direction.”
Sensor Tower noted that ByteDance’s largest gaming market was Japan, which accounted for roughly one-third of its total mobile gaming revenue and was followed by China and the U.S. According to CNBC, ByteDance has needed to grow its gaming platform outside of its home country due to China’s regulations around the industry, which have included restricting the time that children can play online games and only recently lifting a freeze on the monetization of games.
It is still unclear whether ByteDance will extend its gaming strategy to TikTok, which is working to solidify itself as an entertainment platform. The Culver City-based video-sharing app denied a report last month that it was testing games on the app in Southeast Asia, but was not drawn on whether it would expand into gaming in the future.
Gaming has increasingly drawn the attention of tech and entertainment companies like Netflix, which has committed to growing its library of titles amid its challenges in holding onto subscribers. The streaming giant’s gaming push has thus far earned it 13 million global downloads, according to Sensor Tower.- Bytedance, TikTok's Chinese Owner, Is Still Causing Concerns - dot ... ›
- TikTok Owner ByteDance Eyes the Virtual Reality Market - dot.LA ›
Kristin Snyder is an editorial intern for dot.la. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
Netflix Turns To Asia To Boost Its Stalled Subscriber Growth
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Netflix will invest more in Asia in a bid to revive its sluggish subscriber growth, betting on the lone region where the company added customers during an otherwise disappointing first quarter.
Bloomberg reported Monday that the streaming giant will grow its investment in Asia despite plans to reign in spending overall across the company. That will include financing the production of local films and series for that market, Tony Zameczkowski, Netflix’s vice president of business development for Asia Pacific, told the news outlet.
The streaming service has lost roughly 70% of its market value this year, due in large part to the company losing customers for the first time in a decade last quarter. Things aren’t expected to improve in the current second quarter, either with Netflix predicting a net loss of 2 million subscribers.
But Asia is the one market where Netflix has made gains this year, adding 1.1 million subscribers during the first quarter. The company will likely try to reproduce the success it found with South Korean hits like “Squid Game”—Netflix’s most-watched show ever—and “Hellbound,” as well as ramp up its Japanese anime portfolio.
Still, the Asia region presents political and profit challenges, such as countries seeking to restrict certain content within its borders and lower revenue per customer compared to North American subscribers, Bloomberg noted.
Facing heightened competition from tech and legacy media giants, Netflix is trying all sorts of things to remain atop the streaming market. It’s planning to crack down on password sharing, introduce advertising and expand into gaming to add or hang onto paying customers.- 'Squid Game' Helps Netflix Add 4.4 Million Subscribers in Q3 - dot.LA ›
- The Latest Signs of Netflix's Loosening Grip - dot.LA ›
- While Netflix Reels, Disney Plus Adds Another 7.9 Million Subscribers ›
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
No Venues, No Roadies — Encore Wants To Enable Concerts From Your Phone
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Live performance app Encore, co-founded by rapper Kid Cudi, wants to put concerts in people’s pockets.
The Culver City-based company is among a bunch of virtual concert startups to emerge as the pandemic forced musicians to cancel or postpone in-person shows. But unlike competitors that are producing shows for virtual reality headsets or putting pay-per-view concerts on computers, Encore is betting fans will watch their favorite artists on smartphones. Think of it as a higher quality Instagram Live, with artists performing before augmented reality (AR) backgrounds and video chatting with fans.
A screenshot of Encore's Studio app for iPhone.
Photo courtesy of Encore
“What's disruptive about what we're doing is it is mobile live performance,” Encore co-founder and CEO Jonathan Gray told dot.LA. “It's free [for the artist] in your pocket, everywhere you go. And I think that's ultimately the vision of the company.”
Founded in 2020, the startup previously required artists to use both an iPad and iPhone to set up a show, with the more powerful tablets ensuring better production quality. But the iPad requirement proved to be a barrier for artists who couldn’t afford one, Gray said. Encore brings artists to its physical studio to perform on a greenscreen stage, too, but the company wants Encore shows to feel less like formal productions. They’ll ideally be something an artist does casually—and frequently—to engage with fans and make money in a lower stakes environment.
“The vision of the company, and the way we will get scale, is with artists doing stuff on their own,” Gray said. “I think as soon as it's on your phone, as soon as you can be going live in a minute, you're totally changing what it means to go live.”
Admission is cheap, but Gray said fans collectively spend a lot of money during a show. Middle-tier artists who have relatively smaller but engaged fan bases have racked up several thousand dollars during an Encore show—without booking a venue or hiring a production team.
“There's this completely untapped part of the music industry that has tons of engagement, but the engagement is on social [media],” Gray said. “Ultimately, your superfans can only stream on Spotify so many times. And even though you have super fans, how many of them are going to show up to a single city on a single night? Not that many.”
The new Encore Studio App lets artists design AR stages, add custom artwork and incorporate visual effects to turn basic spaces into more visually compelling backdrops. Other features include live polls, “backstage pass” video chats, and “clap goals,” in which artists can, for example, entice fans to spend more to hear new music.
Encore has raised $9 million in seed funding so far from investors like Battery Ventures, 468 Capital and Parade Ventures. The company has 14 employees and has facilitated 200 live shows since its first app went live in February. Roughly 2,000 artists have registered with Encore, which shows performers are interested but haven’t tried it, Gray said. That’s a big reason why the company is removing the iPad obstacle.
“You can actually get from downloading the app to having your own AR world and going live in like two minutes,” Gray said. “Before—it was not two minutes.”
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.