Jeff Lawson is the co-founder and CEO of Twilio, founded in 2008. Twilio allows software developers to programmatically make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages. As a customer, anytime you call or text your Uber driver, you are using Twilio! Today Byron will talk with Jeff about his career leading up to founding Twilio, how they built the company and the challenges along the way to their IPO.

In episode 8, I visit Ippon MMA & BJJ gym in Bournemouth to talk with head coach: JEFF LAWSON. Quick search on YouTube for “Judo destroys BJJ” and if you’ve never come across Jeff before, you will once you watch the video of him executing a perfect throw, through to arm bar finish at Polaris 4. Contrary to belief Jeff is not just a black belt in Judo, he is in fact a retired MMA fighter and also a black belt in BJJ via the legendary Yuki Nakai’s lineage. 
We discuss BJJ, Judo, MMA, the pressures of running a gym, mental health and just about everything else. If you are in the Bournemouth area and want to train Muay Thai, BJJ, Judo, MMA, No Gi Grappling then please get in touch with Jeff at the gym: https://www.ipponfitness.com/

My guest this week is Jeff Lawson, the Founder, and CEO of Twilio. Twilio is a 15-billion-dollar company offering a cloud communications platform to its customers.  Twilio is used by customers like Lyft, Twitch, and Yelp to make communications in their products easy.  Jeff and I talk about why it pays to be a platform, how to be a platform, and how to sculpt a company culture. This is a must-listen for anyone building a business whether it’s a tech business or not.

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast.

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Show Notes

1:18 – (First Question) –  Company vowels and draw the owl

5:26 – Significance of API’s

12:14 – How non-software businesses can transition into the space

         17:50 - Agile way of working at ING Belgium (video)

18:38 – How they strategize their product build

23:27 – The idea of asking your developer and why it’s so important to them

33:02 – How they codified their business culture

45:12 – Parting advice for people building platforms

48:13 – Kindest thing anyone has done for Jeff 

Learn More

For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. 

Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub

Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

Dave and Evan chat with Jeff Lawson, the Co-Founder and CEO of Twilio. 

Jeff Lawson realized that communications are essential to every business. He got the idea as a result of his experiences as an entrepreneur and developer during a time when the API model for technology services was emerging. Lawson and co-founder Evan Cooke created Twilio, and effectively created a new enterprise communications category: Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). 

Twilio has enabled small, medium, and large enterprises to create powerful communications enabled applications. It also spawned numerous other providers that leverage Twilio's services and Super Network under the covers. Twilio’s platform serves people in over 180 countries. The company’s revenue has grown from $88.8 million in 2014 to over a billion in 2019.

In this podcast we ask Jeff to explain why it makes sense to target budget developers, hwo live coding became a thing, and several other topics including why customers pay for services with their shoes. 

There is no better person to talk with about the evolution and future of communication then Jeff Lawson. We have known each other since 2008 when we met outside a Starbucks—the same year he co-founded Twilio. He was one of the original product managers for Amazon Web Services (AWS), heavily involved in Versity, the founder of NineStar, and CTO of StubHub. He could be described as a serial inventor and early on recognized the need for communication systems.

I believe Jeff truly embodies the best of Silicon Valley. His goal with his work is to help bring out the full span of human potential and allowing people to be innovators. An Application Programming Interface (API) allows developers to enable their ideas to see the light of day. Listen to our conversation as we cover Jeff’s beginnings and company, our innate need as humans to communicate, and the future of connectedness.

• [0:25] Introduction of Jeff Lawson, the founder and CEO of Twilio
• [6:50] The evolution of communication
• [9:36] Mid-90’s AT&T ad campaign
• [12:10] Communication and connectedness - response to the below issue
• [15:20] Om left Facebook because of what it’s become
• [16:41] What does the future of connectedness look like?
• [18:40] Ethical Considerations in the tech industry
• [23:30] Conversation about Twilio becoming a publicly traded company
• [29:33] The impact of Amazon on the Software Industry

I believe the need for humans to be able to interact and communicate with each other is as visceral as the need for food and shelter. We communicate every moment of our lives in some way or another. A hundred years ago no one would believe the communication technology we have today would be possible. Speaking with someone consisted of face-to-face conversations and perhaps writing letters. Soon, telegrams and radio became modes of communication. This eventually gave way to the telephone—people began to connect over long distances as easily as they could in person.

In the last 15 years alone the means of communication have expanded in ways never imagined. Texting, web chats, emails, VOIP, and even FaceTime have sprung up, giving new life to a world where just a century earlier only had the simplest means of communication. This has truly allowed us to build relationships with family members halfway around the world. Not only can we communicate, we can see and hear them. If you listen to this episode, we discuss some of the technological communication advances that AT&T predicted in a 1990’s ad campaign that have now come to life.

In the current world of Facebook and Instagram, we must consider whether these products meant to connect people are evolving beyond connectedness to consumerism. Are we talking past each other and not truly listening? Are we confusing conversation with human connection? So often when we are on social media we find ourselves arguing with people we don’t know, trying to make a point, or looking at meaningless content.

In a world where we value communication, are we losing our ability to actually connect?

I think we have met at a point where companies such as Facebook and Twitter have become media outlets. Their purpose is to draw us in and keep us glued to their site. They’ve brought in advertising, inaccurate news is running rampant, and we are always being sold something. We are using social media under the guise of connecting with loved ones—but we must make it worthy of our time and engagement.

We are recognizing that technology has the ability to manipulate the human mind at a chemical level. Just let that sink in for a moment. We can essentially hack the brainstem and influence people to do what we are asking of them. Tech is addictive and the more we begin to realize the power that comes with that, the closer I believe we will get to government regulation.

We need to make a return to the idea that technology is created to enrich our lives, not take them over. I believe we have the capacity to move more towards ethical decision making when we are writing software. Technology is growing at breakneck speed, with many wonderful benefits. But it seems there is always a cost to society. Jeff and I discuss in detail some pros and cons of capitalism and consumerism. Please, keep listening.

11 years ago, Jeff had left Amazon but completely recognizes that his work there helped create a movement. Their platform sped up innovation and lowered the barriers for new developers. The industry is evolving from an On-Premises model to Software as a service (Saas). Now, Jeff believes we are entering a whole new era of software—a Platform Business Model. 

Amazon is the fastest growing software company in history—and they don’t sell software at all. They’re selling infrastructure on a per use basis. They’re restructuring every major category of software and breaking it down into their fundamental building blocks. The world can rebuild these in a way they need them to work.

Jeff is very passionate about building software that allows the world to communicate in a meaningful way. Listen to the whole episode as we talk about these topics in depth and what the future of communication looks like and how it will continue to evolve. 

• Twilio
• Amazon Web Services (AWS)
• AT&T

• LinkedIn
• Twitter

• www.Om.co
• Om on Twitter: @Om
• Om on Instagram: @Om

Subscribe to THE OM SHOW on Apple Podcasts

Join Glitch CEO Anil Dash and Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson for a discussion about the ethical implications of technology in today’s society. Jeff and Anil discuss how social media and AI are changing the way we think about the impact of technology on society as well as the responsibility of tech leaders for this impact.

Missed the session? Here’s what Jeff talks about:

• How taking no stance as a business leader today, is taking a stance
• How to set concrete numbers for diversity goals
• The impact of corporate culture on employee happiness

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

SaaStr

Jeff Lawson

Anil Dash

Jeff Lawson is the Founder & CEO @ Twilio, the company building the future of communications allowing you to engage customers like never before on voice, SMS, WhatsApp or Video. Prior to their IPO in 2016, Twilio had raised over $250m in VC funding from some of the best in venture including USV, Bessemer, Salesforce and Techstars just to name a few. As for Jeff, prior to founding Twilio, Jeff was the Founder & CTO @ Nine Star Inc and enjoyed a spell at Amazon as a Technical Product Manager.

Sameer Dholakia is the CEO @ SendGrid, the category leader in email delivery, reaching half of the world’s digital users every 3 months. Last year Twilio acquired SendGrid bringing email into one seamless customer engagement platform. As for Sameer, prior to joining SendGrid, he spent 4 years at Citrix, where he drove the company’s product strategy for cloud infrastructure and server virtualization. Sameer joined the company in 2010, when Citrix acquired VMLogix, where he served as CEO and doubled revenues during each year of his tenure. Before that, he worked for 12 years at Trilogy, where he held key leadership roles helping the company grow from a start-up to a $300 million business.

In Today’s Episode We Discuss:

• How Jeff came to found Twilio and what was that a-ha moment for him? How did Sameer enter the world of SaaS and come to be CEO @ SendGrid?
• How did Jeff and Sameer assess the culture fit between the 2 companies when deciding whether or not to join forces? How did they formulate and approach creating a new set of values with the 2 companies coming together? How do they distinguish between culture and values? How can leaders both be authoritative and vulnerable simultaneously?
• What does Jeff mean when he says, “the developer first approach is a maturation of the supply chain of software”? How has Jeff seen his original thesis for “developer first” evolve and change with time? What does truly special customer experience look like in the developer first model?  
• In terms of product strategy, how do Jeff and Sameer approach when is the right time to release a second product? What does Jeff mean when he says, “you have to maximise the number of at bat opportunities you have”? Why does Sameer think that SendGrid waited too long to release additional product lines? What were his core learnings from that?
• How do Jeff and Sameer think about what what truly special leadership looks like today? How do they approach speaking so that people will remember? What are some of their biggest tips to aspiring entrepreneurs with regards to that and team empowerment? Why do both Jeff and Sameer believe that so much of the management wisdom today is outdated?

60 Second SaaStr:

1. What do Jeff and Sameer know now that they wish they had known at the beginning?
2. The book they have gifted most often and why?
3. What does it take to truly be a great board member?
4. What do the next 5 years look like for Twilio? How big could it get?

If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here:

Jason Lemkin

Harry Stebbings

SaaStr

Jeff Lawson

Sameer Dholakia