6 Killer Start ups That Are Reshaping The Mobile Enterprises

Powerful mobile devices have swarmed into workplaces, and they’re not going away. Pesky employees ignore rules and use their own smartphones for work while CEOs are commanding IT managers to make bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies the norm.

The mobile device field is wide open. Although Android is the dominant smartphone operating system overall, companies appear to be choosing iOS devices over Android as of late, according to a recent Good Technology report. The iPad still has a lot of sway with executives, but we could see a shift toward Windows 8 tablets since they can run some legacy apps that enterprises rely on. Microsoft also just announced that businesses could buy its high-profile Surface tablets in volume if they want.

At VentureBeat’s upcoming Mobile Summit on April 1, one of the six main themes will be “What’s next for enterprise?” So we took this opportunity to spotlight a few startups that are already thinking about and tackling this theme.

Whether the concern is making BYOD actually work, beefing up security, or taking business intelligence mobile, these six startups are reshaping the landscape of mobile enterprise.

                                      

Armor5

Rather than install software on devices, Armor5 has come up with a different solution for BYOD. Its software connects to a company network through an existing virtual private network (VPN), virtualizes data and cloud applications, and generates a URL for employees to access content safely from their smartphones or tablets. This way, your employees always have secure access to your company’s stuff — without the risk of storing that stuff on their devices.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Armor5 emerged from stealth mode in February. It has collected $2 million in funding thus far from Trinity Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and the Citrix Startup Accelerator.

                                 

Domo

Domo offers up a business intelligence dashboard that can be viewed from any device (so its creators claim), particularly mobile devices. The company says its software is easy-to-use and cloud-based, so you can see real-time data coming in and make important decisions off that data. Domo has been a little shy about unveiling its full offering to date, but it already has more than 100 enterprise customers and is coming out of private beta this year.

Domo is located just outside of Salt Lake City in American Fork, Utah. It recently raised a whopping $60 million in funding from GGV Capital, Greylock Partners, Bezos Expeditions, Founders Fund, and others, bringing its investment total to $113 million.

                                        

Enterproid

Enterproid’s Divide platform takes a rather literal approach to BYOD in that it “divides” your personal and business life through software. Essentially, you can install Divide on iPhones or Android phones and know that your work and personal things are completely separate. Maybe most importantly for employers, the info inside Divide is secure and can be deleted at a moment’s notice by the company if something fishy is going on.

On the iPhone, there is a single “container” that looks like an app; your email and business apps live inside that container. On Android, Divide offers different “profiles” you can switch between, and you can have two entirely separate sets of home screens and apps.

New York City-based Enterproid launched at Demo Spring 2011 and has raised $13 million in funding from investors including Comcast Ventures, Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Genacast Ventures, and NYC Seed. The company has more than 75 employees.

                            

MobileSpaces

San Francisco-based MobileSpaces takes yet another approach to BYOD by placing a strong emphasis on employee privacy. Its software lets Android phone owners mark all applications they use for work and only those apps can access business data and systems. The company is testing an iOS version of the product as well, which will be ready by mid-2013. MobileSpaces has raised $3 million to date from Accel Partners, and the company told us it will have its formal launch “soon.”

“If you ever leave the enterprise, they reserve the right to your data,” David Goldschlag, MobileSpaces CEO and a former VP at McAfee, told us in August. “We are enabling the enterprise to comfortably let its apps run and coexist with personal apps.”

                               

Mocana

Mocana is looking to solve the biggest problems with mobile enterprise security in two ways. It has solutions for connected devices and mobile apps. Specifically, it installs on-premise software that creates an interface between your data and connected devices; the interface lets you monitor device usage or encrypt data. However, on the app side, the company only provides services on the application-level for apps that are developed in-house. (So you can’t hook it up with an app like Google Drive or Box, for example.)

San Francisco-based Mocana has raised $32 million in capital from investors including Trident Capital, Intel Capital, Symantec, Shasta Ventures, and Southern Cross Venture Partners.

                               

Roambi

San Diego startup Roambi is also trying to solve the business intelligence problem on mobile with its popular iPad and iPhone apps. The company takes data from all kinds of sources and visualizes it in flashy ways so execs can make better real-time decisions. It also offers a product called Flow that makes it easy to design, publish, and share colorful reports on the iPad. It has raised more than $50 million from investors including Sequoia Capital.

Roambi’s CEO recently wrote a guest post us for us about how companies can unleash the power of “little data” with mobile devices.

Want Your Company to Grow? Fire Your Managers!

Too many employees work for their boss rather than their company or their clients. Businesses these days are filled with multiple layers of management, and employees often find themselves playing politics and focusing on tasks to make their boss happy.

At the end of the day, the company quickly forgets what their goals are and what they are in business to do -- and everyone is focusing on the task at hand with little sense of how it fits into the bigger picture.

If you notice this in your workplace, your top-down hierarchy is the culprit.

By eliminating this model at my digital marketing agency, Ciplex, we created a company people love working at, and saved money in the process. Our customer satisfaction went up, and the quality of work improved. We have happier employees, satisfied clients, lowered costs, and a better company overall.

                               

Here’s how I did it:

Create a Team Culture

I created small three to five person teams and removed any ‘bosses’ those teams or team members had. I also dismantled any “senior” or “VP” titles within the team. Though leaders will naturally emerge within a team, there’s no need to have a strict reporting structure. Your senior employees may initially be taken aback by this idea, but it’s important to remind them that the changes in culture and work habits will lead to increased productivity and motivation. Let your team choose their own titles, without implementing hierarchy, and have teams measure their own performance so they can learn and grow.

Set Goals

Employees need to work collectively--not just as task-doers. After creating teams, I gave each team a goal, one that could easily be measured in short intervals--like one or two weeks. This helps employees to see exactly what outcome they’re working for--they now focus on the whyand no longer on the how. Given a goal and consistent short time-frames, teams are able to measure their performance and learn from previous mistakes, allowing them to improve during the next time interval. Establish the philosophy of team goals, and employees will no longer feel as if they’re just “doing tasks for the boss.” Employees will appreciate the effort to allow their team (or even individual team members) ownership and responsibility of the goal. If they need help, they have a support layer, but no hierarchy is involved.

Provide Support, Not Escalation

In a hierarchal workplace, escalation occurs when a problem arises. Instead of team support, you get individual workers passing problems off to other people. And when a problem is passed, so is its ownership. In my model, managers and bosses are repositioned as team support, working for the teams, helping them in whatever they need. Former high-level executives provide help and support, rather than telling employees what to do or how to do it. Getting rid of company hierarchy means client or customer satisfaction becomes priority and ownership stays with the team. Since no one is able to “pass the buck” when a problem comes up--everyone will tackle problems collectively. No more navigating departments and roles (politics) that once divided them.

Take Money Off the Table

By default, salaries are hierarchal. When you flatten your company hierarchy, you don’t have to flatten salaries to make them equal for everyone--but you do have to talk to your employees. Ask what they need to feel comfortable on a monthly basis. We didn’t lower any salaries, but we did give out some raises. Create pay levels that are tied to performance, not job titles and seniority. As soon as your employees aren’t constantly worrying about money, your culture can thrive. Remember, you want your employees to work towards a team goal, not towards their paycheck.

Remove Rules, Give Autonomy

No one likes to feel they’re living under authoritarian rule. Autonomy is one of the biggest motivators, so let your employees act like the adults they are. By removing unnecessary rules and offering flexibility, they can determine how much they need to be in the office on a given day, or whether or not they’ll be able to take a vacation next week. Structures like strict work hours, location requirements, limited vacation time, fancy titles, and even employee reviews scream one message: employees are working to satisfy rules--not to meet goals.

Lead, Don’t Manage

Dismantling your company hierarchy means your teams will measure their own success, giving you the freedom to lead instead of manage. Don’t correct employees or solve their problems--guide and support them with leadership instead. If there’s a problem, ask key questions to guide them to the solution instead of jumping in to take the reins and own the problem.

Reap the Benefits

By flattening our hierarchy and getting rid of the bosses, Ciplex’s culture has thrived. Our employees are happier because they actually want to come to work every day--they don’t feel forced to work because of money, nor do they feel shut out of big decisions. In addition, we watched the quality of work and customer satisfaction increase, while costs were lowered. Grow your company by getting rid of the hierarchy, and you will create a company people love working at.

The Deadly Cost of a B-Player

Adopted from the true words of a B Player:
READ ON:

I recently attended VatorSplash here in San Francisco, and I had the fortune of listening to Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club speak about a variety of topics. The one that struck me most wasn't about innovation (which is one thing Vator is all about) it was about hiring. My ears perked up.
There's no shortage of information about hiring on Inc.com; Tony Hsiehlet us in on the hiring snafus at Zappos. So I'll add this article to the list because it seems so obvious but it's not. It's about how a B-player can ruin your business, or at least take years away from where your business "should be."
Renaud laid it out simply: when you hire a B-player, they'll do an okay job and there's not really a reason to fire them. But B-players can do a few damaging things to your business:
They'll either hire mediocre people just like them or even worse, C-players, making an increasingly larger portion of your business run by them.
Your A-players will leave because they don't want to work on a mediocre team and they get sick of the general feeling of not being able to get things done.
You've got to nip your B-players in the bud. Either get them to "A" status by coaching and mentoring them, or cut them loose. You don't want to look back and think about where your business "could have" been.
How have you dealt with B-players on your team? I'd love to hear your challenges and successes.

FuzeBox Hires Google’s Amritansh Raghav And Skype’s Eran Shtiegman To Lead Product And Engineering

Video conferencing company FuzeBox is announcing two big hires today — Amritansh Raghav (left), former engineering director for Google Compute Engine, and Eran Shtiegman (right), a former director of product management at Skype (where he worked on social products and ads).

Raghav is the company’s new chief security officer and senior vice president of engineering, while Shtiegman will be the vice president of product and user experience.

CEO Jeff Cavins said that when FuzeBox management asked, “Who would be our ideal candidates and help us scale products and operations at a global level?” it was looking for people who had successfully launched enterprise products, had experience with “massive scale,” and had also dealt with “massive user adoption.” Together, Raghav and Shtiegman “really hit all three criteria” — both of them have long resumés that include working on the Lync videoconferencing service at Microsoft. (FuzeBox also says that Raghav was a key driver Google Docs and Compute Engine, and that both men were crucial to Microsoft’s unified communications strategy.)

The fact that Raghav and Shtiegman have worked together before isn’t a coincidence — Shtiegman said that Raghav “basically recruited me.” Raghav described FuzeBox as a company that’s well-positioned to “rethink communication and collaboration” in the face of a growing number of Internet-connected devices. (For example FuzeBox launched a powerful video-conferencing app for the iPhone last year.)

“We are lucky to be coming into a place where product is already on fire,” Raghav added. So his job will be “thinking about — with this change in the kind of screens, whether it’s glasses, it’s tablets, it’s smartphones — what is the ideal experience going to look like for the user?”

7 Must-Have (Free) Mobile Apps to do Your Job Better

In the six short years since Steve Jobs unveiled Apple’s iPhone to the world—with his famous 4,000 Starbucks lattes prank—smartphones have become for many people, an absolute necessity in their lives. 

The smartphone may also well be the most important productivity tool in—and out of—the office. This year an estimated 200 million workers will tap into mobile business apps to collaborate and conference, access and edit docs, check email, chat and more on the go. 

But there’s one dirty little secret: Most mobile business apps kill more time than they save. I preview hundreds of apps on the job at HootSuite, a social media management tool used by Fortune 100 companies, mom-and-pop businesses and five million users around the globe. And I see countless apps that make big promises and don’t deliver. They’re non-intuitive, with clunky interfaces. They have tiny user bases and no customer support. They make simple tasks - like making a to-do list - ridiculously complex. 

But the best of the bunch really do make working on the go easier. These seven free mobile business apps - a mix of tried-and-true classics and road-tested upstarts - merit a spot in the phone of any office warrior this year.






Brewster: Instant Rolodex - Between Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn - not to mention your email client - you likely have hundreds, if not thousands, of colleagues and customers you interact with. Brewster is a handy mobile app that pulls in contact info and other details from all of those platforms and creates eye-catching, in-depth profiles for each and every person. Using a “relationship algorithm,” the app automatically sorts contacts into “favorites,” “trending” and other lists, and even sends out gentle reminders when you’re falling out of touch with someone. Another benefit: Brewster is fully searchable - not just by name, but keyword, location and even photo. 


Here on Biz: Meet your LinkedIn contacts in real life - Virtual connections are great, but nothing beats a face-to-face meeting. With Here on Biz, you can instantly see which of your LinkedIn contacts (as well as other LinkedIn users) are physically nearby, segmented into visitors and locals. Request a connection and you can chat directly via the app, ideally setting up the kind of in-person encounter that gets results. Here on Biz proves especially useful at conferences when trying to make sense of a sea of new faces and maximize meeting time. The app is free to use, though it is somewhat limited by the fact that only LinkedIn users actually running the Here on Biz app show up in searches. 


HootSuite: All your social media, anywhere - Yes, HootSuite is my company. But it’s not just fatherly pride when I say HootSuite Mobile is an amazing app for handling social media on the go. Just like the web version, the app allows for publishing to all of your social networks - Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc - from one interface. You can schedule messages for optimum times, attach files and photos and shrink links, all with a few taps. Advanced users can even set up streams for monitoring customer feedback on social networks, track clients and keywords across different platforms and more. But don’t just take my word for it. Says Mashable: “[HootSuite is] the premier dashboard for companies looking to get analysis of their social media efforts.” 


Dropbox: Your hard drive, anywhere - Here’s an oldie but goodie. According to urban legend, Dropbox was hatched back in 2007 when MIT grad and founder Drew Houston got fed up with always forgetting his memory sticks around campus. His solution: a seamless, cloud-based system to sync files across all of your devices. Just drag files or folders into the Dropbox folder, and they’ll sync across phones, PCs, laptops, tablets, etc., automatically. Edit from anywhere and changes are saved and synced (You can even access older and deleted versions of files). Dropbox gives you 2GB for free (or up to 18GB if you refer friends) and has paid plans for users with bigger needs. You can also designate certain files as favorites, making them available offline - especially handy for frequent flyers and off-the-grid travelers. 


Trello: Beyond to-do lists - Back In the early 1950s, engineers at Toyota pioneered a deceptively simple scheduling system called Kanban, based on index cards passed from one part on the plant to another. Trello takes this concept into the mobile era. Tasks (or Lists, in Trello lingo) are represented as columns on a virtual corkboard. Add as many cards as you want to a List, then customize each card with comments, checklists and attachments. You can loop in other team members and assign them cards and even drag cards from one List to another as a project moves toward completion. Uniquely flexible and collaborative, Trello is as handy for personal to-do lists as it is for coordinating complex projects among big teams - from managing sales leads to producing films. 


Evernote: Junk drawer for your digital life - Another indispensable classic, cloud-based notetaking app Evernote is quite possibly the world’s most incredible junk drawer. You can throw all the random stuff of life in it - photos, voice memos, attachments, clips from the Internet, typed and even handwritten notes - and it makes everything searchable, synced and accessible across all of your devices. The uses are really limitless. Record a sound bite at a conference on your phone and listen to it later on your work PC. Jot down some inspiration on your tablet on the bus, then finish the thought later on your home computer. Take a photo of a business card or handwritten Post-it note, then - courtesy of Evernote’s OCR handwriting recognition - search its contents at a later time. The free mobile app lets you upload up to 60 megabytes a month. Upgrade to Premium ($5/month, $45/year) and you get a gigabyte of uploads, collaborative notebooks (which colleagues can log into and edit) and access to your notes even when offline. 


UberConference: Conference calls on the go - Organizing conference calls is a logistical feat under the best of conditions - emailing colleagues to set a time, sending out access codes, waiting for everyone to call in. Trying to do all that on the go can be nearly impossible. That’s where UberConference comes in, the brainchild of Google Voice guru Craig Walker. You select attendees from your phone’s contact list and UberConference automatically calls, emails or texts them to join, no PIN required. Once the call is underway, the app’s nifty display shows photos and social profiles of all callers and even indicates who’s speaking at any given time. Though it lacks the ability to schedule calls in advance, UberConference definitely succeeds in making the conference call experience a bit less painful. 

Yahoo And Best Buy Are Wrong: Great Work Can Happen From Anywhere

Just one week after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer issued her ‘work-in-the-office-only’ policy, Best Buy is dominating a new wave of headlines by following in her footsteps — delivering a one-two punch to the flexible work movement.

Best Buy, which was considered a trailblazer of flexible work through its popular Results-Only-Work-Environment (or “ROWE”) program, has revoked telecommuting privileges for some 4,000 non-store employees. Now, remote work will happen by exception and with managerial approval.

At Yahoo reportedly nobody is exempt, not even those who were hired with the understanding that they could work from home, a coffee shop, a co-working space, or wherever else they could find a productive environment to contribute from afar.

In the age of Skype, Google Docs, Dropbox and oDesk (where I work) these are pretty stunning pronouncements from one of the industry’s most progressive companies, and from Marissa Mayer, one of Silicon Valley’s most closely watched working Moms.

Where did it come from?

It seems that a practice presumably designed to attract talent is arousing suspicion. Are remote employees working from home, taking their children to the park or doing a bit of both?

It’s certainly true that working near crying babies is neither productive for the company, nor good for their harried professional moms.

But must we throw out the baby with the bathwater by ordering everyone back into the office? Must we go back to limiting ourselves to the talent that happens to reside within 25 miles of the office and the people who sit in a cubicle during traditional business hours?

Or is it time to reflect on how we can best harness talent, regardless of where it happens to be?

Some of my favorite tips for work-anywhere teams are as follows:

1. Expect a professional environment, wherever it is
If you wouldn’t have a baby in your office, then think twice about allowing a situation in which the employee is simultaneously babysitting. In most cases, this is not a recipe for producing exceptional work.

Workers don’t have to be in a cubicle, but they do need a space in which they can conduct professional business without distractions.

2. Clarify the boundaries
Develop a crisp understanding of the employee’s limits. One exceptionally talented working Mom I hired in the past, for example, had to pick up her young daughter at 3 pm. We accommodated the shorter but clearly stated in-office hours. In return, she made a tremendous impact on our business. I suspect she was so extraordinarily productive because she was free of guilt and worry, as well as grateful for the opportunity. She is now a well-respected leader in Silicon Valley.

3. Communicate relentlessly
Make sure everyone on your team, remote or local, understands what s/he need to accomplish, when it is due and how s/he will be measured. Put it in writing; it forces you to be crisp and removes any doubt as to what is expected. Conduct frequent status check-ins to review accomplishments, upcoming goals and any milestones or red flags.

4. Measure people by the quality of their results
Agree on measurable goals. This might be increased sales, higher levels of customer satisfaction, a well-designed product or whatever else moves the needle for your business.

If the goal is met, what matters least is where the work happened, or when it happened — as long as it was completed on time.

Some of the very best employees have a meaningful impact on the business because they deliver quality results in record time. They know how to push past “90% finished” and cross the finish line. They use ruthless prioritization to focus on what makes a difference to the business.

These people are not usually the ones who spend the most time in their cubicles. They may be working in their bunny slippers, after their children are in bed.

5. Embrace an integrated culture
At oDesk, we are avid users of collaboration technologies including Skype, Dropbox and Google Docs. Each conference room is equipped with large monitors so we can integrate remote remote participates into meetings via Skype or Google Hangouts.

We have developed an etiquette for how we work as virtual teams. Each meeting begins with an inquiry as to who is remote that day so we can bring them in via Skype or Google Hangouts. Supporting documents are distributed in advance. We greet team members who enter the meeting on a screen as warmly as we greet people in the room. A remote person wishing to speak is given priority.

Most companies invest sizable resources to find and attract the people who are most brilliant in their contributions. Should we turn our backs on exceptional flex workers who make up a large portion of our population? Or should we put our energy into designing ways to make them — and ultimately our businesses — more successful?

What do you think?

Here's Why I Don't Want My Employees To Work At Home!!

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh has been praised for his ability to create a great company culture and his e-commerce endeavor has made its way onto lists that celebrate the best places to work.

Hsieh went on CNBC's Squawk on the Street this morning and he addressed the recent work-from-home controversy.

The debate was prompted by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to make her remote employees come into the office — or quit. Best Buy made a similar decision, ending the company's Results Only Work Environment (ROWE) policy which allowed employees to work from anywhere they wanted, as long as they got the job done.

Here's what Hsieh had to say about working remotely:

Research has shown that companies with strong cultures outperform those without in the long-term financially. So we're big, big believers in building strong company cultures. And I think that's hard to do remotely.

We don't really telecommute at Zappos. We want employees to be interacting with each other, building those personal relationships and relationships outside of work as well.

What we found is when they have those personal connections that productivity increases because there's higher levels of trust. Employees are willing to do favors for each others because they're not just co-workers, but also friends, and communication is better. So we're big believers in in-person interactions.

Why Our 20s Are the Most Important Decade of Adulthood

These are some of the most important questions of ones life which mostly remains unanswered:


 Why do people think their 20's don't matter?

 It's because a lot of the developmental milestones are happening later now. People get married later, they have their kids later, career sort of takes its form a bit later. We die later. So there's this sense that we have a lot of time. And when someone tells you that you have extra time to do something, you feel like, 'Well, what I do today doesn't matter.' Think back to when you were in college and a professor said you have three extra weeks to write a paper. You probably didn't say, 'I've got three extra weeks to make that even better than I would have.' No, you're thinking, 'I've got three weeks; I don't need to think about this until the night before.' It's just human behavior.

So what career mistakes do twenty-somethings make?

The only mistake not worth making is doing something that is a placeholder, or that you're aware is killing time, that this doesn't matter. If those are the words you're saying to yourself, that's probably a mistake. Another mistake would be spending too much time on something when it becomes clear that it isn't the thing (you want to do). I'm all for exploration; I spent my early 20s as an Outward Bound instructor. Just make sure it's conscious, productive, rather than stalling.

A lot of twenty-somethings would say they'd love to make a conscious choice about their careers, but can't because of the economy. How do you respond?

It's tough; I'm not going to say that it isn't. But it's more empowering, rather than saying, 'What has the economy done to me?' to say, 'What am I going to do about it?' There's a great saying that I actually got in fortune cookie one time: 'A wise man makes his own luck.' A lot of twenty-somethings do have jobs; they have good jobs, or great jobs. And those usually come through 'weak ties.' That's how you make your luck as a twenty-something. Have the courage to ask people for a favor, or an interview, or an informational interview, a phone call on your behalf. You'd be surprised by how willing people are to open the door for a twenty-something who asks.

So, if you're managing someone in his twenties, what's your advice?

Twenty-somethings in my practice often fall in two groups. One group wants a good job. The other has a good job and they're terrified they're going to lose it. A lot of managers have heard the myths and stereotypes about twenty-somethings: that they're so entitled and they're so obnoxious, whatever. Truly the ones who have gotten themselves into good jobs (are stressed). The twenty-something brain is especially sensitive to criticism and correction. That doesn't mean they shouldn't hear it, but it means managers may not understand how often that person is crying in the bathroom or coming into my office and saying, 'Oh my gosh, my manager sent me a not-nice email; I think he's going to fire me.' ... People forget that twenty-somethings are new in the work world and that that's an overwhelming experience.

You just completed a 14-minute reading my blog. How's it feel to be finished with it? 

This one is for you to answer...


Obviously, most of us don't realize that they have wasted their 20's until they are in the 50's....

Why Silicon Valley Is the Next Detroit

All good things must come to an end, including Motown and many a once-noble region or hamlet. So I have history on my side when I lob the following grenade: Silicon Valley will take its turn someday, falling from the heights it has attained.

I make this assertion because if we look closely, we can already see what will cause the decline of Silicon Valley. In fact, the valley’s residents are consciously planting the seeds of the valley’s own demise. What’s more, I believe many of them will celebrate when the valley is no longer on top.

My cheery assessment depends on this sleight of words: Decline is relative, and the decline that Silicon Valley faces will be less like watching Hewlett-Packard slip into irrelevance and more like proudly standing to one side as the rest of the world — eventually even the less-developed world — catches up to it. Thus, the “decline” I claim the valley seeks and will eventually succumb to is a most desirable decline, indeed.

Digital disruption — a force that Silicon Valley gestated and nursed from its earliest days — is now global. Digital devices, the networks that connect them, and the software tools that prod human beings to hanker for more of all these things will soon be everywhere. The long-term effect of rising digital disruption will be to redistribute the benefits of the future across the planet even as it continues to improve the already futuristic valley that started it all. What does Silicon Valley have today that other places will eventually enjoy as well? Access to three things the valley currently has in spades:

·         Knowledge. With ubiquitous sensors in every device we own or location we frequent, we will soon collect in a single day far more information than we could have stored in all the hard disks manufactured prior to 2000. But that information is meaningless if we can’t render it into knowledge, which granted the smart people of Silicon Valley an early edge that they are now giving away for free. Analytics available to even the lowest YouTube channel producer now rival the most sophisticated reports CBS, NBC and ABC had available in the 1980s. Apply even better analytical engines to the data from Fitbit pedometers, Google Glass and the myriad of sensors that will listen to the stress in our voices or identify behaviors that undermine our health, and you’ve got an unprecedented depth and breadth of knowledge available soon to anyone, anywhere.

·         Tools. Knowing something is nice, but being able to act on that knowledge is even better. Digital disruption depends on the distribution of tools — most of them free or nearly free — that equip anyone who wants to use knowledge to initiate and test a new concept. Kickstarter and its peers provide this opportunity for thousands of people who want to test their ideas; Amazon can make anyone a merchant partner, an affiliate, or an author, all for no cost; and the Square card reader just helped local merchants sell $800,000 worth of goods and services around the Super Bowl on game day in New Orleans.

·         Capital. It’s not that there’s money going around. But thanks to the knowledge and digital tools available to you, you need a whole lot less of it to bring your idea to fruition. I recently spoke to Charles Teague, CEO of FitNow, the company behind the wildly successful LoseIt! calorie- and weight-tracking app. A veteran of the startup business from the earliest days at Allaire, Charles described for me with a slight tone of disbelief in his own words how cheaply he can launch and manage a company today compared to even ten years ago. This is partly because the tools are cheaper — you can open your Amazon Web Services account with a credit card — but also because much of the value digital disruptors deliver today comes through software. And as a successful entrepreneur who had sold his company to Qualcomm told me last year, “It’s just software; I can do anything in software for $40,000.”

People fond of wine and cheese will argue that there’s more to valley life than just these three things. That’s certainly true, but when you have more knowledge, tools and capital, some of the other things the valley prizes become common elsewhere as well. A culture of achievement, for example. As only people who have lived in a subculture that keeps them down know, the valley is a unique place where even surfers think they can be the next startup billionaires, leading to the creation of a company like GoPro.

It’s presumptuous of me to suggest that all valley residents will be so happy to be dethroned, even if the decline is only relative to the rise of the rest of the world. Venture capitalists, lawyers and politicians will feel the relative decline the most because their services have long been offered under the presumption that the value they provide is scarce, an assumption that’s now patently false. Other valley residents will be pleased, at least if Jeff Hammerbacher, Chief Scientist at Cloudera, is any indication. As he told me in an interview for my new book, “Digital Disruption,” “I don’t subscribe to the ‘great man’ theory of the world. I’d much rather create fertile soil for other innovators to plant their seeds in than just water my own tree. “

He actually talks like that. And that’s what makes him and many others like him the planters of the same seeds that will sow the relative decline of Silicon Valley by lifting everybody else up to join it. Even — perhaps especially — Detroit, home of over 250 Kickstarter projects.

Andrew Mason's Daily Deal: 'I Got Fired Today'

I don't root for failure and don't believe that dancing on graves is ever the way to go. It's an especially appropriate personal creed when a good guy who I think overplayed his hand decides to retreat throwing rose petals instead of grenades.

Andrew Mason is out as Groupon's CEO, the end of a relatively brief ride as the marquee pre-Facebook IPO which never lived up to expectations. At the time Groupon went public I argued that the expectations were absurdly high: Sure, daily deals may be a big business, but was it so big that one company could value itself at $16 billion in an industry shared by Amazon and Google and to which the barrier to entry wasn't all that high anyway?

Within a month of its November 2011 IPO Groupon was slipping, and then sinking, and through it all the Groupon board stuck with Mason and he didn't blame anyone for anything.

Now in what appears to be a farewell memo, Mason goes out in style:

(This is for Groupon employees, but I'm posting it publicly since it will leak anyway)

People of Groupon,

After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding - I was fired today. If you're wondering why... you haven't been paying attention. From controversial metrics in our S1 to our material weakness to two quarters of missing our own expectations and a stock price that's hovering around one quarter of our listing price, the events of the last year and a half speak for themselves. As CEO, I am accountable.

You are doing amazing things at Groupon, and you deserve the outside world to give you a second chance. I'm getting in the way of that. A fresh CEO earns you that chance. The board is aligned behind the strategy we've shared over the last few months, and I've never seen you working together more effectively as a global company - it's time to give Groupon a relief valve from the public noise.

For those who are concerned about me, please don't be - I love Groupon, and I'm terribly proud of what we've created. I'm OK with having failed at this part of the journey. If Groupon was Battletoads, it would be like I made it all the way to the Terra Tubes without dying on my first ever play through. I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to take the company this far with all of you. I'll now take some time to decompress (FYI I'm looking for a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40, if anyone has a suggestion), and then maybe I'll figure out how to channel this experience into something productive.

If there's one piece of wisdom that this simple pilgrim would like to impart upon you: have the courage to start with the customer. My biggest regrets are the moments that I let a lack of data override my intuition on what's best for our customers. This leadership change gives you some breathing room to break bad habits and deliver sustainable customer happiness - don't waste the opportunity!

I will miss you terribly.

Love,

Andrew

I'm no expert, but that kind of style is in short supply. And it may be one of the common characteristics of the current crop of risk-takers who thrive as members of teams and don't manage the old-fashioned way -- by cutting down anyone who might be a threat.

We don't know what Mason is really thinking, but we sure know how he's acting. What do you think? Is Mason the kind of boss you'd be sorry to see go? When you've been laid off, did you make it point to burn no bridges -- or is "take this job and shove it" sometimes the way to go?