different areas of the planet, it struggles to target individuals. It aces
humanity but gets a C in humans. This is the reason Twitter’s
relevance, similar to Wikipedia or PBS, will always outpace its market
value. Good for the planet, bad for Twitter shareholders.
No company is higher or farther to the right on this chart than
Facebook. It crushes on both reach and intelligence. This power gives
it a huge edge in the digital world. Facebook has access to quinine in a
mosquito-infested market—digitally savvy talent. Smart people want
to work at a dominant company that they think gets it. Its prospects
are bright, opportunities everywhere. There are interesting problems
to solve, and ridiculous amounts of money in play. Few firms had the
stones, or firepower, to drop $20 billion on a five-year-old company,
WhatsApp.
At L2, we track migration patterns between the largest firms,
including traditional agencies and the Four. WPP is the world’s largest
advertising group. Some 2,000 of its former employees have migrated
to Facebook or Google. By comparison, only 124 former Facebook or
Google peeps left to go work at WPP.
Consider the reverse migrants—124 that went back to WPP. Many
of them, it turns out, had only interned at Facebook or Google, and
went to WPP when they weren’t extended offers in Palo Alto or
Mountainside.^21 The ad world today is increasingly run by the
leftovers.