TECHNOLOGY Bloomberg Businessweek March 8, 2021
21THE BOTTOM LINE Venture capitalists have made Clubhouse a
cultural sensation within their industry. The startup’s next step is to
outgrow its need for them.work on augmented reality. Bloomberg and others
have since reported that Facebook is working on
a Clubhouse competitor, and Twitter Inc. is doing
the same. It’s a clear sign that Silicon Valley thinks
Alpha Exploration Co., the startup responsible for
Clubhouse, has hit on something big.
New forms of smartphone-based media con-
sumption that suddenly take off among early adopt-
ers don’t always translate well to the wider world.
For every Twitter, which first gained prominence as
the must-have app of the 2007 South by Southwest
conference, there’s a Highlight, a location-based
social networking service that was SXSW’s top
app in 2012 but was promptly forgotten after
everyone went home. That cautionary tale holds
special relevance for Clubhouse given that Alpha
Exploration’s co-founder and CEO, Paul Davison,
created Highlight.
“The things that excite us in Silicon Valley are not
the things that excite a kid,” says Sarah Lacy, founder
of news startup Pando Daily, which Andreessen has
invested in personally. “That’s why a lot of people in
the Valley missed the rise of TikTok.” Lacy, who now
runs a network for women called Chairman Mom,
says Clubhouse will reach escape velocity, too. “It
has just captured something,” she says.
Via a spokeswoman, Davison declined to
comment for this article. A representative for A16Z
also declined to comment.
A16Z has worked to get people from beyond the
industry onto Clubhouse. Actor Jared Leto, Chinese
artist Ai Weiwei, and television personality Gayle
King have used the app. Clubhouse had 6.8 million
active users for the week ended Feb. 20, according
to market data firm App Annie. (The company’s own
data show significantly more users.)
A16Z is unabashedly enthusiastic about
Clubhouse—this January it led a $100 million funding
round. In February the firm posted a job listing for a
producer focused on creating its content for the app.
But it’s also said it plans to build its own media outlet
that will provide an optimistic look at tech issues.
Clubhouse could become more vulnerable the
longer it relies on a powerful investor for both
money and content, especially when that investor
has competing ambitions in media. But Horowitz
has framed the firm’s investment in media start-
ups, which also include blogging service A Medium
Corp. and newsletter company Substack Inc., as
complementary. “The ideas you can get across all
are very, very different,” he said recently on his
own Clubhouse show. The longer, often thought-
ful conversation that happens on Clubhouse “is not
something that happens on the other social net-
works, at least for me.”
An increasing proportion of what’s happening on
Clubhouse has nothing to do with its famous inves-
tors. While Silicon Valley types log on to keep up
with Musk and Zuckerberg, most users head to more
humdrum discussion rooms such as “The Brain Care
Club” or “Living Your Best Life Post Breakup.” At
any given moment, thousands of conversations are
taking place, most with nary a celebrity in earshot.
That’s a good sign for the app, says Supernode
Ventures managing partner and Mediabistro
founder Laurel Touby, who isn’t an investor but has
been urging her professional contacts to tune in to
her Clubhouse appearances. The app can still feel
like a niche fixation for tech insiders, and even if it
moves to broader audiences, some people may con-
tinue to remember it as A16Z’s own little plaything,
she says. “Is that so bad?” —Sarah McBrideTech’s Latest
Perk: Never
See the Office
When Cathy Polinsky was the chief technology
officer at online clothing company Stitch Fix Inc. in
San Francisco, her friend Dan Debow would often
bug her about switching jobs. Debow, a vice presi-
dent at e-commerce platform Shopify Inc., had long
tried to persuade her to come work with him.
But Polinsky, 43, had family commitments
keeping her in the Bay Area, so she always said
no to moving to live near Shopify’s headquar-
ters in Ottawa. Then, in May, Shopify went “dig-
ital by default,” letting all 7,000 employees work
from anywhere indefinitely. “Dan told me about
Shopify’s new initiative late last summer, and
that’s what really kicked off the conversation,”
Polinsky says. In January she joined Shopify as
vice president for engineering, working from
her home in California. One of her first steps was
to launch a recruiting drive to hire more than
2,000 engineers in 2021. They’ll all be able to work
from home permanently, too. Media investments
with Andreessen
Horowitz participation
(totals raised from all
investors)
Facebook $1.5b
Pinterest $1.3b
Reddit $918m
Roblox $150m
Clubhouse $110m
Medium $107m
Airtime $33m
Skout $22m
Ampersand $9m
App.net $8m○ Silicon Valley
companies
are wooing
executives with
the promise of
remote work
forever