Joost Getting a New CEO, Mike Volpi Former Cisco Guy
Ever heard of Mike Volpi? Not found in wikipedia? Stanford’s Volpi Bio says the guy is aggressive capable of carrying out aggressive acquisitions: “The 30-year-old vice-president of business development is Cisco’s point man for its aggressive program of acquisitions … Since joining Cisco three years ago, Volpi has led or helped steer 23 such deals, the purchase of 10 companies at a cost of more than $5 billion.” The Italian born mechanical engineer [Mike Volpi for Michelangelo Volpi] turned businessman (MBA from Stanford) does not much favor slow, consensus-driven style, so Joost must be offering the juice he needs (he says “HP is very methodical, very consensus-driven,” he says. “I wanted to get going.”), and something more than Cisco - after more than 10 years, and still two bosses above him on the career ladder (Chambers and his heir apparent, Charlie Giancarlo, the Chief Development Officer, as Om Malik points out). But Volpi says, he needed something more unique than being a router guy.
Mike Volpi was also on the board of Skype, as Paid Content writes, and in fact co-founded Joost with Zenströmm and Friis. Former CEO Fredrik de Wahl, has led the Joost project managing the scaling issues and the programming growth. “But the company recently closed a $45 million round and a change in leadership wouldn’t be unusual at this stage. Index Ventures lead the round with Sequoia.” Volpi is needed for his sophisticated strategies. While at Cisco he claimed “Our deals are not financially complex. But they’re strategically sophisticated.” Translation: “Volpi spends about 25% of his time on the road scoping out potential investments that would fill gaps in Cisco’s portfolio or give it a technology edge over competitors.”
Fortune Browser blog: “The company wants to become the main repository for all television content. And we’re talking full-length shows, not just clips. To do that, Joost has already bagged Viacom (VIA) and Time Warner (TWX) as partners, and Volpi has his eye too on NBC, Disney (DIS), and the rest. The former whiz kid’s mastery of dealmaking should come in handy.
And what are Volpi’s plans? Om Malik made a mini interview with Mike Volpi.
Who are the potential competitors? “Joost is not YouTube and Joost is not Apple iTunes. What Joost is - a service that delivers high quality ad-supported long form produced video content in a secure manner using a cost-effective delivery platform,” says Mike.
What are the unique selling points of Joost? Bringing 1, long form video content, 2, advertising and 3, delivery platform. “No one has it packaged together like Joost.”
YouTube is already on Apple TV, and Joost? “OM: Is there a chance we will see Joost on AppleTV? Mike: We would love to put Joost on the Apple TV platform. We know we can make it run on any operating system.”
Sounds excellent, and admittedly, I wouldn’t mind working for Joost, there is a lot of promise and a great time-space-web constellation for the Joost products and the team. Why I would still choose Google, if I had the chance, is the ‘do no evil’ message. Or more than that: the potential for heavily contributing to scientific, educational, social developments. Will Joost have a stronger CSR message?