Okay, but what did Kleiner Perkins see in Gordon that made them bring a game guy on board?
In his opinion, it’s his combination of big picture thinking and an eye for the details, born of many years working on consumer entertainment. “What John Doerr thinks I bring uniquely to the Amazon board,” says Gordon as an example, “is big-idea creative thinking that can be business-changing. The ability to dive to a deep level of detail with high potential younger managers. Think oustide the box, but then break it all the way down to execution details. And also a lot of instincts about consumer behavior. People rarely come up through the consumer side into venture capital; it tends to be finance or sales or operations. “So I’d say big ideas; the ability to grind all the way down to exquisite line-by-line or wireframe-by-wireframe detail; all in a framework of understanding the irrational behavior of consumers.
