can believe it—and he’s now trying to get television to work through the
Internet, while what we started doing was trying to get the Internet to work
through a television.
Livingston: What has the potential to go most wrong in the first year when a
startup is such a fragile organization?
Perlman: The worst thing that can happen to a startup is if the founding
team—or the people who are leading the thing—do not get along. And it’s
deadly when they don’t get along in front of the troops. I’ve come to realize
over the years that companies are just the people that make them up. We like to
think of them as business enterprises and having this value and that value. Well,
if you are going to distill it down to just patents and you are just going to go after
people for infringing your patents, I agree. Those companies are simply made
up of intellectual property assets. But any organization that actually has a product
they are trying to ship and/or service they are trying to provide, it mainly
comes down to the people. And the attitude of the company distills from
the top.
In an organization that is very large and has existing businesses that have
been running for a long time, you could have some not-so-great things happen
in the top of the company, and it doesn’t have as much impact. Maybe the
employees aren’t so happy, maybe they don’t think so highly about their jobs,
maybe they don’t work as efficiently, but the company can keep plowing along.
But, in the early days, you’ve got nothing. All you’ve got are problems—
problems that need to be solved, obstacles that need to be overcome. You need
to have an incredibly strong bond and an incredibly synchronized view of the
world amongst the key players if you are going to succeed.
A synchronized view of the world doesn’t mean you don’t argue about
things, that you don’t have disagreements. You must agree on the philosophy,
though, and on the vision. There are many ways to get there, but if you can’t
agree on the vision, then obviously you’re never going to agree on how to execute.
And you’ve got to respect each other. You’ve got to have cordial relationships.
You’ve got to be decent people. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen
companies where people are fighting or arguing or nasty things are happening––
fists punched through walls.
There’s one example where a pair of pliers was tossed by the CEO at the
controller. They sailed over her shoulder and lodged into the wall behind her.
She dropped her papers and said, “I quit,” and stormed out the door. I’ve seen

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