Former Yahoo! Executive Joins Ripple

Ripple Labs, the company behind the digital currency Ripple (XRP), has announced former Yahoo! and AOL executive, Brad Garlinghouse, has joined the company as COO.  “With a technology like Ripple, we can pursue a lot of paths, but that likely won’t make us a successful business. If you try to do a lot of things, you typically won’t be good at a lot of them. Let’s do a few things really, really well.” Garlinghouse stated.

“Amazon started as a bookseller. They built a model around selling books. And then they said we’re going to do electronics. I think the same thing applies here,”
— – Brad Garlinghouse, Ripple Labs COO

While at Yahoo! Garlinghouse wrote a notorious internal memo,  that was subsequently leaked to the press, titled Peanut Butter Manifesto. The memo concluded that Yahoo was off track, spreading itself too thin and massive changes needed to happen. The Yahoo! executive joins a growing list of big name talent at Ripple Labs.

The company has hired several high profile figures in recent months, expanding its reach. In early April the digital currency company opened its first Asia Pacific office, and hired payment industry veteran Dilip Rao to lead the organization’s efforts in the region.

In March former State Department official Anja Manuel joined Ripple’s advisory board, to help the company’s international expansion. Anja is a co-founder and partner at RiceHadleyGates LLC,  a US based consulting firm. The RiceHadleyGates LLC Team also consists of former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

Continual Progress

In his infamous Peanut Butter Manifesto, Garlinghouse put forward that Yahoo was investing too little, in too many areas – and predicted dramatic changes for the company. Since leaving Yahoo! he has applied his experience and philosophy to many other startups and established companies alike, including Ancestry.com, Animoto, and Hightail – formerly YouSendIt.

“I think the culture of an organization is critical to its success. Every person at a company is a reflection of the culture of that company.”
— – Garlinghouse

Garlinghouse is quick to highlight his previous experience when outlining his focus in the new position, “Yahoo! lost its way in being an entrepreneurial, risk-taking, and aggressive company. They started to define product life cycles in years, not months or days. And you had Google pushing stuff out in days and weeks. Is it a surprise we lost? So my goal at Ripple Labs is to cultivate a culture of continuous progress.”

Refining his focus further, in a company blog post, Garlinghouse stated, “When we talk about ‘Internet of Value,’ the possibilities stretch past every horizon. [Stefan Thomas, Ripple Labs CTO] was talking about this 10-year vision in terms of value movement—like with how you might use micropayments to move cars out of your way when you’re sitting in a traffic jam. That’s almost science fiction.”

“My part is to work with the team on the 10-month vision, map a clear plan to get there, and then make sure we get there.”
— – Garlinghouse