Love Is the Killer App

Then I got my big break -- a chance to share everything that I had learned from my crash course in business and the Web. In late 1998, not long after I'd finished reading Net Gain, the influential book on virtual communities by then-McKinsey consultant John Hagel and Arthur G. Armstrong, I got a call from Ken Weil, a vice president at Victoria's Secret. Ken wanted to explore the costs of broadcasting a lingerie fashion show over the Web. What he wanted was a good price. What I wanted was a chance to evangelize the ideas that I had learned from Net Gain.

Still, my company was in the business of making money, so we set up a routine conference call. In attendance were Tim Plzak, a director at Victoria's Secret's parent company who was responsible for the Webcast; Ken Weil; my boss; and me. It turned out to be the call of my life. I reviewed some of the big ideas from Net Gain. I explained that these weren't just blue-sky concepts, but practical tactics that could make or save Victoria's Secret money. I explained how the fashion show could create an immense email-address database that could support an inexpensive conversation between the company and its customers. Think "virtual community" and "member." And I sent a copy of Net Gain to Ken.

He got it. He saw the value of using the fashion show as a draw for customer information. Even though we didn't bid the lowest price, we got the business. And on February 2, 1999, we hosted an event that went down in the annals of Internet history. Because so many people who were trying to log on to the show had experienced technical difficulties, some media pundits called it a failure. Saturday Night Live even staged a parody of the event. But for us and for Victoria's Secret it was a huge success. When the event was over, Ken told me that it was the most positive business experience of his life. He even wrote a letter to Mark Cuban saying so. (I still have that letter above my desk. Mark had it framed for me.)

The following spring, Victoria's Secret decided to stage a second event. This time around, the goal was to make sure that it was a flawless user experience. So I committed myself to facilitating an alliance between Broadcast.com and our "co-opetition," America Online and Microsoft. It was a daring strategic step for us -- and the first time that I was willing to share my growing network of contacts with reckless abandon. We hosted a summit at which Victoria's Secret could talk to everyone before they signed a contract with us. I even left the room so that the other companies could strategize about networking and distribution (and perhaps try to take the business away from us).

But instead of teaming up with someone else (and yes, other companies did try to underbid us) , Victoria's Secret stayed put, because, as they told us, we had been willing to share our knowledge and our network to make everything work for their benefit. The second show was a bigger (and smoother) success than the first. And Ken became a friend for life. He understood that I wasn't trying to sell him a bill of goods and that I cared about his success just as much as I cared about my own. And I hoped that the feeling was mutual. Our bond was not just professional -- it was personal.

The Power of Love

My experience with Victoria's Secret taught me the three critical drivers of professional success, the three elemental particles of love in business. They are knowledge, networks, and compassion. To be an impact player in business, you simply have to know more than most other people know. That means taking the power of ideas seriously, reading books voraciously, and developing a system of organizing what you've learned. But all of your knowledge won't amount to much if you don't have a network of people to share it with -- and enough compassion for the people in that network to understand that your success is a direct result of their success.

Those factors helped me to move from Broadcast.com to an executive position at Yahoo (which acquired the company in 1999) and then to my current role at Yahoo, where I get to travel the globe, strategizing with some of the biggest companies in the world.

And I'm not alone. Over and over again, I've discovered that the businesspeople who are the busiest, the happiest, and the most prosperous are the ones who are the most generous with their knowledge and their expertise. People who love what they're doing, who love to learn new things, to meet new people, and to share what and whom they know with others: These are the people who wind up creating the most economic value and, as a result, moving their companies forward.