VC Doerr Predicts Rise of "Social Commerce"

Silicon Valley uber-VC John Doerr said today "we are on the verge of a massive reinvention of the Web" that will call forth social entrepreneurs in rising numbers to take the convergence of social media and mobile technology and create new types of "social commerce" around new devices like the iPad.

Doerr, interviewed by PBS host Charlie Rose at today's TechCrunch Disrupt conference in Manhattan, said the first great wave of social innovation came with the rise of computer power in the 1980s; the second great wave came in 1995 with the rise of the Internet as an information-sharing device. The third great wave is now, he says. "We've entered a whole new applications economy, where all sorts of new applications of Web technology are being driven by the new relationships" being fostered by social media, "and this is turning the world around in a really exciting way. " Doerr said, for example, that the iPad "is not just a new fad, but a new paradigm" in the way people create relationships - and will, in turn, create new types of business products, cultures, and strategies for good.

"The iPad is not a computer; you do not need a mouse to operate it," said Doerr, a partner in the legendary VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers."These are commercially new kinds of magical surfaces that are social. You can take the iPad to concerts, to church," he said. "(The iPad and other such social devices) also lead to a new kind of fluidity, a full immersive experience" for people "and a rich terrain for hundreds of new startups and social ventures that both make money and serve society." This new type of commercialism, Doerr said, will make one's friends "the most important driving factor in making purchasing decisions."

Doerr also predicted that this new wave of social technology/social business will change the workplace, speeding a rise of new "missionary" business cultures -- rich with new levels of collaboration and social consciousness. "Mercenaries are motivated by financial statements, and sometimes a sense of entitlement," Doerr said, "but missionary cultures are driven by value statements about contribution - not simply the bottom line." Doerr added: "Mercenaries lust for making money but missionaries lust for making meaning." He cited Apple founder Steve Jobs, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, among others, as being among these new missionaries. "These guys have turned down opportunities to sell their companies because they're passionate about their products and their impact on society, where the product is the most important contribution."

Doerr said Zynga - the games company - is the "fastest-growing social venture we've ever invested in" with 60 million daily users across the games the company produces. He said about 2 percent of those who play want to "buy a better tractor for a farmer or give to a friend or raise money to send bicycle seats to Haiti" or "otherwise do important social things with this technology." This, says Doerr, is part of the vision and promise of this fledgling new era of social commerce "and it calls forth social entrepreneurs in numbers previously not anticipated."

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