View From the Top 2013
Why Climb Mount Everest?
I wouldn’t be the first to compare the pursuit of a goal to climbing a mountain. In fact, “reaching the mountaintop” is probably the most overused metaphor for success, whether it’s a multilevel marketing pitch, a diet, or a smoking cessation class. Still, there’s really nothing quite so powerful as the image of a mountain and conquering it. If someone asks, “What’s the hardest mountain in the world to climb?” the typical answer would be Mount Everest. After all, it’s the highest. But it’s actually K2, known as the Savage Mountain, that’s most treacherous. Extreme storms, combined with exposed, sheer, one-way routes and deadly oxygen-poor altitudes, make K2 the ultimate climbing adversary, resulting in the highest death rate ratio of mountain climbs at 23.24%. In other words, for every four climbers making the ascent, one will die. Sound familiar? Welcome to the online video industry.
Surviving this industry is a feat of its own, to say nothing of building a successful business in it. By now, you’ve most likely perused our cover story “The 100 Companies That Matter Most in Online Video,” and our editor’s explanation of how Streaming Media arrives at that list every year. My congratulations to those on the list—you are part of something greater than yourself. The list itself doesn’t say much about what these companies do, but a common denominator among them all is their leaders and the passion that drives them. So this year, we extended an invitation to the companies on that list to tell us, in their own words, about their “mountaineering.”
Being in this industry of false summits is certainly a lesson in humility. When climber George Mallory was asked why he tackled Mount Everest, he famously responded, “Because it’s there.” But when I take a look at the brilliance, passion, and hard work I’ve seen through the years, it’s clear that there’s a lot more than that driving these companies to reach the top.
Download the PDF verson of the 2013 View from the Top contributions here.
Below is a quick navigation to each company's contribution in this year's (2013) View from the Top:
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