Founding a startup and investing in one are both shaky undertakings. The rapidly changing market chews up new businesses and spits them out. But what about the Apples and Googles of the world? They were startups once. Why are they still roaring? What did they do differently as fledglings?

What they did differently — and what they’re still doing — is pretty simple, according to Jonah Goodhart (pictured), senior vice president of Oracle Data Cloud and former chief executive officer and founder of Moat Inc., which is now part of Oracle Corp.

“What those companies do that I think is phenomenal is they think about where the world’s going, not where the world is today,” Goodhart said. That is, they look out years into the future for guidance about what to do today. They don’t shun new methods and assists, but they don’t put all of their eggs in some trendy basket. 

This is how Goodhart’s marketing services business Moat achieved success. It began as a crowdsourced creative marketplace, and now it’s a measurement and analytics company. But to hear Goodhart tell it, the company never wavered from the future-proof mission of helping marketers tell stories.

Goodhart spoke with John Furrier, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Mayfield People First event in Menlo Park, California. They discussed the evolution of Moat and the “North Star” for startups. (* Disclosure below.)

The more tools change, the more the job stays the same

How far can an ordinary mortal with a business plan see into the future? Goodhart recommends a target of 10 years. If the basic idea behind a business can’t be expected to be intact in 10 years, it’s too flimsy, he explained.

“Ten years from now, marketers are still going to want to reach people” he said. “They’re still going to want to story-tell. They’re still going to want to measure how effective it was to actually reach those people.”

What might change are mechanisms. Moat determined that mechanisms for marketing will be increasingly digital. They might include platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat. With that future-oriented guiding principal, and an openness to practical pivots, Moat secured funding from venture capitalists such as Mayfield Fund LLC. 

“That became a critical part of product development, a part of our vision of where we wanted to be as a business, and I think it was a critical part of our success,” Goodhart said.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the Mayfield People First event. (Disclosure: TheCUBE’s coverage of the Mayfield People First event is presented by Mayfield Fund LLC.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE