Spend 2012 on the Right Side of the Haimish Line
Occasionally on this blog I break away from industry commentary and write more broadly. The first day of 2012 seems the perfect day to do so. One of the most important articles I read during the entire year was David Brook’s op-ed article on “The Haimish Line.” In it Brooks talks about his recent trip to [...]
Getting to Know Maker Studios
A year ago I invested, along with Dana Settle at Greycroft Partners, in a startup company called Maker Studios. What excited me was that they had an immensely talented team that understood how to produce & distribute low-cost videos, initially via YouTube. It was founded by Danny Zappin, Lisa Donovan & Ben Donovan. They know this model [...]
Ever Wonder What It’s Like Inside a VC Pitch Meeting? You Can Be a Fly on the Wall Here
I’ve often wanted to let people see what a VC pitch is like to help new entrepreneurs have a better sense of what it’s like to present. Obviously having a camera on will add a small bit of an artificial result because I don’t want to ask as much confidential information and with the camera [...]
Favorite Robots
All this talk about Siri – is Siri a robot? Personally, I don’t think so. Siri is an impressive voice recognition engine with some very clever programming associated with it. The break thru in Siri really isn’t in what it does or says, that’s just programmatic, but rather what it understands. I think robots should be [...]
Weekend Review: Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson
Just finished reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson and thought I will add few thoughts here. Two words that came out of my mind after finishing the book: Filthy Genius I saw many reviews that talked about possible bias in favor of Jobs but I never spotted the bias. In fact, I started reading the [...]
Debating Some of the Issues of Our Time with Dmitry Shapiro
I had the pleasure of sitting down for an hour with Dmitry Shapiro of AnyBeat this week. The last startup he did raised $70 million for the online video space before being sued for more than $1 billion by Universal. He won the battle (the lawsuit) but lost the war (went bankrupt, with pending litigation [...]
Don’t Commit BSAK Errors. The World is Too Small
BSAK Errors. I always loved the term … ”Between seat and keyboard.” Normally it was my tech team just being cheeky with me about my withering technology chops. But … … was thinking about a very common BSAK error that I see committed – the “flaming email.” Or when I worked at Accenture we called these “CLMs.” [...]
Avoid Monoculture. Travel. Read Widely. Let Experience be Your Compass.
I sometimes feel that the Silicon Valley culture and we as technologists more broadly can breed monoculture in our approach to entrepreneurship, problem solving, market analysis and technology solutions. Experiences way beyond any hack-a-thon, startup blog or your current company engagement can enrich your thinking and challenge you to think more broadly about the solutions [...]
Thought of the Day: Carriers!
Remember what hotels taught us? They taught us to never make a long distance call from the room. The hotels discovered that long distance wasn’t just a service, but a money maker and charged us through the nose on long distance usage. It sorta worked w…
Another Infographic bites the dust
Mindflash produced another Infographic, subtitled “Are companies allowing employees to use social media in the workplace?” That title couldn’t be more misleading. Yet another time it’s proven that content and presentation hardly ever go along (Cross-posted @ Business or Pleasure? – why not both)
Mea Culpa
On this blog I’m often trying to combine lessons for entrepreneurs and market commentary. Yesterday it was my turn for the lesson. In my zeal to prove a point I often take a strong stance on an issue. I then debate the topic in the comments section and hope that we all learn from the [...]
Cloud Strategy for Financial Markets and Exchanges
The three largest US exchanges, NASDAQ, NYSE and CME Group have all recently announced significant cloud initiatives, but financial markets as a group have been slow to get on the cloud bandwagon. Too slow given the potential benefits to their customers and their own needs to increase revenue, market transparency and competitive advantage.
The Power of Love (And Investors)
In this post, I’ll argue that the power of love comes mostly from stuff that doesn’t happen, and for bonus points, explain how my theory of love impacts how a startup should choose its investors. My life is filled with love. I have family, friends, and last but not least (okay, maybe least) you, my [...]
OSCON: Talking Shop With HP, Heroku, ForgeRock, Open Source For America, and More!
Today and yesterday I specifically aimed to meet and interview a number of sponsors and companies attending OSCON. My big quest I’d assigned myself was to determine who was doing what, where, when, and why in the Open Source Community. Of course I wasn’t going to get to every company, but I was going to [...]
OSCON: Energy + Awesome + Space Exploration + Hacking
I wanted to post these two keynotes from OSCON 2011. They really bring out the spirit of exploration, adventure, care, and doing things bigger than oneself. This is about doing things that go beyond the cat picture of the day. These presentations, well, I’ll let them speak for themselves. Absolutely great!
