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  • 1 min read

What Venture Capitalists say

Guy Kawasaki writes a nice little bit about VCs (some of my best friends are VCs) and about entrepreneurs. It rings very true to me. Here's some of what he says:

"Venture capitalists are simple people: we've either decided to invest, and we are convincing ourselves that our gut is right (aka, "due diligence") or there's not a chance in hell. While we may be simple, we're not necessarily forthcoming, so if you think it's hard to get a "yes" out of venture capitalist, you should try to get a conclusive "no."" "Alas, entrepreneurs are also simple people: If they don't hear a conclusive "no," they assume the answer is yes." (From "Let the good times roll by Guy Kawasaki"

Read the whole thing. It's well written, humorous and contains some really good advice! Technorati Tags: vc

  • 2 min read

Did the NSA “break the law”?

I know that this blog (Power Line) is pretty hard-core conservative, but I found their analysis of the legal questions around the NSA electronic intercept program fairly convincing.

"The only constitutional limitation on the President's power to intercept communications by Americans for national security purposes is that such intercepts be "reasonable." Is it reasonable for the administration to do all it can to identify the people who are communicating with known terrorists overseas, via the terrorists' cell phones and computers, and to learn what terrorist plots are being hatched by those persons? Is it reasonable to do so even when--rather, especially when-some portion of those communications come from people inside the United States? I don't find it difficult to answer those questions; nor, if called upon to do so, would the Supreme Court." (from Powerline)

This in contrast with a highly speculative article in the Boston Phoenix that purposely confuses some facts with lots of more or less random prediction and speculation:

"Fearful that his presidency could be swept into the same historical dustbin as Richard Nixon's, an unrepentant President George W. Bush seems intent on prosecuting the sources who leaked to the New York Times the details of his administration's warrantless domestic spying. But does Bush have the chutzpah to go after the Times itself?" (from the Boston Phoenix)

Did you notice that? "Bush seems intent on … " _and "… does Bush have the chtuzpah to …_" Stating some speculative questions and then writing a whole article assuming that the answer is "yes" but with no evidence other than, "that's the kind of thing he would do." But the more direct connection between the Phoenix bit and the Powerline bit is this:

"Many believe that the Times performed an incalculably valuable service when it reported last month on a top-secret National Security Agency program -- almost certainly unlawful -- involving presidentially (but not court-) approved electronic surveillance of message traffic between people in this country and locations abroad." (from Boston Phoenix again.)

Notice the "almost certainly unlawful" - I don't think it's anything like that clear. Anyway, I am no Bush apologist, by a long shot, but both these articles were very thought provoking, for different reasons. Technorati Tags: puppy

  • 1 min read

Does anyone actually think this is for real?

Did you see this clever site? Million Dollar Home Page?

"The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, 'The Million Dollar Homepage". The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don't like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!" (from Million Dollar Home Page)

Recently I came across the news that the last 1000 pixels were being auctioned off on eBay, meaning, if you believe it, that this enterprising fellow has already made $999,000.00 from this site. Oh, and lots of people have written about it 🙂 Come on, it's gotta be a hoax!

Technorati Tags: hoax

  • 1 min read

Adam Green’s Podcasts

I came across a cool series of podcasts, done by Adam Green , on the history of the personal computer software industry. Actually Adam told me about them 🙂 You can find them here as well as directly under the iTunes podcast section. I just listened to the first episode, about software naming with some good stories about how Visicalc was named and the fact that Ashton-Tate was not named after a parrot called Ashton, and of course that Jeff Tarter is not retired. p.s. Adam has a really interesting blog called"Darwinian Web" __Also follow his escapades with Ruby

  • 1 min read

Treo 700!

I'd heard about it but had not seen a picture. This from Ray Ozzie's blog: "As of last week I'm now using/testing the upcoming Treo 700w, and it's great! The pipeline of cool devices about to emerge is stunning, and the software platform incomparable. Much to look forward to, and many new ideas for Jack as to what we might do with these devices' capabilities…" (from Ray Ozzie's Blog) Check out the Treo 700 here! Technorati Tags: treo

  • 1 min read

Netherlands Antilles set to be dissolved

I don't know how I missed this article, but it sure is an interesting and significant development for one, like me, who was born and grew up in Curacao.

"Under the new structure, the Netherlands Antilles will be dissolved and Curacao and St. Maarten will become separate, autonomous members of the kingdom, according to the agreement signed by the leaders Saturday night in Curacao." (from Miami Herald)

Technorati Tags: curacao, netherlandsantilles

  • 1 min read

Load one physical CD, get two icons on my desktop

Picture 1-24 I know all this Sony rootkit/DRM stuff has made me paranoid. I loaded my Sarah McLachlan CD into my Mac (a single CD), and two different CDs appear on my desktop (see the screenshot on the left.) One apparently is the music aspect of the CD and the other is the computer aspect of the CD. Look inside the former, and you see a bunch of AIFF files. Look inside the latter and you see a folder structure, including two executables! Probably totally innocuous, right? Wait the CD is from Arista records. Any connection to Sony? Is it loading a rootkit?I dunno. Paranoid. Technorati Tags: mac, sony, rootkit

  • 2 min read

Why is everything free?

Have you noticed how man how many new apps that have appeared of late are available free of charge? Web 2.0 services like gada.be or flickr or del.icio.us. And more conventional client apps like Firefox? The list is approximately infinite. They come and go at an amazing rate. And they are all free. Not only are they free, users seem to expect them to be free. I am not sure how this came to be… Is it a unintended consequence of the open source philosophy? Is it a incorrect reframing of the fact that major and well known services like google and yahoo are (apparently) free (although ad supported?) Whatever the reason, I worry about the chilling effect this can have on innovation in our industry. How many great new innovations have died on the vine because there was just no way for the creators to pay the rent while building the Next Big Thing? Even after a year, two years of development, the prospects for getting users to somehow compensate for the value delivered were small to none. Is there another explanation? What if this was a pure supply-demand invisible hand phenomenon? What if the platforms on which these systems are built (Apache, Tomcat, PHP, MYSql, Java, and so on) have become so rich and so powerful that it has become comparatively very cheap to build wonderful innovative systems like Furl, Rollyo or Reddit, and therefore the market was valuing them correctly at zero dollars. (My friend Shimon Rura put forth a case along those lines the other day. ) While there's an element of truth in this second explanation, I believe it is only a small part of the story. I continue to believe that this tendency to expect stuff to be free has had a chilling effect on innovation in our industry. <!-

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