January 2009
20 posts
5 tags
Cloud Database Standard Needed
Just as I was bout to start this post, I saw Marco’s Entry “On Database Joins” where he quotes a tweet by @codinghorror on joins being super expensive and explains how Tumblr avoids them. Tech folks at our portfolio companies have probably all heard me say that “joins are evil” because they will make it really difficult for your service or site to scale past a...
5 tags
Education, Learning and the Transition to the...
At the DLD panel on education — which was moderated well by Simon Levine from Accel — there was an interesting discussion about the role of teachers and motivation in learning. On one side was Shai Reshef, an education entrepreneur, who is preparing to launch a free online “University of the People.” On the other was Alexander Olek, who has helped create a successful...
DLD
I had a great time at DLD overall. I met entrepreneurs working on interesting startups, I talked to angel and seed investors who are (co-)operating across European borders, and I listened to an interesting panel on education and a great presentation by Daniel Ariely. My take on the conference: The good: Location in the center of Munich, which is a fun city. Great and diverse group of people from...
Schwag Must Go
I am having a great time at DLD, but can someone please tell conference organizers around the world to put an end to Schwag bags? It is ironic that at a time when almost every conference has at least some track or session on sustainability, organizers still wind up creating and distributing thousands of bags filled with stuff which goes close to 100 percent into the garbage bin. DLD, for instance,...
5 tags
Big Switch Update
It’s been about a week since I made the big switch from a Windows laptop to a MacBook. Here is a quick update for all of you who are still holdouts.
If you need Exchange integration (like I do), I can highly recommend Parallels 4.0. As the screenshot shows, Parallel’s “Coherence” mode lets Windows apps appear like native apps in the dock. It is also possible to...
3 tags
No Such Thing as Too Much Seed Capital...
A while ago I wrote that there is “No Such Thing as Too Much Seed Capital Availability.“ I have been asked a bunch of questions (offline) by folks about this idea and am speaking about it tonight. The biggest question has been whether this is really an area for government involvement (whether city, state or federal). I believe the answer is an emphatic yes but I want to elaborate on...
3 tags
From Consumer Strategy to Whitelabel - Proceed...
A while ago I wrote a post where I argued that it can be a good idea for entrepreneurs to go for a transformation instead of grinding it out. But that post was a generic consideration of risk/reward. Recently I have noticed a trend though that at first seems to perfectly illustrate this idea. A number of consumer sites that were trying to build their own brand and destination are switching to a...
4 tags
What We Can Do
I was excited to vote for Obama this past November. Now I am excited for him to actually be our president. As I wrote back then, I hope that he will an unleash “a tidal wave of involvement, innovation and improvement.” For that to succeed, we the people have to be that tidal wave.
We all have to ask ourselves what we can do. It has been great to see posts to that effect, including...
4 tags
TV's Opportunity To Stay Relevant
“The revolution wil not be televised” is a line from a great Public Enemy song. I think it is safe to say that the revolution will be tweeted and flickrd and blogged. Yesterday’s miraculous “splash landing” demonstrated that some of the best early coverage, including photographs and links to information about bird strikes could all be found within minutes of the...
4 tags
Happy With the Big Switch
I had been using a Panasonic Toughbook W2 for about 6 years and it was a great machine for that time. It was light (3 lbs), fairly full featured and robust. But of course it ran Windows with all the problems that entails. So I had been wanting to switch to a Mac for a while, but all the MacBooks were too heavy. Then came the Air, but it made too many compromises for someone who was hoping to...
2 tags
Don't Trust Your Own Code
Yesterday we had a little snafu at one of the companies I work with. Some users received duplicate and even triplicate reminder emails. This snafu was caused by what I consider to be one of the key mistakes when first working on production systems: rookies trust their own code. By this I mean assuming that code you wrote yourself has the behavior you think it should have and then not guarding...
5 tags
Networks Need $ *and* Regulation Changes
Yesterday I wrote about how it feels to me like the economic crisis is accelerating the transition to the information society. I believe that the government stimulus can play an important part here by investing in networks as the infrastructure for the information society. The two key networks are high speed Internet and the electrical grid (see also Sam Palmisano’s Op Ed piece in...
4 tags
Change is Coming/Scary/Exciting
I believe that the financial and economic crisis is accelerating the change from the industrial to the information society. The magnitude of the change is likely to be on par with or greater than the transition from agricultural to industrial society (I am intentionally saying “society” instead of “economy” because the change affects all parts of how we live). This is...
3 tags
Palm's Last Stand
I love how the iPhone has been driving innovation through competition. A while ago I also pointed out what I believe to be the biggest Achilles heel of the iPhone and how that might provide an opening to beat the iPhone. Well the first contender for the role of Paris has shown up and it is Palm. Palm? Yes, Palm unveiled the Palm Pre at CES.
The Pre does exactly what I suggested, which is to...
2 tags
Operate Like a Mountain Climber in 2009
We are operating in exceptional circumstances in terms of the severity of the economic crisis with a potential for it to get much worse before it gets better. I think of it a bit like being in the deathzone in mountain climbing (something I only know from books). You really don’t want to be making an effort that’s not focused on your goal because every bit of wasted energy endangers...
3 tags
Totally Did Not See That Coming
One of my favorite cartoons describing the financial crisis shows two guys standing below a “Wall Street” street sign looking out into the distance. There a wave starts to build up that over several panels of the cartoon gets bigger and bigger. The wave comes directly at the two guys as they are looking on. In the penultimate panel the wave washes over them and completely drenches...
2 tags
My Trouble with AAPL
A while ago I started buying some shares in GOOG, AMZN and EBAY as they declined heavily. Those trades have worked out well (so far) and I feel good about owning companies that I believe still have a lot to gain from the secular move online (in the case of EBAY not so much from the core business as from Skype and PayPal). I have not been buying AAPL, despite the fact that I am about to switch...
We Need a Second Secularism
One of the founding principles of the United States is a clear separation between church and state. This kind of secularism was a huge break-through in government at a time when most European countries had fairly significant roles for the church in government. Much of the early motivation for the principle of secularism in the US can be traced back to the desire to escape the intolerance and...
Two Wishes for 2009
I have two wishes for 2009 and both relate to the global financial and economic crisis. First, that the individual pain and hardship from the economic won’t be as bad and widespread as I am afraid they will be. Second, that there will ultimately be a collective gain by bringing about changes that we have not otherwise been able to accomplish.
