July 2009
19 posts
2 tags
What's With All the LEDs?
Last night I slept incredibly well. Why? Because my youngest son and I were sleeping on our sailboat (hence also no post this morning as we had breakfast together). The cabin is tiny, the cushions hard, the sleeping bags hot. Still slept like a baby (as did he). My theory is that was due to not having blinking crazy colored lights everywhere. At home, it seems that every device these days...
4 tags
MSFT-YHOO Deal. It's Complicated.
The top link on techmeme right now is yesterday’s post by Jason Calacanis titled “Yahoo committed seppukku today.” It is worth reading because it powerfully (and hilariously) lays out the position that handing over search to Microsoft is a huge mistake for Yahoo. It is a position I am very familiar with, because I made much of the same argument (although in a less entertaining...
Mayor Bloomberg Tech Tour? Suggest Companies!
I have been participating in a series of meetings on how to ensure New York City’s future as a (new) media hub. A persistent theme of these meetings has been that there is not enough external awareness of how many great companies already exist in the city, including many that do some fairly hefty engineering! There is still too much of a perception that New York is good at content but not at...
The Apple (Tablet) of My Eye?
I have been mulling over the ferocious rumors of an Apple Tablet (sorry, no links as I am on BB, but if you missed these - congrats, you were off the grid!). Really not sure what to think about it. The only device that I would consider carrying regularly outside the house in addition to a smartphone would be an eInk style reader. The reason is simple: weight. A traditional display uses a lot of...
6 tags
Must. Stop. Brain. Drain.
I just ran across an article titled “Skilled Immigrants on Why They are Leaving the U.S.” in BusinessWeek (via Techmeme). It is not surprising to find diminished job prospects in the U.S. as a key reason, but I was shocked to read that the wait time for a Green Card for Indian and Chinese citizens is now 10 years (that’s a decade!). That is a very long time for anybody to wait...
3 tags
Using Puzzles in Interviews
I am a fan of using puzzles in interviews, especially for developers. But it is important to do it right and to draw the right conclusions. Here are some things that I have learned over the years. 1. Puzzles should be just one of many different parts of the interview. 2. Try to find a set of puzzles that works for you and use the same puzzles with many candidates to get better comparability. 3....
4 tags
So Long, And Thanks for All the Shoes
I am sorry to see Amazon buy Zappos. Not because I have bought a lot of shoes at Zappos (still liked this as a title for the post though), but here are three reasons:
First, I felt that Zappos could be a real competitor to Amazon for online retail. And I love competition. It is great not just for customers but also for suppliers.
Second, Zappos was an IPO-able company based on size and...
Covestor Launches Investment Management
When we invested in Covestor it was in part because of the fit with our “Power to the People” thesis:
To us, this appears to be one of the great constants of the web. It is taking power away from existing large institutions and pushing it out to smaller entities and often all the way to individuals.
In the case of Covestor the institutions in question are large investment...
3 tags
40 Years Later: On To Mars!
I believe that manned space exploration is essential. There I have said it. Not irrational, not an expensive gimmick, but essential. Why? Some day, leaving Earth may be the only way the human species can go on. Let’s hope that’s not the case, but hope is no substitute for preparation. Species go extinct all the time as their habitat changes dramatically or disappears altogether...
3 tags
The Internet Is Not Utilities (As An Investment)
So I am late to this party (because I don’t blog on weekends), but James Altucher’s column “The Internet Is Dead (As An Investment)” is just too tempting an invitation for rebuttal. Fred already provided his take here, stating our (at USV) belief in the transformative nature of the Internet and taking on Altucher’s comments about business models. My own point of...
7 tags
Real-time Web Growth Will Be M2M: Smart Meters
Much of the discussion of the real-time web has focused on content generated by humans, such as tweets. But the bigger growth over the next decade is likely to come from m2m interactions. One big source of data will be smart meters. For instance, the UK government recently unveiled a plan to equip every home with a smart meter by 2020. The real-time electricity usage data from these meters can...
3 tags
Cloud/Web App Security - A Modest Proposal
Apparently, Twitter had a lot of confidential documents stolen via unauthorized access to gmail and google docs (writing on BB, so no links). This brings the security of cloud computing / web apps very close to home, especially as we are contemplating moving all of USV to gmail and google docs. The threat of access by a third party increases exponentially with the move to the cloud, because the...
5 tags
More TLD Madness
This morning in scanning Techmeme while having my early morning cup of coffee, I noticed two separate items about TLDs. First up, a post from Techcrunch on how .cm domains are opening up for pre-order. Second, an entry from Slate on how ICANN is planning to further expand the available TLDs. Last year, I wrote that I believe “New TLDs Are Highway Robbery” — they are simply a...
Google Chrome OS
For a while it seemed that Android would be the Google OS, especially with new Android devices such as netbooks appearing on the market. But as I recently wrote, Android seems native app centric at a time when Google is showing with Wave that the Web can be the app (see http://continuations.com/post/133482897). Now Google has taken the logical step of putting a fast-booting version of Linux under...
3 tags
Augmented Reality Apps, Anyone?
Andrew Parker and I recently wrote a post on the USV blog about “The Mobile Challenge” — looking for apps that make use of the unique capabilities of the latest (smart)phones to deliver experiences that were previously impossible. Since writing that post, I have become fascinated with augmented reality apps, such as Wikitude by Mobilizy (Austria), Layar by sprxmobile...
4 tags
Board Effectiveness Tip #3: Board Meeting
A lot of the work of a good board takes place outside of the board meetings (see Tip #1), but the meetings are critical to overall effectiveness. It is the time when the team has the (mostly) undivided attention of the board members and when important decisions will be made (or at least influenced).
1. Schedule your board meetings well in advance, ideally for the entire next year. Most VCs are...
Board Effectiveness Tip #2: Board Package
The thought of putting together a board package seems to instill a lot of apprehension in founders/management of startups. That’s a shame, because — if done right — the board package will create hardly any additional work and will be an incredibly useful tool not just for making the board effective but also for managing the company. Here are some suggestions that may help:
1....
5 tags
Mobile (App) Development: Android's Missed...
The post on the USV blog about the challenge of creating native mobile apps (meaning ones that can on exist on the mobile platform) has created a lively discussion with by now over 60 comments. A good chunk of that discussion was about the relative merits of just sticking with the mobile browser versus developing apps. For instance, Fred observes:
I’m a big fan of the mobile browser too...