On the good news front, I ended a long week of business travel in Europe with some spectacular skiing with friends in Verbier. On the bad news front, the rental randonnée boots I used resulted in a rather aggravated Achilles tendon in my right foot. It got so bad that on the last day of skiing I took the tram down – something I can’t remember doing ever before. If anybody has had similar problems with their Achilles tendon and has good advice for how to treat (other than rest), I would much a...

On the good news front, I ended a long week of business travel in Europe with some spectacular skiing with friends in Verbier. On the bad news front, the rental randonnée boots I used resulted in a rather aggravated Achilles tendon in my right foot. It got so bad that on the last day of skiing I took the tram down – something I can’t remember doing ever before. If anybody has had similar problems with their Achilles tendon and has good advice for how to treat (other than rest), I would much a...

Last Tech Tuesday, I introduced the problem of concurrency: multiple programs executing at the same time. I used an example of a naive program for updating a vote count that could lose votes if multiple instances run concurrently. So how do we deal with this problem? There are many different approaches that people have taken over time and I will only try to cover some of them. Since I am still traveling and keeping my posts short, today I will only cover the idea of atomic actions. An atomic ...

Last Tech Tuesday, I introduced the problem of concurrency: multiple programs executing at the same time. I used an example of a naive program for updating a vote count that could lose votes if multiple instances run concurrently. So how do we deal with this problem? There are many different approaches that people have taken over time and I will only try to cover some of them. Since I am still traveling and keeping my posts short, today I will only cover the idea of atomic actions. An atomic ...

At a dinner at DLD we were discussing the issue of libel and I was surprised to find one participant defending the UK law that allows Lord McAlpine to sue individuals who (re)tweeted an allegation against him. Apparently the amounts asked for depend on follower count. This approach seems to run counter our views of the importance of free speech which makes libel suits very difficult in the US. But as I started to think more about it I do believe we have a problem that may need some kind of so...

At a dinner at DLD we were discussing the issue of libel and I was surprised to find one participant defending the UK law that allows Lord McAlpine to sue individuals who (re)tweeted an allegation against him. Apparently the amounts asked for depend on follower count. This approach seems to run counter our views of the importance of free speech which makes libel suits very difficult in the US. But as I started to think more about it I do believe we have a problem that may need some kind of so...

First time entrepreneurs often ask me what they should do to maximize their chances of raising venture capital. To which I invariably answer: “Not need it.” Why? Because raising capital or selling your company is all about having a credible alternative. If you have a credible alternative you will arrive at a good deal – if you don’t, then bad things will happen. This is true for raising capital and it is true for exits. In both cases the best credible alternative is not needing the capital an...

First time entrepreneurs often ask me what they should do to maximize their chances of raising venture capital. To which I invariably answer: “Not need it.” Why? Because raising capital or selling your company is all about having a credible alternative. If you have a credible alternative you will arrive at a good deal – if you don’t, then bad things will happen. This is true for raising capital and it is true for exits. In both cases the best credible alternative is not needing the capital an...

When I first heard about SnapChat I was immediately reminded of the attempts of a friend of mine to establish a DRM’d email platform that would let recipients read an email but not do anything else with it that hadn’t been explicitly authorized (printing, forwarding, etc). There was some amazingly fancy crypto technology involved. In the end though it was never possible to close up the many holes inside general purpose computing technology. Those of course include the ultimate hole – the so-c...

When I first heard about SnapChat I was immediately reminded of the attempts of a friend of mine to establish a DRM’d email platform that would let recipients read an email but not do anything else with it that hadn’t been explicitly authorized (printing, forwarding, etc). There was some amazingly fancy crypto technology involved. In the end though it was never possible to close up the many holes inside general purpose computing technology. Those of course include the ultimate hole – the so-c...

Note: I am only posting now, but I wrote this brief post in the early German morning hours before President Obama gave his inauguration speech. Having listened to parts of the speech now and having read the transcript I feel slightly more positive than the post itself might suggest. This week’s blog posts will likely be rather short as I am traveling in Europe (in Munich for DLD today, then off to London, Eindhoven and Geneva). I feel encouraged about Obama’s second term based on the administ...

Note: I am only posting now, but I wrote this brief post in the early German morning hours before President Obama gave his inauguration speech. Having listened to parts of the speech now and having read the transcript I feel slightly more positive than the post itself might suggest. This week’s blog posts will likely be rather short as I am traveling in Europe (in Munich for DLD today, then off to London, Eindhoven and Geneva). I feel encouraged about Obama’s second term based on the administ...

Sorry, no Tech Tuesday today (due to my travel schedule). Quite fortunately that creates an opening for a brief post about Dwolla, Iowa and the Midwest more generally. I spent my first year in the US as an exchange student in Rochester, Minnesota and came away with a real fondness for the Midwest. I am still in touch with my host family who provided a wonderful experience including travel to the far North of Minnesota and North and South Dakota. One of the things I came to appreciate in parti...

Sorry, no Tech Tuesday today (due to my travel schedule). Quite fortunately that creates an opening for a brief post about Dwolla, Iowa and the Midwest more generally. I spent my first year in the US as an exchange student in Rochester, Minnesota and came away with a real fondness for the Midwest. I am still in touch with my host family who provided a wonderful experience including travel to the far North of Minnesota and North and South Dakota. One of the things I came to appreciate in parti...

Bijan has a good post up today with “Some Thoughts on the Future of Search.” This is a topic on my mind following Facebook’s announcement of Graph Search and my upcoming appearance on Monday at DLD on a panel titled Next Generation Search, together with Philip Inghelbrecht (Rockmelt), Wolf Garbe (Faroo), Thomer Kagan (Quixey) and moderated by Henry Blodget. We have several investments that deal directly (Duck Duck Go) or indirectly with search (eg foursquare). The intersecting and sometimes c...

Bijan has a good post up today with “Some Thoughts on the Future of Search.” This is a topic on my mind following Facebook’s announcement of Graph Search and my upcoming appearance on Monday at DLD on a panel titled Next Generation Search, together with Philip Inghelbrecht (Rockmelt), Wolf Garbe (Faroo), Thomer Kagan (Quixey) and moderated by Henry Blodget. We have several investments that deal directly (Duck Duck Go) or indirectly with search (eg foursquare). The intersecting and sometimes c...

For a moment I thought it was a typo when I saw the headline “Survey Monkey Raises $800 Million in Debt and Equity.” Shouldn’t that be $80 million? No. What’s going on? Survey Monkey essentially just provided a massive private liquidity event to its investors and employers. And it did so while staying private. Why would someone want to do that? Here is what Dan Goldberg, Survey Monkey’s CEO and Sharyl Sandberg’s husband, said to Fortune:“There are lots of good reasons for going public,” says ...

For a moment I thought it was a typo when I saw the headline “Survey Monkey Raises $800 Million in Debt and Equity.” Shouldn’t that be $80 million? No. What’s going on? Survey Monkey essentially just provided a massive private liquidity event to its investors and employers. And it did so while staying private. Why would someone want to do that? Here is what Dan Goldberg, Survey Monkey’s CEO and Sharyl Sandberg’s husband, said to Fortune:“There are lots of good reasons for going public,” says ...

I am still in Europe now for a few days of skiing with some friends. Since I am also trying to get some work done at the same time, posts will continue to be super short. Today’s post is simply a suggestion to read this three part series by the Washington Post on the impact of technology on jobs. And then also read this post on Zero Hedge which focuses on a different aspect of the economy: the growth of profits in the financial sector fueled by cheap credit from the Fed. I hadn’t thought abou...

I am still in Europe now for a few days of skiing with some friends. Since I am also trying to get some work done at the same time, posts will continue to be super short. Today’s post is simply a suggestion to read this three part series by the Washington Post on the impact of technology on jobs. And then also read this post on Zero Hedge which focuses on a different aspect of the economy: the growth of profits in the financial sector fueled by cheap credit from the Fed. I hadn’t thought abou...