This is the first entry in my Scylla and Charybdis Series of blog posts. In case you missed the introduction, the idea is that startups are hard because you can always err both by doing too little of something but also by doing too much of it. Since I don’t have a lot of time to write this morning, I am picking a particularly easy one: raising money. If you raise too little money the bad consequences are fairly obvious. In the worst case you run out of money altogether and have to shut down. ...

This is the first entry in my Scylla and Charybdis Series of blog posts. In case you missed the introduction, the idea is that startups are hard because you can always err both by doing too little of something but also by doing too much of it. Since I don’t have a lot of time to write this morning, I am picking a particularly easy one: raising money. If you raise too little money the bad consequences are fairly obvious. In the worst case you run out of money altogether and have to shut down. ...

Today one of our portfolio companies is holding their internal management training in our offices. They have asked me to talk a little bit about my own experience with the challenge of going from being an individual contributor to being a manager. I remember this being a very rough transition for me and it took me quite a long time to get comfortable as a manager. I went from individual contributor to founder and didn’t have the benefit of management training! Looking back the biggest insight...

Today one of our portfolio companies is holding their internal management training in our offices. They have asked me to talk a little bit about my own experience with the challenge of going from being an individual contributor to being a manager. I remember this being a very rough transition for me and it took me quite a long time to get comfortable as a manager. I went from individual contributor to founder and didn’t have the benefit of management training! Looking back the biggest insight...

This is the fifth post on Data Structures as part of my long Tech Tuesday series on programming. And today we finally make it to a structure known as an object. There is a whole literature on so-called object oriented programming, which sometimes seems like a modern idea because of its prominence in the 1990s but really goes much further back than that with programming languages such as Smalltalk in the 1970s and basic object concepts go back even earlier than that. While another approach kno...

This is the fifth post on Data Structures as part of my long Tech Tuesday series on programming. And today we finally make it to a structure known as an object. There is a whole literature on so-called object oriented programming, which sometimes seems like a modern idea because of its prominence in the 1990s but really goes much further back than that with programming languages such as Smalltalk in the 1970s and basic object concepts go back even earlier than that. While another approach kno...

Since I first wrote about the Benefit Corporation several great things have happened, including New York State passing legislation and Etsy becoming a certified B Corp. Since most venture backed companies are incorporated in Delaware, it would be terrific to see Benefit Corporation legislation passed there as well. Sometimes I have people ask me what problem the Benefit Corporation solves that cannot be addressed simply in the context of an existing C Corp. What it really comes down to is bet...

Since I first wrote about the Benefit Corporation several great things have happened, including New York State passing legislation and Etsy becoming a certified B Corp. Since most venture backed companies are incorporated in Delaware, it would be terrific to see Benefit Corporation legislation passed there as well. Sometimes I have people ask me what problem the Benefit Corporation solves that cannot be addressed simply in the context of an existing C Corp. What it really comes down to is bet...

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post titled “Hacking Textbooks - We Need It” where I pointed out that college textbooks are a $7B annual market in the US alone. I was therefore thrilled to see that California last week passed a law to attempt to create free creative commons-licensed textbooks. Now one might argue that the government should not be spending money to interfere with a private market and I am sure existing publishers of college textbooks will be fighting this legislation. But...

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog post titled “Hacking Textbooks - We Need It” where I pointed out that college textbooks are a $7B annual market in the US alone. I was therefore thrilled to see that California last week passed a law to attempt to create free creative commons-licensed textbooks. Now one might argue that the government should not be spending money to interfere with a private market and I am sure existing publishers of college textbooks will be fighting this legislation. But...

I tweeted earlier this week that I had switched my voter registration to New York City from Westchester (something that can be done online in New York State!). I will vote in the upcoming presidential election and I will vote for President Obama. But unlike 2008, when I did so enthusiastically, this time it will be with a heavy heart. As John Stewart once put it so succinctly, “we would have hoped for some audacity." Now it is a lot easier to criticize the president than to do his job. And I ...

I tweeted earlier this week that I had switched my voter registration to New York City from Westchester (something that can be done online in New York State!). I will vote in the upcoming presidential election and I will vote for President Obama. But unlike 2008, when I did so enthusiastically, this time it will be with a heavy heart. As John Stewart once put it so succinctly, “we would have hoped for some audacity." Now it is a lot easier to criticize the president than to do his job. And I ...

Yesterday we had our portfolio company summit with the CEOs of most of our active investments in our office. It is always a really fun day because there are great discussions about a far ranging set of topics from hiring to business models. This year as an opener we went around the room and everyone talked briefly about a lesson learned in the last 12 months. There were a ton of really good insights there and some really funny ones, such as “it is better to have a hole than an asshole” (about...

Yesterday we had our portfolio company summit with the CEOs of most of our active investments in our office. It is always a really fun day because there are great discussions about a far ranging set of topics from hiring to business models. This year as an opener we went around the room and everyone talked briefly about a lesson learned in the last 12 months. There were a ton of really good insights there and some really funny ones, such as “it is better to have a hole than an asshole” (about...

In today’s Tech Tuesday we are continuing our romp through Data Structures as part of the ongoing series on programming by looking at JSON. Now technically JSON, which stands for JavaScript Object Notation, is not a data structure but a textual notation (as its name implies). But JSON has become ubiquitous and provides a natural segue to objects (next Tuesday) that I figured it makes sense to discuss it here. Sticking with the example of points, the JSON for a point might look like the follow...

In today’s Tech Tuesday we are continuing our romp through Data Structures as part of the ongoing series on programming by looking at JSON. Now technically JSON, which stands for JavaScript Object Notation, is not a data structure but a textual notation (as its name implies). But JSON has become ubiquitous and provides a natural segue to objects (next Tuesday) that I figured it makes sense to discuss it here. Sticking with the example of points, the JSON for a point might look like the follow...

Earlier this week I blogged about Steven Johnson’s wonderful new book Future Perfect, which lays out the Peer Progressive agenda. I am therefore particularly excited about yesterday’s launch of AskPatents, a collaboration between the USPTO and our portfolio company StackExchange. Joel Spolsky has a great blog post up on the StackExchange blog explaining the origins of and motivation behind AskPatents. The basic idea is to access the broadest network possible to find prior art. Instead of rely...

Earlier this week I blogged about Steven Johnson’s wonderful new book Future Perfect, which lays out the Peer Progressive agenda. I am therefore particularly excited about yesterday’s launch of AskPatents, a collaboration between the USPTO and our portfolio company StackExchange. Joel Spolsky has a great blog post up on the StackExchange blog explaining the origins of and motivation behind AskPatents. The basic idea is to access the broadest network possible to find prior art. Instead of rely...

Over the years I have tried a number of different financial advisors but have never been particularly happy. In particular, I have found that most of them seemed to ignore long term trends that I believe in and seemed to basing asset allocation more on generic models. So relatively recently I have taken over asset allocation entirely myself. Here is the allocation that I am targeting with the rationale for each: 20% Internet – here I am largely long on big individual names such as eBay, Amazo...

Over the years I have tried a number of different financial advisors but have never been particularly happy. In particular, I have found that most of them seemed to ignore long term trends that I believe in and seemed to basing asset allocation more on generic models. So relatively recently I have taken over asset allocation entirely myself. Here is the allocation that I am targeting with the rationale for each: 20% Internet – here I am largely long on big individual names such as eBay, Amazo...