I wrote a blog post last week about the current Privacy Theater in the US, where the government is simultaneously pushing stricter privacy regulations and huge backdoors that would completely undermine privacy. The backdoors come in the form of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act or CISPA. The folks at Lumin Consulting have put together a good infographic that illustrates how CISPA undermines privacy: I am actually sympathetic to the basic idea behind CISPA, which is to make it ...

I wrote a blog post last week about the current Privacy Theater in the US, where the government is simultaneously pushing stricter privacy regulations and huge backdoors that would completely undermine privacy. The backdoors come in the form of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act or CISPA. The folks at Lumin Consulting have put together a good infographic that illustrates how CISPA undermines privacy: I am actually sympathetic to the basic idea behind CISPA, which is to make it ...

The Department of Justice earlier this week sued several large publishers and Apple over alleged collusion surrounding the agency arrangement for the sale of ebooks. The legal situation here is quite complicated as should be evident from the fact that Random House which does have agency agreements with both Apple and Amazon was *not* sued. This suggests that agency agreements in and of themselves are not the issue. Rather it would seem to be the combination of agency agreements together with ...

The Department of Justice earlier this week sued several large publishers and Apple over alleged collusion surrounding the agency arrangement for the sale of ebooks. The legal situation here is quite complicated as should be evident from the fact that Random House which does have agency agreements with both Apple and Amazon was *not* sued. This suggests that agency agreements in and of themselves are not the issue. Rather it would seem to be the combination of agency agreements together with ...

Andy Baio provided an excellent perspective on Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram by analyzing the price per active user. This analysis shows that at about $30 per user this deal is far below many previous acquisitions. It also indicates that Yahoo’s acquisition of Broadcast.com continues to stand as the most outlandish deal at more than $10,000 per active user. At USV we have tracked a meaningful number of investment rounds across our portfolio and the data from this suggests that $30 per u...

Andy Baio provided an excellent perspective on Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram by analyzing the price per active user. This analysis shows that at about $30 per user this deal is far below many previous acquisitions. It also indicates that Yahoo’s acquisition of Broadcast.com continues to stand as the most outlandish deal at more than $10,000 per active user. At USV we have tracked a meaningful number of investment rounds across our portfolio and the data from this suggests that $30 per u...

So far on Tech Tuesday we have covered basic computing technology (9 installments) and the web cycle (11 installments). That means its time to check in again and see what to cover next. There are at least three big topic areas that I want to get to eventually: Programming Overview: Includes what programming languages do and how they work, what an algorithm is, different ways of structuring code. My goal would be to combine historical context, with some theory and hands-on examples and provide...

So far on Tech Tuesday we have covered basic computing technology (9 installments) and the web cycle (11 installments). That means its time to check in again and see what to cover next. There are at least three big topic areas that I want to get to eventually: Programming Overview: Includes what programming languages do and how they work, what an algorithm is, different ways of structuring code. My goal would be to combine historical context, with some theory and hands-on examples and provide...

Last week on Tech Tuesday, I ran the second reader survey to figure out what to write about next. I have to admit that I was a bit anxious about the results as I realized that I personally favored one of the topics – an overview of programming. So I was thrilled to see the following chart: Among nearly 150 responses, an overview of programming received almost half the votes. Somewhat to my surprise though, the theory of computer science was a pretty meaningful runner up with about one third o...

Last week on Tech Tuesday, I ran the second reader survey to figure out what to write about next. I have to admit that I was a bit anxious about the results as I realized that I personally favored one of the topics – an overview of programming. So I was thrilled to see the following chart: Among nearly 150 responses, an overview of programming received almost half the votes. Somewhat to my surprise though, the theory of computer science was a pretty meaningful runner up with about one third o...

Over the last four weeks I have met with numerous college students and recent graduates who are interested in working for tech startups. I have been surprised to discover how woefully their schools have prepared them for how to find a job in the age of the Internet. The vast majority of thses students do not have their own name registered as a domain, have their Facebook profile as the first search result for their name, have no LinkedIn account (or an empty one), don’t know how to approach c...

Over the last four weeks I have met with numerous college students and recent graduates who are interested in working for tech startups. I have been surprised to discover how woefully their schools have prepared them for how to find a job in the age of the Internet. The vast majority of thses students do not have their own name registered as a domain, have their Facebook profile as the first search result for their name, have no LinkedIn account (or an empty one), don’t know how to approach c...

The reason Continuations has not had any new entries for a few days is that we went away on a family trip to the Virgin Islands. We have done a lot of snorkeling with the kids but in preparation for this trip we started to get Scuba certified. The theory portion of the certification included an extensive chapter on underwater plants and animals, which provided a great reminder of the mind boggling diversity and complexity of the ecosystem in the oceans. I am thrilled to report that two of us ...

The reason Continuations has not had any new entries for a few days is that we went away on a family trip to the Virgin Islands. We have done a lot of snorkeling with the kids but in preparation for this trip we started to get Scuba certified. The theory portion of the certification included an extensive chapter on underwater plants and animals, which provided a great reminder of the mind boggling diversity and complexity of the ecosystem in the oceans. I am thrilled to report that two of us ...

I wrote recently about how we are at a time during which lots of little decisions will determine whether we find ourselves in an information utopia or dystopia. There is a lot of legislation in the works both here in the US and abroad that speaks directly to this. In particular, there is a schizophrenic approach to privacy. We are simultaneously getting efforts to provide more privacy in commercial settings and less privacy vis-a-vis the government. In the US, the FTC is working on new privac...

I wrote recently about how we are at a time during which lots of little decisions will determine whether we find ourselves in an information utopia or dystopia. There is a lot of legislation in the works both here in the US and abroad that speaks directly to this. In particular, there is a schizophrenic approach to privacy. We are simultaneously getting efforts to provide more privacy in commercial settings and less privacy vis-a-vis the government. In the US, the FTC is working on new privac...

Today is the wrap up of the initial web cycle. Last Tech Tuesday, I introduced Javascript as determining the behavior of a web page and interacting with HTML (the content of the page) and CSS (the look and feel). Now it makes sense to revisit the Web Browser, which needs to put all those pieces together to actually display the web page and let the user interact with it. By now it should come as no surprise that this is in fact quite a difficult job and that the web browser is a rather elabora...

Today is the wrap up of the initial web cycle. Last Tech Tuesday, I introduced Javascript as determining the behavior of a web page and interacting with HTML (the content of the page) and CSS (the look and feel). Now it makes sense to revisit the Web Browser, which needs to put all those pieces together to actually display the web page and let the user interact with it. By now it should come as no surprise that this is in fact quite a difficult job and that the web browser is a rather elabora...

This weekend I went to see “The Hunger Games” with our oldest son (12). His twin sister separately saw the movie as part of a friend’s birthday party. For anyone who has been behind a gigantic rock, er, I mean doesn’t have children who are fans of Suzanne Collins’s novel on which the movie is based, here is a brief plot summary. The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic version North America. The region is now divided into 12 districts and ruled by a dictatorship located in the “Capitol.”...

This weekend I went to see “The Hunger Games” with our oldest son (12). His twin sister separately saw the movie as part of a friend’s birthday party. For anyone who has been behind a gigantic rock, er, I mean doesn’t have children who are fans of Suzanne Collins’s novel on which the movie is based, here is a brief plot summary. The Hunger Games is set in a post-apocalyptic version North America. The region is now divided into 12 districts and ruled by a dictatorship located in the “Capitol.”...