Roger Ehrenberg has an excellent post today on the question of whether there are too many companies or not enough venture capital. Roger’s answer, which I agree with, is “neither” - but there are too many companies that act as if they will raise venture capital. And Roger points out correctly that most of those companies would be much better off if they never put their sights on venture capital and behaved accordingly. I find myself giving that out as advice a fair bit to entrepreneurs. I mee...

Roger Ehrenberg has an excellent post today on the question of whether there are too many companies or not enough venture capital. Roger’s answer, which I agree with, is “neither” - but there are too many companies that act as if they will raise venture capital. And Roger points out correctly that most of those companies would be much better off if they never put their sights on venture capital and behaved accordingly. I find myself giving that out as advice a fair bit to entrepreneurs. I mee...

The European Union (EU) has been a work in progress for many years. Since its inception there has been tremendous tension between what can be decided at the EU level and what is decided by the individual countries. Despite an expensive European Parliament the vast majority of the power is held by country governments. That’s in stark contrast to the US where thanks to the Federalists, the Federal government has real clout. As we are now experiencing, the European setup makes it difficult to ma...

The European Union (EU) has been a work in progress for many years. Since its inception there has been tremendous tension between what can be decided at the EU level and what is decided by the individual countries. Despite an expensive European Parliament the vast majority of the power is held by country governments. That’s in stark contrast to the US where thanks to the Federalists, the Federal government has real clout. As we are now experiencing, the European setup makes it difficult to ma...

In “Of Bits and Bytes” we learned that all kinds of data such as numbers, text, graphics and much more can be represented as sequences of bits. Then last week we saw that instructions for the CPU are also simply sequences of bits. Now going back to the Overview, memory is the place where computers keep the instructions and the data so that the CPU can get to them relatively quickly to do its work. Today we will cover so called “Main Memory” (as it turns out your computer has other memory as w...

In “Of Bits and Bytes” we learned that all kinds of data such as numbers, text, graphics and much more can be represented as sequences of bits. Then last week we saw that instructions for the CPU are also simply sequences of bits. Now going back to the Overview, memory is the place where computers keep the instructions and the data so that the CPU can get to them relatively quickly to do its work. Today we will cover so called “Main Memory” (as it turns out your computer has other memory as w...

I have had the privilege of observing a number of founders grow their companies from just a few people to over a hundred employees. Leaving all the other growth challenges aside, I have come to conclude that personal scaling is the most important issue. By personal scaling I mean figuring out how to go from mostly doing to mostly managing. There are many aspects to this transition but the central one would seem to be trust. A map at 1:1 scale isn’t useful. And as I discovered yesterday during...

I have had the privilege of observing a number of founders grow their companies from just a few people to over a hundred employees. Leaving all the other growth challenges aside, I have come to conclude that personal scaling is the most important issue. By personal scaling I mean figuring out how to go from mostly doing to mostly managing. There are many aspects to this transition but the central one would seem to be trust. A map at 1:1 scale isn’t useful. And as I discovered yesterday during...

Andy has a great post over at the USV blog announcing our investment in Codecademy. Knowing how computers work and how to program them I believe will be quintessential knowledge for everyone. It is shocking to me that I had to enroll my kids separately to have them learn typing. While they have learned a bit of Scratch in school, it has been an afterthought as opposed to being integral to their curriculum. That’s why I am so excited to see the emergence of so many resources and services that ...

Andy has a great post over at the USV blog announcing our investment in Codecademy. Knowing how computers work and how to program them I believe will be quintessential knowledge for everyone. It is shocking to me that I had to enroll my kids separately to have them learn typing. While they have learned a bit of Scratch in school, it has been an afterthought as opposed to being integral to their curriculum. That’s why I am so excited to see the emergence of so many resources and services that ...

There is an awful bill making its way around congress. I first wrote about this when it was called COICA and was thankfully defeated due to opposition from Senator Ron Wyden. Then it returned as the PROTECT IP act or PIPA. Now we have the house version which is in part called, I kid you not, the E-PARASITE act (scroll to page 3 and you will find the name for Title I). I won’t make an effort here to go into detail as to why this is a terrible idea. In addition to the previous posts that I have...

There is an awful bill making its way around congress. I first wrote about this when it was called COICA and was thankfully defeated due to opposition from Senator Ron Wyden. Then it returned as the PROTECT IP act or PIPA. Now we have the house version which is in part called, I kid you not, the E-PARASITE act (scroll to page 3 and you will find the name for Title I). I won’t make an effort here to go into detail as to why this is a terrible idea. In addition to the previous posts that I have...

This has been a strange month with several of the giants of computing passing away within weeks of each other. I have already written about Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie. Now John McCarthy, the father of Lisp and early AI pioneer has died. It is not just that these three had a huge impact on the field, but each stood for very different and somewhat opposing ideas of how computing should work. I have already pointed out the tension between Ritchie’s and Jobs’ legacies. But there was also a ten...

This has been a strange month with several of the giants of computing passing away within weeks of each other. I have already written about Steve Jobs and Dennis Ritchie. Now John McCarthy, the father of Lisp and early AI pioneer has died. It is not just that these three had a huge impact on the field, but each stood for very different and somewhat opposing ideas of how computing should work. I have already pointed out the tension between Ritchie’s and Jobs’ legacies. But there was also a ten...

When I taught my Skillshare class on Bayesian Probability, I wound up spending a fair bit of time sharing my fascination with the foundations of probability. Why is there uncertainty in the world to begin with? How do we measure it? I have therefore decided to break that material out into its own class: Foundations of Probability. This class will be a romp through physics, philosophy, mathematics and more to examine where uncertainty comes from, how to measure it and how to think about it’s i...

When I taught my Skillshare class on Bayesian Probability, I wound up spending a fair bit of time sharing my fascination with the foundations of probability. Why is there uncertainty in the world to begin with? How do we measure it? I have therefore decided to break that material out into its own class: Foundations of Probability. This class will be a romp through physics, philosophy, mathematics and more to examine where uncertainty comes from, how to measure it and how to think about it’s i...

Every kind of computer system requires one or more processors which carry out all the activity. From the earliest days of ENIAC and EDVAC to today’s laptops and tablets, most computers carry just one processor which is why it has come to be known as the CPU, which is short for Central Processing Unit. To understand how a CPU works, it is useful to have an analogy. Imagine finding yourself alone in an IKEA store with the plan for a complicated piece of furniture. The plan has been cut up into ...

Every kind of computer system requires one or more processors which carry out all the activity. From the earliest days of ENIAC and EDVAC to today’s laptops and tablets, most computers carry just one processor which is why it has come to be known as the CPU, which is short for Central Processing Unit. To understand how a CPU works, it is useful to have an analogy. Imagine finding yourself alone in an IKEA store with the plan for a complicated piece of furniture. The plan has been cut up into ...

When I started Continuations I was planning to write a fair bit about movies as well … I love movies! It hasn’t turned out that way largely because I haven’t had the time to watch any. And when I have gone it has mostly been with the kids to something like Toy Story 3 (which I thought was OK) that didn’t inspire me to write. But I am happy to report that the kids are getting old enough to appreciate movies that do make the cut. Last weekend I took my older son to see Money Ball and he loved i...

When I started Continuations I was planning to write a fair bit about movies as well … I love movies! It hasn’t turned out that way largely because I haven’t had the time to watch any. And when I have gone it has mostly been with the kids to something like Toy Story 3 (which I thought was OK) that didn’t inspire me to write. But I am happy to report that the kids are getting old enough to appreciate movies that do make the cut. Last weekend I took my older son to see Money Ball and he loved i...