On Monday as I was reading reactions on the web about the successful raid on Osama bin laden’s compound, I kept coming across a quote “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. – Martin Luther King, Jr.” Part of me felt it was a beautiful sentiment. Part of me thought it was an impossible standard. And I am always a bit worried about the borderline for these kind of statements between sincerity and Hallmark. In retrospect, ...

I was thrilled to see that delicious has found a new home. Not only do I continue to actively use delicious nearly every day but having been involved intimately with its brief life as a separate company I have an ongoing emotional attachment. There are a bunch of things that I would love to see AVOS tackle once they have handled the migration off Yahoo’s infrastructure onto their own. At present I use the bookmarklet, but it would be great to be able to post with an overlay that doesn’t screw...

On Monday as I was reading reactions on the web about the successful raid on Osama bin laden’s compound, I kept coming across a quote “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. – Martin Luther King, Jr.” Part of me felt it was a beautiful sentiment. Part of me thought it was an impossible standard. And I am always a bit worried about the borderline for these kind of statements between sincerity and Hallmark. In retrospect, ...

I was thrilled to see that delicious has found a new home. Not only do I continue to actively use delicious nearly every day but having been involved intimately with its brief life as a separate company I have an ongoing emotional attachment. There are a bunch of things that I would love to see AVOS tackle once they have handled the migration off Yahoo’s infrastructure onto their own. At present I use the bookmarklet, but it would be great to be able to post with an overlay that doesn’t screw...

As a graduate student at MIT, I studied a bunch of econometrics and one of my favorite instructors was Prof. Jerry Hausman (he of the Hausman test). Prof. Hausman would find a way in every lecture to somehow include his signature remark: “And that once again proves that life is unfair." I am not sure whether anything in particular prompted him to be saying this but I took it as a comment on the stochastic nature of the world: with randomness, it is inevitable that bad things will happen to go...

As a graduate student at MIT, I studied a bunch of econometrics and one of my favorite instructors was Prof. Jerry Hausman (he of the Hausman test). Prof. Hausman would find a way in every lecture to somehow include his signature remark: “And that once again proves that life is unfair." I am not sure whether anything in particular prompted him to be saying this but I took it as a comment on the stochastic nature of the world: with randomness, it is inevitable that bad things will happen to go...

There were a lot of really interesting comments to my question about retail trends earlier this week. Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion. As I am thinking about how to organize all of these, I am reminded that it is often (always?) a good idea to try to reason from first principles. In other words, what are the underlying characteristic of the Internet that are driving these trends? I intentionally said “Internet” (as opposed to “web”) because I mean for that to be an all encompa...

There were a lot of really interesting comments to my question about retail trends earlier this week. Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion. As I am thinking about how to organize all of these, I am reminded that it is often (always?) a good idea to try to reason from first principles. In other words, what are the underlying characteristic of the Internet that are driving these trends? I intentionally said “Internet” (as opposed to “web”) because I mean for that to be an all encompa...

I found out yesterday that due to a lack of funding the SETI Institute has pulled the plug on operating the Allen Antenna Array. Given the recent discovery of potentially habitable planets, the timing of this couldn’t be worse. Just as our view is coming around to there being a higher likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere, we stop looking for it. Why look in the first place? I believe there are two compelling arguments. First, in the history of Earth whenever a civilization was surprised b...

I found out yesterday that due to a lack of funding the SETI Institute has pulled the plug on operating the Allen Antenna Array. Given the recent discovery of potentially habitable planets, the timing of this couldn’t be worse. Just as our view is coming around to there being a higher likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere, we stop looking for it. Why look in the first place? I believe there are two compelling arguments. First, in the history of Earth whenever a civilization was surprised b...

This Friday I will be meeting with some of the senior management from a major branded retail chain in the US to talk about how the web and mobile are impacting their business. In preparation, I am thinking about key relevant trends. Here are some that are top of mind:Reaching people via mobile as they are at or near a store (for loyalty, specials, etc). Ability for people in-store (again via mobile) to share their experience, comparison shop, and even place an order from the retailer itself o...

This Friday I will be meeting with some of the senior management from a major branded retail chain in the US to talk about how the web and mobile are impacting their business. In preparation, I am thinking about key relevant trends. Here are some that are top of mind:Reaching people via mobile as they are at or near a store (for loyalty, specials, etc). Ability for people in-store (again via mobile) to share their experience, comparison shop, and even place an order from the retailer itself o...

I am currently reading James Gleick’s “The Information,” which I highly recommend (more on that in a separate post). In it is a wonderful chapter on Babbage and Lady Ada Lovelace, which makes it clear how amazing her insights into what we would call programming were by placing them in their historical context. What does any of this have to do with Arduino? Well, I ordered our Arduino kit from the wonderfully named Adafruit in New York which was founded and is run by Limor Fried. I can wholehe...

I am currently reading James Gleick’s “The Information,” which I highly recommend (more on that in a separate post). In it is a wonderful chapter on Babbage and Lady Ada Lovelace, which makes it clear how amazing her insights into what we would call programming were by placing them in their historical context. What does any of this have to do with Arduino? Well, I ordered our Arduino kit from the wonderfully named Adafruit in New York which was founded and is run by Limor Fried. I can wholehe...

I have always loved the videos illustrating orders of magnitude of scale. It simply seems a marvel that the world around us encompasses all these different scales. It turns out to also be a useful way to think about ability when you are recruiting. Talent comes in orders of magnitude. Before going to recruiting for startups, consider talent in tennis for a moment. At one level I am a decent player in that I can hit the ball reasonably hard and look good doing so (ok so that is subject to inte...

I have always loved the videos illustrating orders of magnitude of scale. It simply seems a marvel that the world around us encompasses all these different scales. It turns out to also be a useful way to think about ability when you are recruiting. Talent comes in orders of magnitude. Before going to recruiting for startups, consider talent in tennis for a moment. At one level I am a decent player in that I can hit the ball reasonably hard and look good doing so (ok so that is subject to inte...

I don’t have the time or interest to look at the latest in the Winkelvoss and Ceglia vs Facebook/Zuckerberg sagas. But even just the headlines serve as good reminders that as an entrepreneur you need to know some things about IP law so that you don’t run afoul of it. In particular, I continue to meet people starting businesses while employed elsewhere without having looked at their employment agreements. That is not a good idea as these run the gamut from letting you do what you want (as long...

I don’t have the time or interest to look at the latest in the Winkelvoss and Ceglia vs Facebook/Zuckerberg sagas. But even just the headlines serve as good reminders that as an entrepreneur you need to know some things about IP law so that you don’t run afoul of it. In particular, I continue to meet people starting businesses while employed elsewhere without having looked at their employment agreements. That is not a good idea as these run the gamut from letting you do what you want (as long...

While I have a feeling that Larry Page won’t take any of my suggestions (darn), I am happy to see him come out swinging hard. What a welcome contrast to when Jerry Yang took over as CEO at Yahoo. Several people have written that it is a bad idea to have a corporate wide bonus depending on the achievement of social goals. I happen to disagree. Social is pervasive and google is behind, so in fact everyone in the company should be thinking about how they can contribute to fixing that. It would b...

While I have a feeling that Larry Page won’t take any of my suggestions (darn), I am happy to see him come out swinging hard. What a welcome contrast to when Jerry Yang took over as CEO at Yahoo. Several people have written that it is a bad idea to have a corporate wide bonus depending on the achievement of social goals. I happen to disagree. Social is pervasive and google is behind, so in fact everyone in the company should be thinking about how they can contribute to fixing that. It would b...