Bryce has had some great posts about his analytical (and tech supported) approach to fitness. I used to find staying in shape to be quite the challenge – I would start the day with great plans of going to the gym or exercising and then wind up scheduling another meeting or answering emails instead. The solution that Susan and I have settled on is to go out every morning as soon as there is enough light and hit some tennis balls (regular in summer and paddle in winter). We are lucky to have pu...

Bryce has had some great posts about his analytical (and tech supported) approach to fitness. I used to find staying in shape to be quite the challenge – I would start the day with great plans of going to the gym or exercising and then wind up scheduling another meeting or answering emails instead. The solution that Susan and I have settled on is to go out every morning as soon as there is enough light and hit some tennis balls (regular in summer and paddle in winter). We are lucky to have pu...

Yesterday brought two announcements and one rumor that all relate to the pricing of digital content: the New York Times announced that it plans to add a paywall in 2011, Amazon announced that it will offer authors a 70% royalty rate, and book publishers are apparently trying to convince Apple to act as a distributor with prices set by the publishers. All three of these are interesting and important. Starting with the last. It appears from the Apple discussions (if the rumor is correct) that p...

Yesterday brought two announcements and one rumor that all relate to the pricing of digital content: the New York Times announced that it plans to add a paywall in 2011, Amazon announced that it will offer authors a 70% royalty rate, and book publishers are apparently trying to convince Apple to act as a distributor with prices set by the publishers. All three of these are interesting and important. Starting with the last. It appears from the Apple discussions (if the rumor is correct) that p...

Now that the cost of servers and bandwidth has plummeted, office space tends to be the biggest expense following payroll for a lot of web startups. Here are some quick tips on what to do.When you are just getting going, simple get some desks, ideally at a friend’s startup. New York City also has some great deals in the NYU Poly incubators. Whatever you do, it should be month-by-month with zero lockin.As you get larger, it’s best to sublease on relatively short subleases (12 - 24 months). You ...

Now that the cost of servers and bandwidth has plummeted, office space tends to be the biggest expense following payroll for a lot of web startups. Here are some quick tips on what to do.When you are just getting going, simple get some desks, ideally at a friend’s startup. New York City also has some great deals in the NYU Poly incubators. Whatever you do, it should be month-by-month with zero lockin.As you get larger, it’s best to sublease on relatively short subleases (12 - 24 months). You ...

I have been carrying around a Nexus One for a couple of weeks (in addition to my somewhat nervous feeling Blackberry). There is a ton to like about the Nexus. It works fantastically well with all of Google’s services. The setup is a cinch – just sign in with your Google account and let the phone and the cloud do the rest. The screen looks great and transitions between apps are fast. It can run multiple apps simultaneously. The turn-by-turn directions are awesome. Given all that, I find it sur...

I have been carrying around a Nexus One for a couple of weeks (in addition to my somewhat nervous feeling Blackberry). There is a ton to like about the Nexus. It works fantastically well with all of Google’s services. The setup is a cinch – just sign in with your Google account and let the phone and the cloud do the rest. The screen looks great and transitions between apps are fast. It can run multiple apps simultaneously. The turn-by-turn directions are awesome. Given all that, I find it sur...

I am a huge fan of the Lean Startup philosophy (and Eric Ries / Steve Blank who have done so much to evangelize it). Recently, i have been thinking a lot about the relationship between this approach and network effects. For most web services, network effects are the key (only?) sustainable competitive advantage. But for every hyper growth network effects story (Twitter, Zynga, etc), I am convinced there are hundreds of web businesses that could have meaningful network effects, if only they ke...

I am a huge fan of the Lean Startup philosophy (and Eric Ries / Steve Blank who have done so much to evangelize it). Recently, i have been thinking a lot about the relationship between this approach and network effects. For most web services, network effects are the key (only?) sustainable competitive advantage. But for every hyper growth network effects story (Twitter, Zynga, etc), I am convinced there are hundreds of web businesses that could have meaningful network effects, if only they ke...

Recently, someone (I believe it was Nicholas Carlson) said to me: “what most people forget about the iPhone is that it is also a very capable iPod." This was said in the context of a discussion of how successful Android will be this year. Now this is an interesting alternative view to Bill Gurley’s assertion that the head-on comparison is wrong because Android aims at the much broader market of folks who have feature phones today. But: for everyone who wants to upgrade from a feature phone an...

Recently, someone (I believe it was Nicholas Carlson) said to me: “what most people forget about the iPhone is that it is also a very capable iPod." This was said in the context of a discussion of how successful Android will be this year. Now this is an interesting alternative view to Bill Gurley’s assertion that the head-on comparison is wrong because Android aims at the much broader market of folks who have feature phones today. But: for everyone who wants to upgrade from a feature phone an...

I have worried on and off on this blog about the growing reach of Google. But yesterday I was thrilled to see Google take a determined stance on the issue of censorship and – by implication human rights – in China. I very much hope that the team there has the fortitude to stick to its plan, even if that means a rough road ahead for one of the world’s largest markets. Now lets see if any other Internet and IT companies will follow suit. Many of them have lower margins and more competition in t...

I have worried on and off on this blog about the growing reach of Google. But yesterday I was thrilled to see Google take a determined stance on the issue of censorship and – by implication human rights – in China. I very much hope that the team there has the fortitude to stick to its plan, even if that means a rough road ahead for one of the world’s largest markets. Now lets see if any other Internet and IT companies will follow suit. Many of them have lower margins and more competition in t...

The demand for books, music, news, TV, phone calls is constrained by the time that people have. In a mature market (e.g., the US) that time is growing at best at the rate of population growth (low single digits), but in reality is likely to be shrinking as other online activities (e.g., social networking) take up time. The supply for all of the above, however, is increasing by one or more orders of magnitude, as anyone can be a publisher and as the cost of bandwidth has plummeted. The basic m...

The demand for books, music, news, TV, phone calls is constrained by the time that people have. In a mature market (e.g., the US) that time is growing at best at the rate of population growth (low single digits), but in reality is likely to be shrinking as other online activities (e.g., social networking) take up time. The supply for all of the above, however, is increasing by one or more orders of magnitude, as anyone can be a publisher and as the cost of bandwidth has plummeted. The basic m...

My partner Brad put up a great post on the USV blog yesterday, arguing for an independent invention defense against software patents. A while back, I had proposed an alternative, a change in how litigation works. In that post, I wrote that:Some folks have suggested doing away with software patents altogether as a way of addressing this problem. That strikes me as too dramatic a solution as I don’t believe that all software patents are evil. For instance, if someone were to spend years and lot...

My partner Brad put up a great post on the USV blog yesterday, arguing for an independent invention defense against software patents. A while back, I had proposed an alternative, a change in how litigation works. In that post, I wrote that:Some folks have suggested doing away with software patents altogether as a way of addressing this problem. That strikes me as too dramatic a solution as I don’t believe that all software patents are evil. For instance, if someone were to spend years and lot...

I am going to my kids’ school this morning to meet with the head of the computer lab, the principal and the district’s main computer person to talk about Scratch (that is assuming it stops snowing!). The school is beginning to take first steps in teaching Scratch and I want to convince them to step up the pace. I firmly believe that learning how to make computers/robots do things (rather than just do things with computers/robots) will be a critical skill going forward. Scratch is wonderful fo...

I am going to my kids’ school this morning to meet with the head of the computer lab, the principal and the district’s main computer person to talk about Scratch (that is assuming it stops snowing!). The school is beginning to take first steps in teaching Scratch and I want to convince them to step up the pace. I firmly believe that learning how to make computers/robots do things (rather than just do things with computers/robots) will be a critical skill going forward. Scratch is wonderful fo...