Late last night Ivan Kirigin (founder of Tipjoy, now at Facebook) asked via Twitter why I still code. My tweeted answer was that I really enjoy it. On the train into NY this morning I have been thinking more about why that is and have come up with a bunch of reasons:First, I discovered coding in the formative teenage years and at that time got deeply into it. I had the great luck that at age 15 a neighbor who was studying “Informatik” (Computer Science in German) took to mentoring me and givi...

Late last night Ivan Kirigin (founder of Tipjoy, now at Facebook) asked via Twitter why I still code. My tweeted answer was that I really enjoy it. On the train into NY this morning I have been thinking more about why that is and have come up with a bunch of reasons:First, I discovered coding in the formative teenage years and at that time got deeply into it. I had the great luck that at age 15 a neighbor who was studying “Informatik” (Computer Science in German) took to mentoring me and givi...

I still follow German politics a bit, if for no other reason than talking to my parents and friends who live there. But right now there are interesting things happening there that are relevant to US politics. Germany has federal elections coming up on September 27 and had state elections in three states last week. The state elections showed a fascinating split with two smaller parties, “The Left” (“Die Linke” and the “Free Democratic Party” (“FDP”), scoring major gains. The Left is a combinat...

I still follow German politics a bit, if for no other reason than talking to my parents and friends who live there. But right now there are interesting things happening there that are relevant to US politics. Germany has federal elections coming up on September 27 and had state elections in three states last week. The state elections showed a fascinating split with two smaller parties, “The Left” (“Die Linke” and the “Free Democratic Party” (“FDP”), scoring major gains. The Left is a combinat...

So I took today off to go to a water park with the kids (Mountain Creek, not far from NYC and based on today’s visit highly recommended). Apparently, eBay’s management was also out today, because the company decided to sell Skype to a syndicate of investors led by Silver Lake and including Index Ventures (the original Skype backers) and Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz’s fairly newly minted fund). Come again? I bought a bunch of eBay shares at $14 earlier this year becaus...

So I took today off to go to a water park with the kids (Mountain Creek, not far from NYC and based on today’s visit highly recommended). Apparently, eBay’s management was also out today, because the company decided to sell Skype to a syndicate of investors led by Silver Lake and including Index Ventures (the original Skype backers) and Andreessen Horowitz (Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz’s fairly newly minted fund). Come again? I bought a bunch of eBay shares at $14 earlier this year becaus...

In 1997 I started a company with two professors from MIT in the emerging Internet healthcare field. We made a lot of mistakes, but probably the biggest mistake was made at inception. We did not have the right DNA in the company for what we were trying to accomplish. The two professors were academics and I had a consulting services background (albeit a consulting startup). Their research had been on using lightweight web based systems on bringing information on the same patient from disparate ...

In 1997 I started a company with two professors from MIT in the emerging Internet healthcare field. We made a lot of mistakes, but probably the biggest mistake was made at inception. We did not have the right DNA in the company for what we were trying to accomplish. The two professors were academics and I had a consulting services background (albeit a consulting startup). Their research had been on using lightweight web based systems on bringing information on the same patient from disparate ...

Yesterday, Fred wrote a post about what we can learn from the “mess” that is Craigslist. The “mess” referred to a Wired article titled “Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess." Fred explains why we at Union Square Ventures love this "mess” and refer to it frequently in posts and meetings with entrepreneurs. Given how much I have personally referred to Craigslist as a model of succeeding with a less is more approach (in every way), I thought it would be good to also state clearly that I don’t think Cra...

Yesterday, Fred wrote a post about what we can learn from the “mess” that is Craigslist. The “mess” referred to a Wired article titled “Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess." Fred explains why we at Union Square Ventures love this "mess” and refer to it frequently in posts and meetings with entrepreneurs. Given how much I have personally referred to Craigslist as a model of succeeding with a less is more approach (in every way), I thought it would be good to also state clearly that I don’t think Cra...

A number of companies in the USV portfolio are being sued over patents (e.g., Twitter). For a startup, such a suit is a huge distraction and potentially a major drain on financial resources. Even for large companies such as Microsoft, patent law suits are a real pain to deal with (see Brad Feld’s post on the latest involving XML). 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 bel...

A number of companies in the USV portfolio are being sued over patents (e.g., Twitter). For a startup, such a suit is a huge distraction and potentially a major drain on financial resources. Even for large companies such as Microsoft, patent law suits are a real pain to deal with (see Brad Feld’s post on the latest involving XML). 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 bel...

The stock marekt has had quite a run. For instance, on March 9 of this year the S&P 500 closed at 676. This past Friday it closed at 1026 for a gain of 350 points or a staggering 51%. There has been quite a bit of discussion along the way about whether this is a sustainable rally with some fairly vocal folks (such a Roubini) saying that it isn’t and that there is a risk of the economy and the markets making a second big dip. My worry isn’t so much that, but rather that we in fact managed to w...

The stock marekt has had quite a run. For instance, on March 9 of this year the S&P 500 closed at 676. This past Friday it closed at 1026 for a gain of 350 points or a staggering 51%. There has been quite a bit of discussion along the way about whether this is a sustainable rally with some fairly vocal folks (such a Roubini) saying that it isn’t and that there is a risk of the economy and the markets making a second big dip. My worry isn’t so much that, but rather that we in fact managed to w...

While on vacation I started some prep work for using MongoDB at DailyLit, which is mostly written in PHP. The prep work consists of creating a lightweight way of getting PHP objects in and out of MongoDB (I know there are some things out there already, but what’s the fun in that?). Here is a slightly simplified summary what I am shooting for:I like the idea of using static/class methods for retrieval because these will be generating one or more objects and I do not want to have to deal with s...

While on vacation I started some prep work for using MongoDB at DailyLit, which is mostly written in PHP. The prep work consists of creating a lightweight way of getting PHP objects in and out of MongoDB (I know there are some things out there already, but what’s the fun in that?). Here is a slightly simplified summary what I am shooting for:I like the idea of using static/class methods for retrieval because these will be generating one or more objects and I do not want to have to deal with s...

It has been great for startups to be able to fire up instances on Amazon EC2 or Slicehost for next to nothing, but one thing that has gone down the drain in doing so is email deliverability. I try out a lot of new services all the time and at this point I would say that well over half of those new services don’t get their email messages into my inbox. Instead they get swallowed up by Postini. And because Postini is generally excellent (very few false positives), I rarely bother to check it. T...

It has been great for startups to be able to fire up instances on Amazon EC2 or Slicehost for next to nothing, but one thing that has gone down the drain in doing so is email deliverability. I try out a lot of new services all the time and at this point I would say that well over half of those new services don’t get their email messages into my inbox. Instead they get swallowed up by Postini. And because Postini is generally excellent (very few false positives), I rarely bother to check it. T...

I am leaving later today for a family vacation in Europe. Like last year, it turns out that I am in the middle of several business things that can’t really wait until I get back. I don’t find that to be a problem though, especially when heading to Europe. For starters, I tend to get on European time right away, which means that I have a couple of hours in the morning before everyone else gets going. As I won’t be blogging while away, this will be time completely available for work. It also he...

I am leaving later today for a family vacation in Europe. Like last year, it turns out that I am in the middle of several business things that can’t really wait until I get back. I don’t find that to be a problem though, especially when heading to Europe. For starters, I tend to get on European time right away, which means that I have a couple of hours in the morning before everyone else gets going. As I won’t be blogging while away, this will be time completely available for work. It also he...