Over the weekend I decided to play around a bit with jQuery. I had done tiny bits of Javascript front end stuff previously and had heard a lot of good things about jQuery. As a disclaimer upfront, I have not looked at any of the other Javascript libraries, so this is not a comparative view (not even a comprehensive view for that matter). I had a concrete project in mind. DailyLit breaks books up into installments of roughly 1,000 words. As a brief historic aside, when Dickens went from monthl...

Over the weekend I decided to play around a bit with jQuery. I had done tiny bits of Javascript front end stuff previously and had heard a lot of good things about jQuery. As a disclaimer upfront, I have not looked at any of the other Javascript libraries, so this is not a comparative view (not even a comprehensive view for that matter). I had a concrete project in mind. DailyLit breaks books up into installments of roughly 1,000 words. As a brief historic aside, when Dickens went from monthl...

Start with what seems like a good idea: assets and liabilities on a company’s balance sheet should be adjusted to reflect their fair value. For instance for assets, fair value would not be the price the company paid when it bought the asset (or the cost it incurred in building the asset), but the value it could realize if it sold the asset. A similar concept applies to liabilities. For a long time the rules governing what constitutes fair value were different on a case by case basis resulting...

Start with what seems like a good idea: assets and liabilities on a company’s balance sheet should be adjusted to reflect their fair value. For instance for assets, fair value would not be the price the company paid when it bought the asset (or the cost it incurred in building the asset), but the value it could realize if it sold the asset. A similar concept applies to liabilities. For a long time the rules governing what constitutes fair value were different on a case by case basis resulting...

Rahm Emanuel is quoted as saying “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” I subscribe to that philosophy and believe that the economic crisis that we are facing offer some crucial opportunities. As I have written on the USV blog, we are facing some unprecedented structural changes. We can either choose to fight those changes and waste a lot of resources in the process, or we can use this crisis to accelerate the ...

Rahm Emanuel is quoted as saying “You don’t ever want a crisis to go to waste; it’s an opportunity to do important things that you would otherwise avoid.” I subscribe to that philosophy and believe that the economic crisis that we are facing offer some crucial opportunities. As I have written on the USV blog, we are facing some unprecedented structural changes. We can either choose to fight those changes and waste a lot of resources in the process, or we can use this crisis to accelerate the ...

I have presented a bunch of data on household debt, corporate debt, financial sector debt and government debt. But what does it all mean? First, the economic situation is bad. We had economic growth driven by unsustainable levels of consumer spending which was the result of a housing bubble that made consumers feel richer than they were. At the same time corporations and especially financial companies operated with too much leverage. Now consumer spending is dropping off a cliff and corporati...

I have presented a bunch of data on household debt, corporate debt, financial sector debt and government debt. But what does it all mean? First, the economic situation is bad. We had economic growth driven by unsustainable levels of consumer spending which was the result of a housing bubble that made consumers feel richer than they were. At the same time corporations and especially financial companies operated with too much leverage. Now consumer spending is dropping off a cliff and corporati...

In a heartening display of speed and preparedness, the Obama transition team rolled out Change.gov a day after the election. This is the kind of foresight that we need and was sorely missing over the last 8 years. It is a simple site for now that lays out the agenda for the incoming administration. Importantly though it already sounds a key theme of citizen responsibility and service.President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a ...

In a heartening display of speed and preparedness, the Obama transition team rolled out Change.gov a day after the election. This is the kind of foresight that we need and was sorely missing over the last 8 years. It is a simple site for now that lays out the agenda for the incoming administration. Importantly though it already sounds a key theme of citizen responsibility and service.President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a ...

Over the weekend, the New York Times had an article titled “What Has Driven Women out of Computer Science?” which had the following fairly dramatic chart in it: It shows female college freshman interested in computer science at an all time low of 0.3%. I studied computer science as an undergraduate at Harvard from 1987-90. There are a few things that I recall that might have something to do with this trend. At the time, there was a single female professor in the department (Meichun Hsu). Othe...

Over the weekend, the New York Times had an article titled “What Has Driven Women out of Computer Science?” which had the following fairly dramatic chart in it: It shows female college freshman interested in computer science at an all time low of 0.3%. I studied computer science as an undergraduate at Harvard from 1987-90. There are a few things that I recall that might have something to do with this trend. At the time, there was a single female professor in the department (Meichun Hsu). Othe...

ICANN once in a while approves a new top level domain (TLD). The latest one that is coming up is .tel (with a sunrise period for existing trademark holders starting December 3, 2009). I consider this a form of highway robbery. Every time ICANN does this existing domain and trademark owners essentially have no choice but to also register their domain under this new TLD or risk having someone squat their name. On the one hand one might argue that the price is low enough so that folks should not...

ICANN once in a while approves a new top level domain (TLD). The latest one that is coming up is .tel (with a sunrise period for existing trademark holders starting December 3, 2009). I consider this a form of highway robbery. Every time ICANN does this existing domain and trademark owners essentially have no choice but to also register their domain under this new TLD or risk having someone squat their name. On the one hand one might argue that the price is low enough so that folks should not...

Someone pointed out to me yesterday that restructuring AIG does not work because it would bring down the financial system. There is definitely that possibility but suspending the mark to market rule would go a long way toward avoiding that. It would then be possible to set up a clearing entity to work through all the CDS and other derivatives that would be impacted. By supporting AIG we are simply pushing off that day of reckoning.

Someone pointed out to me yesterday that restructuring AIG does not work because it would bring down the financial system. There is definitely that possibility but suspending the mark to market rule would go a long way toward avoiding that. It would then be possible to set up a clearing entity to work through all the CDS and other derivatives that would be impacted. By supporting AIG we are simply pushing off that day of reckoning.

A long time ago I worked as a management consultant. One of the most fascinating projects from back then was the introduction of Kaizen at several German automotive companies. Kaizen means loosely translated continuous improvement. It is a bundle of techniques applied by Japanese manufacturing companies. The goal of Kaizen is to break out of the notion that there is a fixed cost-time-quality tradeoff. Traditional thinking was that if you wanted higher quality it would imply more cost and long...

A long time ago I worked as a management consultant. One of the most fascinating projects from back then was the introduction of Kaizen at several German automotive companies. Kaizen means loosely translated continuous improvement. It is a bundle of techniques applied by Japanese manufacturing companies. The goal of Kaizen is to break out of the notion that there is a fixed cost-time-quality tradeoff. Traditional thinking was that if you wanted higher quality it would imply more cost and long...

With the economy in a tailspin and a gloomy outlook, there is a renewed focus on sustainable business models for startups. One model that has come in for particular scrutiny is “freemium” with posts such as Is Freemium Really the Way to Go? and Freemium is Not a Business Model. But not everyone has given up on it. I just had a conversation with Dave McClure where he said that he has been thinking a lot about where to draw the line between free and paid features in the freemium model. A while ...

With the economy in a tailspin and a gloomy outlook, there is a renewed focus on sustainable business models for startups. One model that has come in for particular scrutiny is “freemium” with posts such as Is Freemium Really the Way to Go? and Freemium is Not a Business Model. But not everyone has given up on it. I just had a conversation with Dave McClure where he said that he has been thinking a lot about where to draw the line between free and paid features in the freemium model. A while ...