It makes sense for press releases to conform to a standard structure including a summary first paragraph and quotes for use in articles. But there is no good reason for the awful phrasing found in most press releases, the insertion of way too many buzzwords, and the use of generalized superlatives. Together they form what I call press release mumbo jumbo. I encourage all entrepreneurs to rid their startups’ releases of this babble and replace it with substance and straight talk. If you can’t ...

It makes sense for press releases to conform to a standard structure including a summary first paragraph and quotes for use in articles. But there is no good reason for the awful phrasing found in most press releases, the insertion of way too many buzzwords, and the use of generalized superlatives. Together they form what I call press release mumbo jumbo. I encourage all entrepreneurs to rid their startups’ releases of this babble and replace it with substance and straight talk. If you can’t ...

My laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth and like most Windows machines it is slowing down considerably. Tom Evslin wrote about this phenomenon earlier this year and came up with the wonderful image of barnacles. Oddly though he did not mention file fragmentation as one of the biggest sources of barnacles. Windows XP does a terrible job at keeping the disk from becoming completely jumbled and the defrag utility that comes with Windows XP must not have been touched in a decade. I have now ...

My laptop is getting a bit long in the tooth and like most Windows machines it is slowing down considerably. Tom Evslin wrote about this phenomenon earlier this year and came up with the wonderful image of barnacles. Oddly though he did not mention file fragmentation as one of the biggest sources of barnacles. Windows XP does a terrible job at keeping the disk from becoming completely jumbled and the defrag utility that comes with Windows XP must not have been touched in a decade. I have now ...

Just announced our investment in 10gen. Fantastic team working on an opensource cloud platform. Look forward to developing scalable sites and apps without having to worry about managing machines ever again.

Just announced our investment in 10gen. Fantastic team working on an opensource cloud platform. Look forward to developing scalable sites and apps without having to worry about managing machines ever again.

My tennis game has improved a lot over the last few years. Some of that has to do with playing more often but most of it is the result of changing my attitude towards taking shots. For the longest time I simply could not keep myself from hitting the ball hard all the time and trying to win a point quickly. That resulted in many beautiful shots but even more unforced errors. I am simply not good enough to hit the ball hard when I am not well positioned. People would often congratulate me on ho...

My tennis game has improved a lot over the last few years. Some of that has to do with playing more often but most of it is the result of changing my attitude towards taking shots. For the longest time I simply could not keep myself from hitting the ball hard all the time and trying to win a point quickly. That resulted in many beautiful shots but even more unforced errors. I am simply not good enough to hit the ball hard when I am not well positioned. People would often congratulate me on ho...

There has been a lot of praise for bit.ly, the new entrant in the URL shortening field created by betaworks. Now I do on occasion have a need for URL shortening for either tweeting or emailing, but other than that I consider the practice harmful (it should not even be necessary for email if email clients weren’t so awful). Why do I consider URL shortening harmful? First, because good URLs convey a ton of information. For starters, there is the domain itself, which gives me a good idea of what...

There has been a lot of praise for bit.ly, the new entrant in the URL shortening field created by betaworks. Now I do on occasion have a need for URL shortening for either tweeting or emailing, but other than that I consider the practice harmful (it should not even be necessary for email if email clients weren’t so awful). Why do I consider URL shortening harmful? First, because good URLs convey a ton of information. For starters, there is the domain itself, which gives me a good idea of what...

The iPhone’s Gaming Mettle: Great summary of why the iPhone is such a game changer (pun intended). Meant to pull this information together, but much easier to link to it.

The iPhone’s Gaming Mettle: Great summary of why the iPhone is such a game changer (pun intended). Meant to pull this information together, but much easier to link to it.

We tend to be minority investors, which means that at least at the outset we (potentially together with other investors) own less than 50 percent of a business. That means we do not have control in the traditional sense. On the vast majority of issues, the board simply cannot just tell the founders what to do. But it does not mean that we lack influence. We tend to spend a lot of time communicating with founders by email, IM, phone and in person. We combine examples from other businesses, ana...

We tend to be minority investors, which means that at least at the outset we (potentially together with other investors) own less than 50 percent of a business. That means we do not have control in the traditional sense. On the vast majority of issues, the board simply cannot just tell the founders what to do. But it does not mean that we lack influence. We tend to spend a lot of time communicating with founders by email, IM, phone and in person. We combine examples from other businesses, ana...

The New York Times has a great article today on Edward O. Wilson. Since my undergraduate days I have been fascinated by his work on evolution. I loved his book Consilience which is incredibly thought provoking. But the real reason to read the article is to get a sense of how slowly the wheels of science can turn. For instance, it refers to Wilson’s 1975 book Sociobiology which had ideas in it that more than three decades later are still contested. There are many reasons for this rate of progr...

The New York Times has a great article today on Edward O. Wilson. Since my undergraduate days I have been fascinated by his work on evolution. I loved his book Consilience which is incredibly thought provoking. But the real reason to read the article is to get a sense of how slowly the wheels of science can turn. For instance, it refers to Wilson’s 1975 book Sociobiology which had ideas in it that more than three decades later are still contested. There are many reasons for this rate of progr...

The new iPhone is out and the App Store has opened. Apple’s servers appear to be melting down (which is sure to have folks ticked off). But those folks who have successfully upgraded (or bought a new phone) and installed apps appear to be ecstatic about the experience. Unless Apple totally melts down this will be the day that mobile changed. Update: Looks like the activation meltdown is pretty serious. I think this will still wind up being nothing but a speed bump on the iPhones path to (temp...

The new iPhone is out and the App Store has opened. Apple’s servers appear to be melting down (which is sure to have folks ticked off). But those folks who have successfully upgraded (or bought a new phone) and installed apps appear to be ecstatic about the experience. Unless Apple totally melts down this will be the day that mobile changed. Update: Looks like the activation meltdown is pretty serious. I think this will still wind up being nothing but a speed bump on the iPhones path to (temp...

If I meet with someone I generally google them beforehand. I assume others do the same with me. I believe this will be the norm for pretty much anyone soon if it is not already. I am therefore surprised to see how many people are not in control of their online persona. The only information that google turns up is what others have written about them. That may well include quotes take out of context, out-of-date company affiliations or even negative comments by others. Letting others define you...

If I meet with someone I generally google them beforehand. I assume others do the same with me. I believe this will be the norm for pretty much anyone soon if it is not already. I am therefore surprised to see how many people are not in control of their online persona. The only information that google turns up is what others have written about them. That may well include quotes take out of context, out-of-date company affiliations or even negative comments by others. Letting others define you...