Germany elected its national parliament yesterday and the results are quite interesting. Angela Merkel’s party the CDU/CSU added substantial gains going from 33.8% in 2009 to 41.5% of the public vote now. That is almost the largest majority for any German chancellor (since Konrad Adenauer). These gains were aided by the collapse of Germany’s historic third party, the FDP which went from 14.6% in 2009 to 4.8% now which, if confirmed, means the party will no longer be represented in the German ...

Germany elected its national parliament yesterday and the results are quite interesting. Angela Merkel’s party the CDU/CSU added substantial gains going from 33.8% in 2009 to 41.5% of the public vote now. That is almost the largest majority for any German chancellor (since Konrad Adenauer). These gains were aided by the collapse of Germany’s historic third party, the FDP which went from 14.6% in 2009 to 4.8% now which, if confirmed, means the party will no longer be represented in the German ...

Thanks to an early copy (full disclosure: provided by Alexis – thanks!) I just had the pleasure of reading Alexis Ohanian’s “Without Their Permission” on my flight back from SF to New York. The book will come out on October 1st, but you can pre-order it now and I highly recommend that you do. It is really a three for one deal: first, a brief and entertaining history of both Reddit and Hipmunk; second, a wonderful two chapter Startup MBA that contains advice that I wholeheartedly endorse; and ...

Thanks to an early copy (full disclosure: provided by Alexis – thanks!) I just had the pleasure of reading Alexis Ohanian’s “Without Their Permission” on my flight back from SF to New York. The book will come out on October 1st, but you can pre-order it now and I highly recommend that you do. It is really a three for one deal: first, a brief and entertaining history of both Reddit and Hipmunk; second, a wonderful two chapter Startup MBA that contains advice that I wholeheartedly endorse; and ...

A few days ago I wrote about my support of the defense fund for Barrett Brown. One of the reasons regulators and legislators seem to think we need such over the top draconian sentences is because we have the wrong security model for payments in particular and authentication more generally. Information will continue to leak – that is it’s nature. It should not be possible for me to transact in your account simply by having information on your account. Instead we need to broadly embrace two fac...

A few days ago I wrote about my support of the defense fund for Barrett Brown. One of the reasons regulators and legislators seem to think we need such over the top draconian sentences is because we have the wrong security model for payments in particular and authentication more generally. Information will continue to leak – that is it’s nature. It should not be possible for me to transact in your account simply by having information on your account. Instead we need to broadly embrace two fac...

Last week in Homeschool Wednesdays I wrote about the New York State requirement for an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP). One of the sections that I have been thinking a fair bit about is science. So I have started to put together a Hackpad with what I think everyone should know in science. I literally mean everyone here. I have a strong believe that the world would be a better place if more people knew more about science. If you want to contribute head over to the Hackpad. It is cu...

Last week in Homeschool Wednesdays I wrote about the New York State requirement for an Individualized Home Instruction Plan (IHIP). One of the sections that I have been thinking a fair bit about is science. So I have started to put together a Hackpad with what I think everyone should know in science. I literally mean everyone here. I have a strong believe that the world would be a better place if more people knew more about science. If you want to contribute head over to the Hackpad. It is cu...

Last Tech Tuesday I wrote about how engineering led companies sometimes underrate the importance of marketing and sales. One of the comments on Twitter pointed out that the converse is also often true and I replied that I will write a post about that, so here it goes. Many companies founded by a pure business team tend to struggle with technology and fail to deliver the products or services they envision. There are at least three distinct failure modes that I have seen here over time. The fir...

Last Tech Tuesday I wrote about how engineering led companies sometimes underrate the importance of marketing and sales. One of the comments on Twitter pointed out that the converse is also often true and I replied that I will write a post about that, so here it goes. Many companies founded by a pure business team tend to struggle with technology and fail to deliver the products or services they envision. There are at least three distinct failure modes that I have seen here over time. The fir...

Yesterday I took a little bit of time off from an otherwise very busy day to watch one of the America’s Cup races. I had watched a couple of them previously on “TV” and on Youtube. But seeing it in person was even more impressive. The true speed of the boats is hard to appreciate on a small screen. From the stern of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien I was able to see the entire race course and it was spectacular: The AC72s are to a boat such as the J100 that I sail like an F1 race car is to a norm...

Yesterday I took a little bit of time off from an otherwise very busy day to watch one of the America’s Cup races. I had watched a couple of them previously on “TV” and on Youtube. But seeing it in person was even more impressive. The true speed of the boats is hard to appreciate on a small screen. From the stern of the SS Jeremiah O'Brien I was able to see the entire race course and it was spectacular: The AC72s are to a boat such as the J100 that I sail like an F1 race car is to a norm...

States have different regulations for homeschooling. New York State requires the filing of an IHIP or Individualized Home Instruction Plan. Here are the governing regulation and the official FAQ about IHIPs. We are currently working on the IHIPs for our kids for this coming year. Thankfully one can find lots of examples on that wonderful resource that is the Internet. One of the things that’s fascinating to me here is how I have never seen anything like this for our children while they were i...

States have different regulations for homeschooling. New York State requires the filing of an IHIP or Individualized Home Instruction Plan. Here are the governing regulation and the official FAQ about IHIPs. We are currently working on the IHIPs for our kids for this coming year. Thankfully one can find lots of examples on that wonderful resource that is the Internet. One of the things that’s fascinating to me here is how I have never seen anything like this for our children while they were i...

When I wrote that we need protest and change rather than more crypto many people accused me of being naive and/or not proposing concrete enough alternatives. Well here is one thing you can do immediately: donate money to Barrett Brown’s defense fund. Why should you do this? Because Barrett Brown is currently facing 105 years in prison primarily for posting a link to materials already available on the Internet. The link in question was to information that had been obtained by someone hacking t...

When I wrote that we need protest and change rather than more crypto many people accused me of being naive and/or not proposing concrete enough alternatives. Well here is one thing you can do immediately: donate money to Barrett Brown’s defense fund. Why should you do this? Because Barrett Brown is currently facing 105 years in prison primarily for posting a link to materials already available on the Internet. The link in question was to information that had been obtained by someone hacking t...

One of the lasting legacies of YCombinator will be that it empowered engineers as company founders without the need for someone with a business background. At USV we have backed several all engineering teams out of YC and otherwise. These companies tend to have no issues delivering their product but face other challenges instead. A somewhat unfair summary is that they tend to believe too much in a build it and they will come view of the world. How so? Many engineering led companies have a rel...

One of the lasting legacies of YCombinator will be that it empowered engineers as company founders without the need for someone with a business background. At USV we have backed several all engineering teams out of YC and otherwise. These companies tend to have no issues delivering their product but face other challenges instead. A somewhat unfair summary is that they tend to believe too much in a build it and they will come view of the world. How so? Many engineering led companies have a rel...

Vinod Khosla said yesterday at Techcrunch Disrupt that one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs is to figure out whose advice to trust on what topic. That is spot on because as an entrepreneur you will get advice from just about everyone all the time (including random people you have just met for the very first time who don’t know squat about your product or company). Unfortunately that terrific quote will get buried because of a bunch of other things Vinod said right then, such that a lot...

Vinod Khosla said yesterday at Techcrunch Disrupt that one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs is to figure out whose advice to trust on what topic. That is spot on because as an entrepreneur you will get advice from just about everyone all the time (including random people you have just met for the very first time who don’t know squat about your product or company). Unfortunately that terrific quote will get buried because of a bunch of other things Vinod said right then, such that a lot...