The scale of the protests against government in Turkey is significant with over 200 demonstrations in 67 cities. Social media has played an important role in making the rest of the world aware of the scale of the protests and more importantly of the aggressive government response which has involved mass arrests and excessive use of tear gas and water cannons. It is not surprising that the Turkish Prime Minister, who initially replied saying that the opinions of the protestors will simply be i...

The scale of the protests against government in Turkey is significant with over 200 demonstrations in 67 cities. Social media has played an important role in making the rest of the world aware of the scale of the protests and more importantly of the aggressive government response which has involved mass arrests and excessive use of tear gas and water cannons. It is not surprising that the Turkish Prime Minister, who initially replied saying that the opinions of the protestors will simply be i...

Yesterday, the EFF filed an amicus brief signed by some of the big names in computer science and software engineering to support the court decision in Oracle vs. Google that APIs are not copyrightable. The brief is well worth reading because it lays out in detail many of the instances over the last decades in which the non-copyrightability of APIs has turned out to be important for innovation. I also support this view which is based on concept that functions or methods themselves are not copy...

Yesterday, the EFF filed an amicus brief signed by some of the big names in computer science and software engineering to support the court decision in Oracle vs. Google that APIs are not copyrightable. The brief is well worth reading because it lays out in detail many of the instances over the last decades in which the non-copyrightability of APIs has turned out to be important for innovation. I also support this view which is based on concept that functions or methods themselves are not copy...

We recently installed a Nest to control the heating and air conditioning. On a subsequent muggy day I was about to pick up the phone to call home and see if someone was there to turn on the AC (we were expecting guests) when I remembered that I could now do that remotely! I fired up the Nest app and just a few seconds later I happily settled back into work. An hour later when I showed up at home I was surprised it was still quite muggy until I realized that all the windows were open and our p...

We recently installed a Nest to control the heating and air conditioning. On a subsequent muggy day I was about to pick up the phone to call home and see if someone was there to turn on the AC (we were expecting guests) when I remembered that I could now do that remotely! I fired up the Nest app and just a few seconds later I happily settled back into work. An hour later when I showed up at home I was surprised it was still quite muggy until I realized that all the windows were open and our p...

At the height of the re-engineering craze there was one fantastic HBR article titled “Re-engineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate.” In light of the changes in the labor market the choice of “obliterate” may now seem unfortunate, but the basic point of the article was spot on: don’t implement your existing processes in technology, come up with entirely new ones that simply weren’t possible before. Much the same applies to building net native businesses. It is not about building a smoother ...

At the height of the re-engineering craze there was one fantastic HBR article titled “Re-engineering Work: Don’t Automate, Obliterate.” In light of the changes in the labor market the choice of “obliterate” may now seem unfortunate, but the basic point of the article was spot on: don’t implement your existing processes in technology, come up with entirely new ones that simply weren’t possible before. Much the same applies to building net native businesses. It is not about building a smoother ...

I still have quite a few great topics suggested by readers to work off for my Tech Tuesday series on technology in startups. But today I want to take on a different issue because it has been on my mind. I have now been programming computers in one way or another for over thirty years (yikes) and have seen a lot of technologies come and go during that period. So when something new comes along I tend to think of the great French saying: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more thing...

I still have quite a few great topics suggested by readers to work off for my Tech Tuesday series on technology in startups. But today I want to take on a different issue because it has been on my mind. I have now been programming computers in one way or another for over thirty years (yikes) and have seen a lot of technologies come and go during that period. So when something new comes along I tend to think of the great French saying: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more thing...

Today was Memorial Day, which as I wrote previously seems to mean beginning of summer to most (including our family). We are fortunate that way as we have lived our lives far removed from any wars including the ones that the US military has been actively fighting in the last decades. It is definitely not good for a democracy though to be able to fight wars that many of its citizens can forget. As far as remembering goes I was surprised to find out from the New York Times that several US milit...

Today was Memorial Day, which as I wrote previously seems to mean beginning of summer to most (including our family). We are fortunate that way as we have lived our lives far removed from any wars including the ones that the US military has been actively fighting in the last decades. It is definitely not good for a democracy though to be able to fight wars that many of its citizens can forget. As far as remembering goes I was surprised to find out from the New York Times that several US milit...

Last week in Tech Tuesday I asked for topics to write about in my series on technology in startups. There seemed to be a fair bit of interest in security, so here we go. First off a disclaimer. As with any general purpose advice, you need to think a lot about what it is you are trying to do. The security requirements for a bitcoin startup are vastly different from those for a social media one. When you are just getting going you should treat security the same way as scalability: make sure you...

Last week in Tech Tuesday I asked for topics to write about in my series on technology in startups. There seemed to be a fair bit of interest in security, so here we go. First off a disclaimer. As with any general purpose advice, you need to think a lot about what it is you are trying to do. The security requirements for a bitcoin startup are vastly different from those for a social media one. When you are just getting going you should treat security the same way as scalability: make sure you...

I am an immigrant (from Germany). I work in tech (as an investor and previously as an entrepreneur). I support comprehensive immigration reform. That part is pretty simple – it would be hypocritical to argue that something that I have benefitted from tremendously should be less accessible to others. But I have largely chosen to stay out of this particular fight because the arguments on both sides have been too narrow with a lot of needlessly heated rhetoric. I am quite convinced that the actu...

I am an immigrant (from Germany). I work in tech (as an investor and previously as an entrepreneur). I support comprehensive immigration reform. That part is pretty simple – it would be hypocritical to argue that something that I have benefitted from tremendously should be less accessible to others. But I have largely chosen to stay out of this particular fight because the arguments on both sides have been too narrow with a lot of needlessly heated rhetoric. I am quite convinced that the actu...

Occasionally I get an inquiry as to whether someone can republish posts from Continuations. I finally remembered that I had meant to address this question and have added a Creative Commons License to the footer of the blog. I am using the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. For further clarification of the non-commercial part of this license: I am perfectly OK with posts being reproduced in part or in their entirety on commercial publications as long as the posts are freely accessib...

Occasionally I get an inquiry as to whether someone can republish posts from Continuations. I finally remembered that I had meant to address this question and have added a Creative Commons License to the footer of the blog. I am using the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. For further clarification of the non-commercial part of this license: I am perfectly OK with posts being reproduced in part or in their entirety on commercial publications as long as the posts are freely accessib...

Ok, so this isn’t so much a review as an exhortation to read Antifragile by Nassim Taleb which I consider one of the most important non-fiction books I have read. Let me start with some disclaimers: 1. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction books, not because I don’t start them but because I don’t finish them. Most aren’t good or important enough and you are often better off reading the blog post or HBR article on which they are based. So you may want to take my claim of “one of the best” with a g...

Ok, so this isn’t so much a review as an exhortation to read Antifragile by Nassim Taleb which I consider one of the most important non-fiction books I have read. Let me start with some disclaimers: 1. I don’t read a lot of non-fiction books, not because I don’t start them but because I don’t finish them. Most aren’t good or important enough and you are often better off reading the blog post or HBR article on which they are based. So you may want to take my claim of “one of the best” with a g...