So let’s not flip out too much about this brokerage bust. It’s going to hurt in the short term here in NYC and the effects will be felt on main street and even in the venture business. But in the long term this is all good. That’s why we need to be careful with all of this bailout activity. It’s not just moral hazard, it’s propping up bad businesses that need to fail so talent and capital can move to more productive efforts.
A VC on the Economy
20 September 2008
8 September 2008
But think about the Facebook generation. My kids are growing up with the news feed as their start page. Not Yahoo’s portal approach and NOT Google’s search box approach. In time, its entirely possible that feeds will be more powerful than search.
A VC on Feeds
2 September 2008
I think in time, Google’s Android will be to the iPhone what Windows was to the Mac. The iPhone laid out many of the killer mobile device innovations, but its a closed device, a closed carrier relationship, and even a closed application store. Android will take all of those good ideas and put them on every device, with every carrier, and in partnership with every app developer.
A VC on Android
12 August 2008
Being in the US (or Silicon Valley) is no longer the huge advantage it once was. Entrepreneurs all over the world are on top of the latest technologies, companies, and business models. They see where all of this is going as clearly as we do in the states. They face challenges for sure like capital availability, awareness, marketing, travel distances, etc that entrepreneurs in the US don’t face as much.
A VC on Foreign Entrepeneurs
3 August 2008
But there’s one other really important thing about the “lazy web”. It’s smarter. My friend Vanessa looked at the first response to my question on yoga in Curitiba and saw it was a google result. She said to me “I can do that and have done it. It’s not a good yoga studio. I want a good one.” An hour or so later, I got a name of a person in Brazil who would know the answer. And that’s the direct hit we wanted. Google can’t do that. People can. And do. And do so publicly. And when I get value from lazy web queries, you can bet I’ll reciprocate when I am on the receiving end of them.
A VC on Lazy Web
9 July 2008
But the idea of a physical place that we “must be” doesn’t have the same impact anymore. Right now, I can engage in a debate with friends in Australia, China, Japan, India, Israel, Italy, France, England, NYC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago at the same time. Or we can post our thoughts to each other (and the world) over the course of a day, a week, or a month, and share our passions with each other and learn from each other. Our Cafe de Flore is Techmeme or Tech Newsjunk or Twitter or FriendFeed or Tumblr or Flickr or something else.
A VC on the Internet
20 June 2008
Yahoo has over 500mm worldwide unique visitors a month. It has massive reach. It has massive scale. There is no reason it cannot and will not be an important business going forward. It needs to focus on monetization, rationalizing its products and services, and making money, lots of it.
A VC on Yahoo
15 June 2008
What’s the difference between a great comment and a great blog post? Nothing. What’s the difference between a great commenter and a great blogger? Nothing. At least in theory. It’s time for practice to meet theory.
A VC on Commenters
28 May 2008
The people who create social media content; the bloggers, the twitterers, the commenters, the youtubers, the flickrers, etc, etc are doing this for a reason. Feedback. And without their content, none of these companies would have a business. So it’s time for aggregation to work two-way. You can suck it out. But you have to pump it back too.
A VC on Social Content