April 2010
21 posts
7 tags
Master the VC Game
Last week, I interviewed Jeff Bussgang about his first book Mastering the VC Game at the innaugural 0260 Conference. Mastering will become a manifesto for many in our industry. As a veteran entrepreneur, I learned a lot that I did not know and reaffirmed some things that I did. For now, f you are seriously considering raising capital or are running a startup that is backed by...
6 tags
THE IMPORTANCE OF FACE TIME
Jason Calacanis wrote a great lesson for startup employees that has me thinking about our organization at a time of geographic disruption.
One week ago, we had to vacate our office. For the past week, we’ve been homeless while we negotiate our new lease in the Flatiron District. As a result, my colleagues and I have been shuffling between my apartment, the Ace Hotel (kind of a cliche),...
8 tags
The Faith Continuum
Exceptional entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have similar DNA. 15 years ago, I read a book by Jerry Kaplan called GO about a failed pen-based computing system. It starred a young venture capitalist named John Doerr who I recall being brazen and fearless. This was the early rennaissance and Doerr was the young Leonardo before anybody really knew who he was.
I spent the day with two of ...
6 tags
Tablets, Smart Phones, and Shifting Gears
One of my challenges as a 40-something Internet executive is staying on the user experience edge. It was a big challenge when I was 32 and building products for teenagers and it’s an even bigger challenge 10 years later as we gear up to be a global company for movie lovers across the planet.
Last week, I watched my kids playing with an IPAD and read Alice in Wonderland to them. This...
7 tags
Pirate Radio Makes you long for Mass Media
A slow, sweet movie about coming of age in the 60s that builds to a quite dramatic conclusion. Clearly this is a film for the diehard rock and roll fans. That’s not me, though I went along for the ride. Only 50 years ago, the UK was trying to prevent rock and roll from reaching the airwaves so Radio Pirates anchored offshore to disseminate the cultural revolution to the masses of...
3 tags
The Hurt Locker Thoughts
Was the Hurt Locker really the best film of the year in 2009? There’s lots to leave one impressed.
1. No stars
2. $20mm budget
3. A woman directing a very, very testerone-driven film
4. Exceptional tension in a visceral sense.
But I haven’t been thinking about it all day. That key litmus test leaves me wondering if it wasn’t just a series of bomb defusing scenes...
4 tags
Borowitz on Goldman Today
“…A Treasury Dept. spokesperson said that by performing community service as Treasury Secretary, Mr. Blankfein will be able to do less harm to the economy because he will have significantly less power than he had as Chairman of Goldman. His experience at Goldman, however, will be “invaluable” in his new role as Treasury Secretary, the spokesperson said: “Lloyd Blankfein’s years ...
The NYT on Israeli Independence Day
Ari Shavit, a centrist intellectual who writes for Haaretz, agrees that much of the problem lies with Israel’s enemies. But in a plaintive column addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, he said the issue was not whom to blame, but how to save the country.
Unlike most writers at Haaretz, Mr. Shavit has written positively about Mr. Netanyahu and other rightist leaders. He...
4 tags
Story Time on the Ipad
Well, I get it.
At a recent brown bag lunch Saul Hansell and John Borthwick talked about the intimacy of the device. I’ve spent about 3 hours on it now and it’s obviously a much better gaming experience than the iphone, but not as a great a movie experience as a plasma screen tv. In general, I find the size of the screen either improves or weakens the user experience when the...
How do you make Family Guy funnier?
This is brilliant. And I love Family Guy
jewpiter:
With $65 million of CGI. That will buy a lot of idea balls.
The economy must be recovered (or much, much worse off) if someone is willing to pony up $65 million for Seth Macfarlane to produce 90 minutes of computer animated non-sequitur.
Or maybe his sense of humor extends beyond comedic asides. We’ll see!
A web 1.0 thought from Hagel
“… communities can charge users content feesfor downloading an article or a picture from the service’s library or for obtaining access to material. Encyclopaedia Britannica offers on-line access to its content and varies its fees depending on how much information the user wants.”
HOW DID THAT WORK OUT?
This was HBR 1996 when there was still hope for charging for content. Can...
John Hagel Net Gain 1996 in HBR
Third, communities can draw revenues from transactions and advertising. Advertising is al- ready a significant source of revenue for many pop- ular Internet sites. In 1995, on-line revenue from placement of advertising amounted to roughly $50 million to $60 million, according to best estimates.
15 years later this is (I think) a $35bn market.
Watchsoupsoup:
I wonder who has permission to user Earl’s (Tiger’s Dad) voice. Pretty intense. Lot to live up to.
5 tags
Tiger and Morality →
I just read this Robert Wright column. I found it particularly thoughtful. Here’s his follow up as well. http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/why-tiger-matters/
Both worth reading.
8th Grader is future of entrepreneurs from NYT
This kid is an ipad developer. Read his bio
New Functions for a New Form
Sam Kaplan is an eighth-grader at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. He and Louis Harboe created iChalkboard, an app for the iPad, and The Math Master, an iPhone app. He taught himself 10 programming languages and completed Advanced Placement Computer Science in sixth grade.
My app partner, Louie...
I’m about one billionth of a music guy as...
The Video of the Baghdad Massacre →
I just watched the video. You should take the time to sit through it. It’s rough. But it has been so easy for me to not focus on Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s not that I’m wringing my hands this evening. I just think people are working very hard to tell different versions of truth. When stories like this come out, it reminds us what happens when huge armies are mobilized to...