June 2011
1 post
The Fitness Function of a Venture Capitalist →
“The fitness function of a venture capitalist — meaning the metrics of performance, the report card — is pretty pure. You show up with money, and one way or another more money has to come back than…
April 2011
1 post
What's Old is New →
The folks at the Tribeca Film festival were kind (or silly) enough to ask me to write something for their Future of Film blog. Which I did - entitled “The Faster We Go, The Rounder We Get.”
January 2011
1 post
Between Thought and Expression Lies A Lifetime →
Lou Reed wrote this line (my favorite lyric ever) in the context of relationships (I think). But it’s much more applicable than that. Ideas for new businesses are amazing, wonderful, creative…
December 2010
1 post
Get Up, Shower →
Tim Devane - who we luckily hired last year - wrote an essay about how he, a kid right out of college with little work experience, landed a job. Tim is a wonderful writer, but his top line tips…
September 2010
1 post
Maximizing Serendipity →
The title of this online space is “Maximizing the serendipity around you” which comes from Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan, and is as much of a universal business rule I’ve ever…
April 2010
1 post
Escapin' through the lily fields I came across an... →
There has been much debate in the last week over platforms, holes, products and ecosystems. All of it made me think back to my youth, the days of AOL, around 1995-1997. Back then, one of AOL’s…
March 2010
1 post
Users Experiences →
I was thinking this morning that one way to create a service of real value is to ensure that the way a user experiences that service is commensurate with the value you are trying to deliver to the…
January 2010
1 post
Venture Innovation, or why the First Round Capital... →
There is an amazing wealth of innovation around early stage venture financing, most of which developed in just the past few years. There are new models of creating companies out of innovation: …
December 2009
1 post
You Can't Make Word of Mouth Viral →
“Virality is something that has to be engineered from the beginning…and it’s harder to create virality than it is to create a good product. That’s why we often see good products with poor …
October 2009
1 post
I Want To Be A Platform →
We all want to create or invest in platform businesses - those that enable other businesses or participants to add features, content, build other things into/onto the platform, extract associated but…
September 2009
1 post
No Business Developement (or, Hackable Business... →
We have a saying at betaworks - “no business development allowed.” Of course, it’s tongue in check and we don’t really mean it (well, maybe we do), but it represents the application of one of…
March 2009
1 post
“If it is not connected, connect it. As a first step, every employee of an...”
– New Rules for the New Economy (via kortina)
January 2009
0 posts
Things to Do →
Kortina implored me to do resolutions, like him, instead I will just write down what I want to do more of next year: 1. Help spread the joy of Tipjoy. Of course I am hopelessly biased and…
October 2008
1 post
Wwoof (ebay for farming) and others →
Latest things I am tracking: WWOOF - world wide opportunities on organic farms - ebay for farming - “WWOOF is an exchange - In return for volunteer help, WWOOF hosts offer food,…
September 2008
1 post
Random →
CDARS - “When you place a large deposit with a network member, that institution uses CDARS to place your funds into certificates of deposit issued by banks in the network. This occurs in…
August 2008
2 posts
Latest batch →
What is the song of the summer? (via mediaeater) songmeanings.net and lyricwiki - total repeat usage on these Very Loud - b/c it needs to be louder, sometimes Backtype -…
A few more things →
Whuffie drop.io - “simple private sharing” twistori “wish” (I want this as a screen saver) WTF is Twitter Play Crafter “a place where you can easily play, make and share games”
July 2008
2 posts
More Things I Like Lately →
14 tracks - great design and concept - online music sales grouped around concepts of 14 TiltViewer Twitter search for “WTF is up with” (via mediaeater) Twitter acquiring Summize …
