February 2012
2 posts
One of my mentors passes away
I have a small handful of mentors. I just learned that one of my mentors from Boston, Lowell Richards, suddenly passed away. He had a big impact on me. I worked at the Port of Boston for a summer and a semester, focused on container port operations, airport operations, and other regional infrastructure projects. It was part technical, part economic, and of course, part political. Rather than talk...
HSIOW, by George Carlin
This is one of my favorite insights by Carlin, mocking TGI Fridays restaurants:
“TGI Fridays, if I had a place like that, you know what I’d call it? HSIOW… Holy Shit, It’s Only Wednesday. I think people would drink a lot more liquor if they thought it was Wednesday all the time.”
January 2012
8 posts
WatchThere is a pretty fascinating Bloomberg interview with Chamath by Emily Chang (click here). There’s lots of good nuggets in here, but the new idea he’s thrown out is how the race for technical talent dovetails with the frothiness in secondary markets. In a nutshell, his conjecture is that today’s war for technical talent is so fierce that one of the biggest draws in recruiting...
A Simple Obama SOTU [Transcript]
I really like and admire President Obama. I will certainly vote for him again.
Practically, however, one of his oft-repeated mistakes is to speak about a topic about 10x longer than he should. I’m sure part of his inclination is to leverage the bully pulpit (heck, he can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants) and to offer more nuanced views on topics so that he does not ruffle the...
Facebook won't "beat" Google
For a few years now, I’ve heard many refrains of the following line: Facebook will *beat* Google. Over the weekend, I realized this may be a false construct. I’ll briefly explain why. One of the reasons Google is so valuable is because its search algorithm surfaces results that are extremely relevant (though this is currently under question). In exchange for this relevance, Google...
Gingrich on Private Equity vs. Venture Capital
Like him or not, Newt is a master of framing issues for debate. Last night, in continuing to hammer at Mitt’s successful career, he laid out this frame for an argument against Mitt’s fitness to be in tune with the electorate. Of course, Mitt is associated with Bain Capital (which does LBOs, but also has a venture arm). In it, he makes an artful distinction between private equity and...
The Best 404 Page of 2011
The Most Provocative Blog Post of 2011 →
I have no idea who wrote this. When it hit, it seemed to explode and everyone had an opinion. I am too obtuse about design to have an opinion, but I did learn one thing from this post and the corresponding debate — there are three things in life one must never discuss: Religion, Politics, and Consumer Web Design :)
yongfook:
In direct response to: http://designerfund.com/infographic
I’ve...
Houdiniana
Yesterday, Sara and I went to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF to see the “Art of Magic” honoring Harry Houdini. I recently got interested in Houdini from the most random trigger — I’m addicted to this show called Pawn Stars, which takes place in a Vegas pawn shop. One time, a guy brought in original handcuffs and a straightjacket used by Houdini, and it was...
October 2011
20 posts
BRYCE DOT VC: Thought Leadership at Web 2.0 Summit →
brycedotvc:
A few months back I bumped into an investor friend of mine at a café. Given neither of us live very balanced lives the conversation quickly turned to company building and fundraising. Now, this person has been involved with a number of the recent rising stars in tech, so I was curious to see if…
The Primary Colors of Secondary Markets →
Online Identity and Commerce →
How Discovery Will Drive Transactions →
The Fragmented Mobile Information Race →
Key Themes from TC Disrupt SF 2011 →
The Facebook iPhone
A ridiculous but fun examination of how Facebook could imprint itself on the iPhone (link).
“There’s been very little discussion about the far reaching social and behavioral...”
– My friend, Dylan Jayawardane (of Google) wrote this during f8
Prediction: Apple will Acquire Instagram
A fun parlor game to debate (link).
The iOS App Store: Needles in Haystacks →
Rexly for iPhone has the Magic
I’m the short-term COO of Rexly, and this my announcement about that, and the service, which is available for download in the App Store, so get it (link)!
Streamliner: Making Video Accessible
One of my favorite early-stage startups, using crowdsourced annotations to make video content more digestible and searchable (link).
Doot: Pushing Adventure to Location
Foursquare is a great example of mobile, crowdsourced information around a location where users “pull” content from the service. Doot focuses on “pushing” content around location (link).
Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest "Reshape" Our Web
A short look at how these three major networks reshape what we see online (link).
Is Pinterest Competitive With Tumblr?
The question du jour, or soon to be (link).
Get.com: A New Take on e-Commerce
This is the 3rd post in my new series on covering very early stage startups that I believe need a bit of attention (link).
The Rationale for Investing in Pinterest
A brief post on why Pinterest in able to attract so much venture capital, and answers to common questions this sudden growth raises (link).
The Aristotelian Investor Pitch
A brief look at how founders can leverage Aristotle’s work in Rhetoric and Poetics, specifically around ethos, logos, pathos, and mythos (link).
“Come, as you are, as you were, as I want you to be. As a friend, as a friend, as...”
– Kurt Cobain
