February 2011
1 post
June 2010
2 posts
3 tags
its been interesting to see the debate on carried interest rage over the last couple weeks.
here are a few thoughts:
1) I’m sympathetic to the idea that tax policy shouldn’t discourage venture investment. But the majority of carried interest is earned by two (much larger) other asset classes (hedge funds and private equity) that don’t have the same impact on job creation.
2) Why are capital...
1 tag
types of software businesses
Software businesses basically do the same thing: convert code into $. But there are different types of business models (“ways they get paid”). Here are a few examples:
Tools (e.g., Oracle, MSFT)
Services (e.g., 37signals, WebEx)
Media (e.g., Google)
Market / Brokerage (e.g., eBay, etsy)
eCommerce (e.g., Amazon, Zappo’s)
This list needs refinement — for example, seems...
May 2010
1 post
1 tag
how competitive is the internet industry?
In the midst of a debate on whether to regulate facebook, Chris Dixon and Keith Rabois raise an interesting quesiton — how competitive is the internet industry?
Chris makes the point that some industries are inherently uncompetitive. But Keith thinks its hyper competitive. Later, Chris agrees.
How do you know if an industry is competitive or not? Economic theory says that in the long run,...
January 2010
1 post
1 tag
Charlie Rose - Atul Gawande, The New Yorker →
December 2009
1 post
1 tag
Viral Loop
Read Adam Penenberg’s Viral Loop last night. Verdict: mosty unoriginal, but pretty readable of some valley/startup history. A good history of HotOrNot in particular. The book relied too much on second-hand sources from Andrew Chen’s blog and Sarah Lacy’s Once Your Lucky, Twice Your Good.
Fun factoid on eBay history. According to the book, eBay stood for “Echo Bay”....
November 2009
3 posts
“Whatever business errors deCode may have made, a principal reason for its...”
– DeCode Genetics Files for Bankruptcy - NYTimes.com
“According the NY Times, deCode Genetics filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday. This in...”
– http://compgen.blogspot.com/2009/11/genetics-company-fails-its-research-too.html
September 2009
2 posts
Carbonite Prevents Firebug from installing
If you are running Carbonite, and firebug wont install, disable carbonite. Lesson of the day.
1 tag
Why I (Still) Code
continuations:
Late last night Ivan Kirigin (founder of Tipjoy, now at Facebook) asked via Twitter why I still code. My tweeted answer was that I really enjoy it. On the train into NY this morning I have been thinking more about why that is and have come up with a bunch of reasons:
First, I discovered coding in the formative teenage years and at that time got deeply into it. I had the great...
April 2009
3 posts
FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Ten principles for a... →
2 tags
DLS Interview: 'Posterous' Co-Founder Sachin... →
Posterous is redefining blogging through usability
1 tag
Hacker News | Amazon announces Elastic MapReduce →
Really interesting possibilities
March 2009
1 post
Hadoop, Analytical Software, Finds Uses Beyond... →
First R, now Hadoop: the NYT is all over data analytics.
The article cites that facebook manages 40B photos. Given current userbase of 175M people, that works out to an average of over 200 photos / user.
February 2009
6 posts
“If you want to grow, you need new customers. And if you want new customers, you...”
– Seth’s Blog: Three things you need if you want more customers
Google Data on Rails - Google Data APIs - Google... →
Building and Scaling a Startup on Rails: 12 Things... →
Rails advice from posterous
Statistics 202: Statistical Aspects of Data Mining →
Stanford Data Mining course. Lecture notes show hands-on explanations of how to do things in R and Excel.
WatchPMarca on Charlie Rose
So much for that idea →
So about a month into my move to kick the Google reader habit, I discovered that RSSFwd is shutting down.
I have been experimenting with RSSFwd as a way to minimize the distraction associated with checking RSS feeds. So far, so good — I’ve found recieving updates over email messages each morning is helpful for time management, as while it may be slower to jump through the messages,...
January 2009
17 posts
The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn't Just More →
The big coverstory in Wired
“First, while agencies are opening up to a more data-centric approach,...”
– Adweek: Media buyers still hesitant about highly targeted ad campaigns » VentureBeat
1 tag
How we reduced chargebacks by 30% (as a percentage... →
Slick and subtle customer experience innovation from 37signals
“A lot of it is cool in a sci-fi sort of way, but none of this stuff was even...”
– Daring Fireball: Steve Jobs was getting real back in ‘97
“Strategy is all about what you’re not going to do; for a freemium...”
– Lessons Learned: Three freemium strategies
“TO SOME there is nothing so urgent that it cannot be postponed in favour of a...”
– Why people procrastinate | Motivating minds | The Economist
“To be blunt, the earnings season is off to a miserable start. It’s not...”
– You Knew Earnings Would Be Bad, but This Bad? - Barrons.com
1 tag
Sean’s blog » Blog Archive » Measuring Offline... →
Good walkthrough of multiple regression
Managed Rails Hosting, Rails Deployment from... →
New EngineYard product allows you to manage rails apps on Amazon Web Services. Looks very cool.
Tracking US Airways Flight 1549 - Interactive... →
Really cool visualization of the hudson river landing
Lessons Learned: CPI > CPC →
Interesting thinking on opportunities in social nets:
“The general principle is to frame your marketing on social networks as an exchange of value, played in rounds. As the customer gives you a little of what you want, you give them a little of what they want. If you have the patience to walk down that path, you can convert prospects into customers for life.”
1 tag
sabermetrics using R : Data Evolution →
1 tag
R, the Software, Finds Fans in Data Analysts -... →
Big writeup on R in the NYT — this actually made the most e-mailed list, surprisingly.
The Geeks Behind Obama's Web Strategy - The Boston... →
Profile of Boston-based Blue State Digital, who developed the My.BarackObama.com and change.gov sites.
RSSFwd: Kicking the Google Reader Habit →
My new year’s resolution is to cut down on checking Google Reader so often.
I’ve cut down a lot of the feeds I read, and am experimenting with reading the rest via e-mail, instead of a feed reader.
The aim is to be more efficient by getting my updates once a day, and reading them in batch, rather than being tempted to keep checking for real time updates.
FeedBurner allows feeds to...
December 2008
2 posts
“… keyboardless laptops are the future of computing, no question. For about...”
– the Onda by Antonio Rodriguez
Hello World
Here goes…
July 2008
2 posts
TimesPeople Adds Recommendations to NYT Site
It has been really interesting to follow the development of social news services over the past couple of years. While startups like digg and reddit have gotten most of the buzz, I actually think the greatest impact of social news may be redefining how we experience traditional media. Whenever I visit the Globe, The Times, or the Journal’s site, I usually turn to the the “most e-mailed” feature...
Thoughts on Firefox as a Platform
Fred Wilson asks an interesting question: it is possible to build a business around browser extensions? He thinks the answer is largely no, since the audience is too skewed towards early adopters.
My take is that browser extensions will have their greatest impact as catalysts for related web businesses.
The most obvious application is to use a browser extension to drive traffic to your site. The...