Work In Progress

"There are other forces at work that are a lot stronger (than Immigration Reform). Graduate students..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:50:19 -0700

“There are other forces at work that are a lot stronger (than Immigration Reform). Graduate students from places like India and China are returning to their home countries in far greater numbers not only because we have made it harder to stay post 9/11 but also because those countries have rapidly growing domestic economies which offer a lot of opportunity.”

- Albert nails an important subtly which seems underrepresented in the current conversation on Immigration Reform. (via brycedotvc)

Meet the Man Who Sold His Fate to Investors at $1 a Share

Wed, 22 May 2013 21:29:51 -0700

Meet the Man Who Sold His Fate to Investors at $1 a Share:

On January 26, 2008, a 30-year-old part-time entrepreneur named Mike Merrill decided to sell himself on the open market. He divided himself into 100,000 shares and set an initial public offering price of $1 a share. Each share would earn a potential return on profits he made outside of his day job as a customer service rep at a small Portland, Oregon, software company. Over the next 10 days, 12 of his friends and acquaintances bought 929 shares, and Merrill ended up with a handful of extra cash. He kept the remaining 99.1 percent of himself but promised that his shares would be nonvoting: He’d let his new stockholders decide what he should do with his life.

Fascinating and absurd.

ventureswell: how to build a forever company.

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:21:16 -0700

ventureswell:

how to build a forever company.

"It is not an economic decision. The lens in which we are making that decision is through the lens..."

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 15:07:24 -0700

“It is not an economic decision. The lens in which we are making that decision is through the lens of our people. We employ over 200,000 people in this company, and we want to embrace diversity.”

- Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, in support of same-sex marriage in Washington state.

"When everyone else Is more comfortable Remaining voiceless Rather than fighting for humans That have..."

Mon, 25 Feb 2013 22:33:19 -0800

“When everyone else
Is more comfortable
Remaining voiceless
Rather than fighting for humans
That have had their rights stolen
I might not be the same
But that’s not important
No freedom til we’re equal
Damn right I support it”

- Same Love — Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

fred-wilson: catastrophe is opportunity (via How to Save...

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:38:42 -0800

fred-wilson:

catastrophe is opportunity

(via How to Save College | The Awl)

"Like I never rode in a limo Like I just dropped flows to a demo Like it’s ninety-two again..."

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 16:37:08 -0800

“Like I never rode in a limo
Like I just dropped flows to a demo
Like it’s ninety-two again and
And I got O’s in the rental
Back in the Stu’ again
No prob’ living was a whole lot simpler
When you think back, you thought that
You would never make it this far, then you
Take advantage of the luck you handed
Or the talent, you been given
Ain’t no, half stepping, ain’t no, no slipping”

- Jay-Z — My 1st Song

"Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia page was updated at least 68 times the day before John McCain announced her..."

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 21:06:29 -0700

“Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia page was updated at least 68 times the day before John McCain announced her selection, with another 54 changes made in the five previous days previous. Tim Pawlenty, another leading contender for McCain’s favor, had 54 edits on August 28th, with just 12 in the five previous days. By contrast, the other likely picks — Romney, Kay Bailey Hutchison — saw far fewer changes. The same burst of last-minute editing appeared on Joe Biden’s Wikipedia page, Terry Gudaitis of Cyveillance, told the Washington Post.”

- On Veep selection, look to Wikipedia - POLITICO.com (via fred-wilson)

What the hell is going on here? FYI — Equinox is a gym.

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:47:43 -0700

What the hell is going on here? FYI — Equinox is a gym.

One of my favorite songs: Quequ’un M’a Dit We Outta...

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 01:25:47 -0700

One of my favorite songs: Quequ’un M’a Dit We Outta Here Baby

Mash up of Lil Wayne / Kanye West and the 500 Days of Summer soundtrack.

"Binge viewing is transforming the way people watch television and changing the economics of the..."

Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:08:00 -0700

“Binge viewing is transforming the way people watch television and changing the economics of the industry. The passive couch potato of the broadcast era turned into the channel surfer, flipping through hundreds of cable channels. Now, technologies such as on-demand video and digital video recorders are giving rise to the binge viewer, who devours shows in quick succession—episode after episode, season after season, perhaps for $7.99 a month, the cost of a basic Netflix membership. In the past, such sessions required buying stacks of costly DVDs ($66.99 for seasons one through four of “Mad Men”) or special broadcast marathons.”

- Binge Viewing: TV’s Lost Weekends by (via Findings.com)

"Walmart says the majority of in-store purchases are made with cash or debit cards, and that about 15..."

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 21:46:22 -0700

“Walmart says the majority of in-store purchases are made with cash or debit cards, and that about 15 percent are made with credit cards.”

- Retailers Encourage Shoppers to Buy Online and Pick Up In-Store by Stephanie Clifford (via Findings.com)

One of my favorite scenes from The Other Guys.

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 02:48:15 -0700

One of my favorite scenes from The Other Guys.

Love this video: Where the Hell is Matt? (2012)

Wed, 20 Jun 2012 22:48:00 -0700

Love this video: Where the Hell is Matt? (2012)

"I had been in Iraq for about two months when I heard about an officer conducting an impromptu habit..."

Wed, 16 May 2012 03:58:25 -0700

“I had been in Iraq for about two months when I heard about an officer conducting an impromptu habit modification program in Kufa, a small city ninety miles south of the capital. He was an army major who had analyzed videotapes of recent riots and had identified a pattern: Violence was usually preceded by a crowd of Iraqis gathering in a plaza or other open space and, over the course of several hours, growing in size. Food vendors would show up, as well as spectators. Then, someone would throw a rock or a bottle and all hell would break loose. When the major met with Kufa’s mayor, he made an odd request: Could they keep food vendors out of the plazas? Sure, the mayor said. A few weeks later, a small crowd gathered near the Masjid al-Kufa, or Great Mosque of Kufa. Throughout the afternoon, it grew in size. Some people started chanting angry slogans. Iraqi police, sensing trouble, radioed the base and asked U.S. troops to stand by. At dusk, the crowd started getting restless and hungry. People looked for the kebab sellers normally filling the plaza, but there were none to be found. The spectators left. The chanters became dispirited. By 8 P.M., everyone was gone.”

- The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg (via Findings.com)

"Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that are more..."

Wed, 02 May 2012 00:29:52 -0700

““Economic growth occurs whenever people take resources and rearrange them in ways that are more valuable. A useful metaphor for production in an economy comes from the kitchen. To create valuable final products, we mix inexpensive ingredients together according to a recipe. The cooking one can do is limited by the supply of ingredients, and most cooking in the economy produces undesirable side effects. If economic growth could be achieved only by doing more and more of the same kind of cooking, we would eventually run out of raw materials and suffer from unacceptable levels of pollution and nuisance. History teaches us, however, that economic growth springs from better recipes, not just from more cooking. New recipes generally produce fewer unpleasant side effects and generate more economic value per unit of raw material.
Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated the potential for finding new recipes and ideas. We consistently fail to grasp how many ideas remain to be discovered. Possibilities do not add up. They multiply.””

- Paul Romer (via pegobry)

"We tend to massively underestimate the compounding returns of intelligence. As humans, we need to..."

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 22:26:20 -0700

“We tend to massively underestimate the compounding returns of intelligence. As humans, we need to solve big problems. If you graduate Stanford at 22 and Google recruits you, you’ll work a 9-to-5. It’s probably more like an 11-to-3 in terms of hard work. They’ll pay well. It’s relaxing. But what they are actually doing is paying you to accept a much lower intellectual growth rate. When you recognize that intelligence is compounding, the cost of that missing long-term compounding is enormous. They’re not giving you the best opportunity of your life. Then a scary thing can happen: You might realize one day that you’ve lost your competitive edge. You won’t be the best anymore. You won’t be able to fall in love with new stuff. Things are cushy where you are.”

- Stephen Cohen, co-founder of Palantir, on recruiting for startups (from Peter Thiel’s CS183 class)

"But Zynga and Facebook? They seem more able to be toppled. It seems possible to knock them off of..."

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 00:55:21 -0700

“But Zynga and Facebook? They seem more able to be toppled. It seems possible to knock them off of their throne. Two companies, OMGPOP and Instagram, came out of nowhere and became viable competitors. That’s kind of amazing. It’s amazing to me that Instagram got 30 million users in no time at all. It’s crazy that Draw Something can get 50 million downloads in 50 days. It’s mind blowing that Pinterest went from nothing to 10 million users in the blink of an eye. It’s amazing how fragile it all is. Facebook may be the first viable threat to Google, but its own market dominance is by no means assured.”

- Instagram and the Age of Upsets | Betabeat — News, gossip and intel from Silicon Alley 2.0.

A whole new world. My latest column for Betabeat.

(via rickwebb)

Article: Now a 'Pad' Revolution for Gujarat's Rural Women

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:47:00 -0700

Times of India: Now a ‘Pad’ Revolution for Gujarat’s Rural Women (excerpts below)

It’s a kind of ‘pad’ revolution that promises to change lives of lakhs of women in Gujarat. The Tribhuvandas Foundation (TF), started in the memory of Amul Dairy’s founder chairman Tribhuvandas Patel, is taking up an ambitious project of providing sanitary pads to rural women folks to ensure improvement in their personal hygiene.
One of the deadliest end results of the reproductive tract infection which is common among rural women who do not use sanitary pads, is cancer,” says chief executive officer of TF Dr Viren Doshi.

The Economics of Big Ski Resorts

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 03:06:48 -0800

The Economics of Big Ski Resorts:

Both Vail and Whistler have devised and refined a business that keeps income as constant as the weather is variable. It comes down to two smart hedging strategies. Strategy One: Own the skiers. Strategy Two: Own the mountain.

“Some people think we’re crazy,” Katz said. “After all, one day’s lift ticket is $100, and some of these people will ski 30 days, or 40 days.” Why would Vail give its most die-hard skiers a 90% discount? Because, they own the mountain. Vail and Whistler make half their money from lodging, rentals, snow school, and food.

From a ski-nomics perspective, less competition insulates a stable and growing industry. As skier visits rise annually, Whistler and Vail can afford to raise ticket prices by a tick above inflation knowing that there’s no chance of disruptive competition from a new entrant.