The kind people at AdSense are easing our fears
I find it strange that Google felt the need to send the following note out to their publishers (are we going to stop writing/publishing because we fear the bottom has fallen out of the CPC market?!?). Dear Publisher, We understand that the recent economic turmoil has created a lot of uncertainty in the lives of AdSense publishers. During these difficult times, we’re continuing to invest in innovations that improve publisher monetization and advertiser value in the content network. …
October 31, 2008· 2 min read
why do we stray?
A recurring theme in venture circles these last few weeks has been “Back To Basics” with VC pundits boldly prognosticating about the current state of the markets, talking about the infamous Sequoia deck and trying not to make people wince as they lay their claim to how they saw all this coming (I’m not immune to this myself and offered what I hoped was some practical advice in a recent post). …
October 30, 2008· 2 min read
i am a patriot
I really do try to stay away from politics in this space (with the somewhat recent exception of my post on attending the Democratic Convention, although even that post didn’t discuss policy). However I can’t seem to hold myself back this time. I’m completely frustrated with some of the rhetoric coming out of the Republican party. Specifically the notion that there is a single “right” point of view on any given issue and that if you disagree with the Republican position, you’re simply not a real American. It’s part of the view Bush laid out several years ago that you’re either “for us or against us” and precludes the possibility of any real conversation or debate. It’s complete bullshit. I understand that campaigns can be nasty and that in this campaign both candidates (and their proxies) have at times stretched the truth (although certainly McCain has run a significantly more negative campaign than Obama). But I’m sick of being labeled “un-Americain” or “un-Patriotic” because I don’t support the Republican platform. I want a president (Democrat or Republican) who supports and governs all Americans, who sees and embraces the diversity of opinion in our country and understands the nuance of policy differences that results from that diversity. If we’ve learned anything in the last 8 years it’s that presidents who see nothing but black or white, who apply simplistic heuristics to analyze complex situations and who refuse to live anywhere but in their own bubble, are destined to fail – and to do so miserably and completely. …
October 29, 2008· 2 min read
agile company creation
There is nothing linear about starting and building a business. There are plenty of twists and turns along the way and successful companies are not only are open to change from their original ideas but build systematic processes for checking and rechecking their business assumptions during the early days of their company. The idea really hit me this summer at TechStars, when I began thinking about the idea of company creation as “agile” (akin to the agile development methodology) watching how fluid the most successful TechStars companies were. They were constantly checking and rechecking the assumptions behind their businesses and reacting to what they were learning from prospective customers, early users and mentors. These check-ins were very deliberate and occurred at regular intervals. …
October 22, 2008· 1 min read
Come to Defrag!
I can’t state it more simply or directly than the title to this post – you should be coming to the Defrag conference (www.defragcon.com). Foundry started Defrag with conference veteran Eric Norlin to bring together a group of technologists to talk about the challenges around increasing fragmentation of data online and the tools and technologies that are being developed to make sense out of this data mess. We strongly believe that rather than sitting on the sideline watching and listening to the conversation taking place within the markets we care about that we should be actively facilitating and participating in that discussion (you’ll hear more about a new conference we’re working on withe Eric soon). …
October 15, 2008· 2 min read
out of digits
For those that scoffed at my posts (here and here) about the US savings rate falling below zero (written during the summer of 05′) here’s another, somewhat less scientific data point (not that the skeptics need further convincing these days). The National Debt Clock which counts the total national debt (not consumer debt, but that of the government) ran out of digits a few weeks ago. Oy.
October 15, 2008· 1 min read
Colorado Bloggers Challenge
Micah has recruited a number of Colorado bloggers to promote the 2008 DonorsChoose Bloggers Challenge. There are some great (and well deserving) projects up – you can take a look at them by checking out the widget on my blog (scroll down a bit to find it) or head directly to the DonorsChoose website. Be generous!
October 13, 2008· 1 min read
what’s a company to do?
Now that I’ve received a link to the Sequoia “Holy Shit” presentation about 30 times along with about a dozen emails asking “what do you think?” it’s probably time for a post. My partner Jason has a great post up on the subject (with a more general discussion of how the current markets effect our business – definitely worth reading) and Brad has some practical advice up this morning on his blog as well. …
October 13, 2008· 3 min read
What do I blog about?
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October 11, 2008· 1 min read
MSFT still has it…
I spent last Thursday at Microsoft for their annual VC Summit. While there are plenty of ways that the company can improve, I walked away with the very distinct feeling that the “market” underestimates the innovation coming out of Redmond and the ways in which the company is clearly changing and adapting to the new technology world. Specifically, the products and people I encountered were forward thinking – clearly moving well beyond the OS and embedded software mentality that is the history of the business – and significantly more platform agnostic than they are given credit for (both product demos I saw included at least one Mac and other non-Microsoft based products). …
October 1, 2008· 1 min read