Why AI is Like Electricity Artificial Intelligence reminds me of electricity. They are both enabling technologies. Thomas Edison is often credited with inventing the incandescent light bulb in 1879, and the expectation was that electricity would offer a competitive advantage. It did at first. But as the reach of power infrastructure grew, more companies saw Continue reading AI, and Commoditizing…
This post is not about starting and financing small businesses or what some call lifestyle businesses . It is about starting and growing venture-funded companies that must never become lifestyle businesses. I ll ignore the issue of doing what you love as you ll need that in either case. Your time is scalable . While you can t be in Continue reading Time Scales
Thingd (Thing Daemon) is building a structured database of every object in the world and then mapping those objects (and associated metadata) to people and to other objects. The concept is still in its early stages of being realized, but it is a big ambitious idea and one worth thinking more about. The easy (and Continue reading The Next Big Thingd?
Image via Wikipedia The Economist is my favorite newspaper. It s also one of the only profitable news publishers. Why is it successful while the rest of the industry is gasping for air? It s not because they re extremely innovative in how they charge for or deliver content. They don t have a splashy online presence although they Continue reading Deconstructing The Economist
While he may not have realized it at the time, Asa Griggs Candler helped pioneer the platform business model used by thousands of web companies today. But Chandler wasn t a tech startup guy, he was the founder of The Coca-Cola Company. Coke became a platform company almost by accident. Beginning in 1886, Coke was principally Continue reading Coke s API and the Outsourcing of Innovation
Design informs most of what we come in contact with whether it be architecture, mobile devices, cars, software and web services, or a school s curriculum. Sentences are designed, edited down so they convey meaning with efficient elegance. Good design delights with its simplicity, its flexibility and ease of use. Design was on my mind while Continue reading What a 100 Year-Old Race to the South…
There has been a lot of discussion about the best educational background for founders and for those who want to join startups. Earlier this month, TechCrunch ran an article from Vivek Wadhwa which argued in favor of an MBA education. Similarly, Vinicius Vacanti (a former banker) wrote a great post, 5 Reasons Why I-Bankers Make Continue reading Should I Get an MBA? and Why It s Not about the (any)…
Facebook Beacon was the company s much-maligned initiative that captured and broadcast off-Facebook browsing activities to one s Facebook friends. Signing up for a service, purchasing a product, adding an item to a wish list – all of these actions were automatically shared. The way it worked was that the affiliate would call a JavaScript snippet from Continue reading Open Graph is Facebook s…
Earlier this week Bijan Sabet at Spark Capital wrote a post, An inspiring way to join a startup . The post describes how a couple of companies in Spark s portfolio had individuals offering to work for free in exchange for the possibility of a full-time position. I don t know what the exact circumstances were for each Continue reading One Way to Join a Startup and Try Before You Buy Hiring…
Hiring a VP of Sales at a startup is challenging. While others have written eloquently about when to hire a VP Sales, I will focus on what type of person to hire. Having run a sales team, worked under a VP Sales and Business Development, hired a VP Sales, and served as an adviser to Continue reading Thoughts on Hiring a VP Sales and Why Rolodexes are Usually BS