VentureDeal
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Agree with the general thrust of the piece, we should avoid the vapid cliche spinners.
Being an entrepreneur is about "undertaking" something difficult and I don't begrudge weary souls from seeking shelter with like-minded folk from time to time.
It's just the "sermon" that wasn't worthy of the faithful.
With Wall Street/big finance disgraced, media needs to create a new "hero" for the American zeitgeist.
It has all the elements - the hero's quest of building something from nothing, rags to riches success as a beacon for the masses, pursuing the "progress" of making the world a better place through technology - the futuristic promise of a better life.
The consumer sure seems to win - lower prices (even after dynamically changing them throughout the day), great selection, incredible convenience. Amazon is awesome.
To FB, Graph Search is all about a-d-v-e-r-t-i-s-i-n-g...
It's so easy to start a consumer startup now: the friction that used to be there in terms of getting financing, launching online and having the initial resources is now much lower due to the wider availability of angel stage funding, metered cloud services, social media leverage and accelerators/incubators everywhere.
As a result, the space has received over-investment along with too much "me too" technology development.
But, this will probably result in a few of the smartest entrepreneurs combining pieces of these technologies with their own in order to create the next great innovation.
I'd be curious to learn whether SF empties out during the holidays (I suspect it does). With so many young people living there, it may see a net drop in souls within the city limits, as young folks leave town to visit family elsewhere.
As The Economist has highlighted recently, the critical issue is whether a developing nation "gets rich before it gets old". According to their statisticians, China will not do so, partially due to their 1-child policy. India is a great question mark as well, since their rigid, bureaucratic structures continue to thwart badly needed reforms.
However, the United States continues to enjoy a youthful influx of immigrants, and thus an ever-rejuvenating source of talent, creativity and wealth.
Western Europe is indeed graying and has the additional burden of the Euro zone financial problems to work out, when they should be focused on competing harder on the world stage. They are definitely at risk of being the major loser in the decades ahead.
Well said.
On a successful Disney channel kid show (I have an 8 year-old), the lyric to the theme song goes like this: "I am, you are, we are, exceptional, exceptional."
How can everyone be "exceptional"?
Not to pick on Disney - they all do it - this is just Disney's version of an entertainment sugar fix, meant to give kids the feeling they're "exceptional", if they watch the show.
If they don't want to go public, then get out of the kitchen, to mix a metaphor.
Can institutional VC make their "top-quartile" numbers on M&A? Duh, no.
"It is terrible. Everyone I know who is running a public company is not having a good time." Oh, the horror!
Running a public company is about "having a good time"?
Whiners
Since the dot com boom of the late 90's, venture became an official "asset class" hard coded into the investment allocation matrix of LPs. Few of those LPs want to admit their error. They also hope that venture will return to trend - anything to help offset the dismal returns of their other portfolios.
Physical stores can succeed by offering something that a generic Wal-Mart cannot: a more memorable and unique "experience". You can't beat Wal-Mart or Amazon on price, selection or convenience, but you can beat them on making shopping something different.
The key ingredient you didn't emphasize is hiring "A" level management. A great manager can marshal resources to motivate, educate and enforce standards so that the team achieves more together than they would each operating individually.
@Todd Dunning Jackson's beliefs are called "identity politics" and they lead to the worst kind of politics.
Homo Sapiens no doubt successfully evolved in part due to our ability to adapt to new situations, opportunities, threats, etc. One of the most powerful attractive words is "New", simply because it triggers the idea of potential benefit or advancement.
I guess by the standards of "raising money", the US Federal Govt. would be the gold standard:
9/4/2012 USA debt = $16,000,000,000,000
We've been testing promoted account ads on Twitter and have been *very* pleased with the relevancy and quality of new followers. Twitter seems to be doing a pretty good job on their targeting algorithms...
Think that this is enabled/abetted by tech blogs with direct financial relationships with VCs (PandoDaily) or whose founder invested in numerous startups himself (TechCrunch)?
When the pervasive media constantly glorifies images of ever-expanding, conspicuous consumption...
When the world gives our government a virtually unlimited blank check for the past 40 years and our debt rises inexorably as we borrow in good years and bad, whether Republicans or Democrats are in power...
When the connection between corporate entity and individual has been virtually severed after repeated waves of mass firings during economic downturns...
When there is no vision of a higher national or personal calling other than "freedom"...
It's not surprising for impressionable people to envy and seek to emulate the rich, become rent seekers from government, lose any sense of loyalty to a cause or corpus other than themselves and feel "free" to obtain what they think they "deserve" by any means they deem necessary.
Gee, when will the next company so dependent on an ever-changing social network platform go public again...
Throughout the night, my 18 yr old nephew Morgan Jones in Denver, CO provided the real-time, comprehensive Reddit timeline on the Aurora shooting:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/how-18-year-old-morgan-jones-told-the-world-about
Timeline:
http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/wv8t1/comprehensive_timeline_aurora_massacre/
Citizen journalism - real-time...