March 2009
57 posts
“Third, discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance...”
– Peter F. Drucker
Talking rubbish - A special report on waste →
THE stretch of the Pacific between Hawaii and California is virtually empty. There are no islands, no shipping lanes, no human presence for thousands of miles—just sea, sky and rubbish. The prevailing currents cause flotsam from around the world to accumulate in a vast becalmed patch of ocean. In places, there are a million pieces of plastic per square kilometre. That can mean as much as 112 times...
“Social media is like masturbation, you have to participate...”
– Rajesh Lalwani
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike...”
– Mahatma Gandhi
'Rural Jobs Can Provide Momentum to the Wheel of... →
Like other countries the world over, India is facing a slowdown. One solution offered by economists is to create jobs, boost confidence and fuel consumer spending. The target for such activity is not the cities, however. “In view of contracting global demand, we have to focus on domestic consumption by primarily stimulating growth in the rural areas,” acting finance minister Pranab...
WatchBJP’s IT vision document:
Supports open source, unrestricted VOIP, broadband at cable TV prices
“You know the world is going crazy when the most popular rapper is a white guy,...”
2 tags
Angel Investing | things to keep in mind
This is a compilation of the gems at last AngelConf. To learn more about the angels / conference go here
* It’s a small community — if you screw one entrepreneur, you’ll be out of the angel business because entrepreneurs talk (Conway)
* Angel investing is about learning on the job, which means that you can plan on screwing up your first 10 deals at least (McClure)
* If you...
WatchInvesting in Open Source Hardware
[via: bijan]
3 tags
Vulture Capitalists – the story
First time, (not-so-educated-by-vc-blogs), entrepreneur may think that the transaction to be completed between the company and investor is a simple exchange of money for some number of shares of stock in the company.
A venture investment is really an exchange of many things; where values come first. Some of you spend some time in investment banking knows ‘buy side ’ and ‘sell...
“If you are such a pussy that the idea of Google entering [your company’s space]...”
– James Siminoff
[FUCK YES!]
“One candidate got a C in macroeconomics. “That’s troubling to me,” Ms. Mayer...”
– Marissa Mayer, VP and employee 20 at Google in NYT
When I saw this comment in the mornings New York Times I almost puked. I hate this comment and all of the ideas that form it. Marissa, just remember how many “good students” ran the investment banks…
(via siminoff)
3 tags
Hey I’m a CEO at a 200 million Firm, planning to...
Thanks to my job I meet a lot of amazing minds, thinking about starting their dream ventures, and make this world a lesser complex place.
I think ‘angel investing’ is the most miss-understood phrase in the venture eco-system. As a small contributor to this angel-investing ecosystem, I try to tell these first time entrepreneurs, how stuffs work here in this vertical. Most of the...
Dave McClure: Angel, VC or Pirate? (RWW... →
Dave McClure has fingerprints all over the social media map, so you have probably seen him on his blog, his Twitter account (which has 15,880 followers as of this writing), or Facebook. Dave is an angel investor who recently joined a VC fund (the Founders Fund).The accepted wisdom today is that angels have buried their wallets and run for the hills. So it seemed like a good time to interview an...
“To bring old and new media even closer together, I think TV new anchors should...”
– @badbanana
LOL
“According to Greek mytholgy, humans were originally created with four arms, four...”
– (via krishanu)
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a...”
– Robert A. Heinlein
(via abhilash)
Venture Advisors - how much equity is right? →
1 - create a small pool of options that are just for advisors upfront. Keep it fixed. It will help you prioritize which advsors you want to bring on board.
2 - unlike employees, advisors may not be helpful as time goes on. They may become distracted with other things on their plate. that’s the most common thing. with employees, options typically vest over multiple years. It’s hard to use that...
Everything has changed - Entreprenership 2.0
When failure is not an option!
[via: TheFunded MIT event]
A special report on entrepreneurship: Heroic... →
his special report will argue that the entrepreneurial idea has gone mainstream, supported by political leaders on the left as well as on the right, championed by powerful pressure groups, reinforced by a growing infrastructure of universities and venture capitalists and embodied by wildly popular business heroes such as Oprah Winfrey, Richard Branson and India’s software kings. The report will...
The Middle East: Life After the Oil Bust →
Time was when oil was being sold at $140 a barrel, and while consumers cringed at the high prices, the oil-rich nations of the Middle East prospered. The result was an economic boom that spanned industries ranging from financial services and real estate to tourism. Stock prices soared. Sovereign wealth funds snapped up choice assets around the globe. In late 2008, the oil bubble burst, the...
Top Ten Confusing Place Names →
Yell, TN
Driver: Can you tell me where I am?
Passer-by: Yell.
Driver: CAN YOU TELL ME WHERE I AM?
1 tag
Designing high performance startup Jobs
In most of the hiring interviews, i hear smart candidates asking the same smartest questions to understand more about the firm, the opportunity and the role.
The most common questions are:
What resources do I control to accomplish my tasks?
What measures will be used to evaluate my performance?
Who do I need to interact with and influence to achieve my goals?
How much can I expect when I...
“Japanese companies realize that top managers are a bit like the astronauts who...”
“Economies of scope may be as important as economises of scale in entreing global...”
How About Free? The Price Point That Is Turning... →
There’s an old joke about a businessman who gives away his products.
A customer asks: “How do you make money doing that?”
He answers: “I make it up on volume.”
[ click the above link to listen to the Wharton podcast ]
Why an Economic Crisis Could Be the Right Time for... →
While globalization has witnessed the decline of U.S. dominance in manufacturing, energy and even finance, one thing had long been presumed unassailable: Good old American ingenuity.
Now it appears that’s not safe, either. China, whose industries have been envied in the West more for their tenacity than their ingenuity, has established a multi-year framework to become more innovative and,...
Developing entrepreneurship among the world's... →
Acumen Fund founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz shares stories of social-sector entrepreneurship in an excerpt from her new book, The Blue Sweater. A video interview with the author takes you behind the book.
what you say?
Would you rather be a ‘king’, or a ‘kingmaker’?
