To: Brad Feld, Subject: Iran And Me (Digital Ninja/Commando)

Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld
The Germans Called Me Robin Hood
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
Me @ BBC
Iran: The World Has Wasted A Year
The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century Happened In Nepal
The French Revolution And DFNYC

Hello Brad.

What you do, what I do is ultimately about people. I read a quote from you a few weeks back where you are saying show me a web service that has major user engagement and I will show you a way to monetize it. If enough people show up, it will work.

Thank you for the rapid response to my blog post email yesterday. Here are some more details.

There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. What happened in Nepal in April 2006 was a political cyclone. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City. In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out.

Nepal: Background

Nepal is the poorest country outside of Africa. More than 75% of the countries on the planet are smaller populations than Nepal. So it is not that small a country. There are as many people in Nepal as there are in Iraq. You could have introduced democracy into Iraq the Nepal way and saved a trillion dollars in direct costs and more in indirect costs.

Nepal has been the most popular destination among Peace Corps volunteers for some reason during the half century of that program's existence. I don't really know why because I have not traveled the world.

Nepal is situated between India and China. Those two economies are growing at double digit rates. There are forecasts that show the Chinese economy will be bigger than the American economy by 2020. The democracy work in Nepal has implications for China and hence has larger geopolitical implications disproportionate to Nepal's size, especially when you take into account the Maoists of Nepal, the deadliest ultra left group on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and the Maoists of India, the number one security threat to India, as stated by the Indian government, affecting one third of that country's districts.

9/11 was a flashpoint, just like Pearl Harbor was a flashpoint. You don't want a third flashpoint in Taiwan. The Arab world and Africa and China are the three large chunks where democracy still is not in full play, but China stands out in that I don't think the American political system is what the Chinese need to convert to. The truth lies somewhere in between. America needs total campaign finance reform so it can truly become a one person one vote democracy. And China needs multi-party democracy and federalism and Tibet and Taiwan as states in that federal China. And the fermentations inside of Nepal going on right now in terms of mainstreaming the Maoists have implications for China and India. If Nepal can be turned into a multi-party democracy of state funded parties in the constitution that country is scheduled to write for itself within a year, then we will be on our way.

Iran

Just like Nepal has implications for China, Iran has implications for the entire Arab world. That country for Africa could be Zimbabwe. What is exciting about Iran is what success there could mean for Saudi Arabia and Egypt. When I see people out in the streets in Tehran I get visions of people out in the streets in Cairo.

After success in Nepal, I have witnessed wastes in Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and Iran. I have watched helplessly. The people on the ground have been doing the hard part - coming out into the streets in the face of immense brutality - and the world has been failing them in each case. A democracy movement is science, it can be made to work every single time. But you do have to mutate faster than the virus does. And you do have to take a holistic, global approach. There are basic principles that worked in Nepal that could work anywhere.

There are a few steps that the democracy movement in Iran needs to take, the most important is to shift the goal post. The goal can not be to get the existing regime to hold the presidential election all over again. The goal has to be regime change. The goal can not be to take the brutality lying down. The goal has to be to document every act of brutality to bring the perpetrators to justice once a new, interim government takes over power. The goal can not be to keep coming out into the streets. A democracy movement is supposed to last a few weeks at most, not months and years. You shut the country down completely until the regime gives way to an interim government with the mandate to hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking over power. That assembly would have two years to write a constitution. The democracy movement in Iran needs a leadership change. The current leader has not been able to think outside the box. He is boxed in. He is committed to functioning within the current mullahcracy in place.

My Work

It will be transparent, it will be digital, it will be political. My blog Barackface will be the hub of much of what I do. We are counting on the fact that the world is connected enough by now that everyone and every organization I need to reach out to and communicate with I can do digitally and in a massive way because a blog scales on its own. Social media is magic. And we are counting on the fact that I did this for Nepal, I can do this for Iran all over again.

After there is regime change and an interim government takes over, I will be done, my project complete. I will no longer need to give full time involvement, although I can't imagine not maintaining part time involvement all the way to the country getting itself a new constitution. After so much and such intense emotional involvement you don't just walk away.

Democracy For Nepal: April 2006

Your Role

You put in 5K of your personal money into this now, like today, like yesterday. Fred Wilson puts in his 5K once he is back from his Italy vacation in less than a week. And you two find me 18 other VCs who will put in 5K each by the end of July. Marc Andreessen 5K, Ben Horowitz 5K, Albert Wenger 5K, Brad Burnham 5K, Vinod Khosla 5K.

I start with 100K. It comes to me at the beginning - not in monthly installments - like you would do with a startup. If I can show success by September 2011 - in 15 months - each of you put in another 2.5K each for a total of 50K as a bonus payment to me. If I can do the whole thing in less than 15 months, the 150K deal still stands.

Tech

You are a VC. I am a tech entrepreneur. Why would we do this? Because ultimately it is all about people. It is about impacting lives. When the Iranians first took to the streets it warmed our hearts as to their use of Twitter as a tool. It is all related.

I am about 15 months away from my green card, and I am about 15 months away from launching my tech startup. My tech startup will be to do with the last mile of the ISP business. And from working on democracy in Iran to working on the startup is not going to feel like a career change to me. I think of democracy as the Big Bang in a country's life. It is a starting point of sorts. Once a country gets its democracy, it is on its way. But democracy alone does not put food on the table. And universal broadband is that magic wand that will help bridge the huge gulf between the West and the Global South. I had to come to America. Others like me don't have to if they can have broadband.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Al Qaeda, Internet, Globalization (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Start-up visa (news.bbc.co.uk)
• The man who would be king (for a second time) (independent.co.uk)
• Brad Feld: The Magic of Email Conversations (boxofmeat.net)
• Dealing with Rejection: Entrepreneurs are from Venus, VCs are from Mars (readwriteweb.com)
• Video: Internet Investor Brad Feld on the Changing Dynamics of Startup Investments (gigaom.com)
• Brad Feld: Don't Be A Twammer (boxofmeat.net)
• Me @ BBC (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: "I am fucking blown away by the upcoming Android Froyo release. #googleio" -- Brad Feld. Read our live coverage here... (businessinsider.com)
• Brad Feld: Email Is Still The Best Login (boxofmeat.net)
• Nepal Travel Warning: U.S. Warns Against Visiting Nepal (huffingtonpost.com)
• Why Not To Fear The Maoists? (demrepubnepal.blogspot.com)
• India's attack on Nepal's press freedom | Jagannath Lamichhane (guardian.co.uk)
• Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld (technbiz.blogspot.com)

Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Hello VCs.

I am about 15 months away from a green card, and about that far away from launching my startup, which right now I think will be something to do with the last mile of the ISP business. I think the best use of my time from now till then would be to pour myself fully into the democracy movement in Iran. I have done this before, I can do this again. I did this for Nepal in 2006. This is what I have had to say about that:

There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. What happened in Nepal in April 2006 was a political cyclone. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City. In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out.

This work will help me keep polishing my two strengths that I would bring to my startup: vision and group dynamics. Internet access is the voting right for this century, the Internet Century, and to do well in that business you have to be able to deeply care about masses of people like those that have been thronging into the streets of Iran.

Iran is a low hanging fruit. The hardest part of a democracy movement is getting people to come out into the streets. Well, that has been happening in Iran. This world is connected enough by now that one Digital Ninja/Commando based out of New York City could make that fundamental difference. Everyone I need to meet in person for this work is right here in New York City, primarily members of the Iranian diaspora. All I would need is a laptop, a smartphone and a monthly metro pass. And me.

I need you guys to sponsor this work out of your own pocket. Put in 5K each, and find me 18 other VCs who will put in 5K each. I ask for 100K and 15 months. That would be enough time. If I succeed, you get to put in another 2.5K each for a 50K bonus to me. This 5K you might put into this is the equivalent of 5 million you might put into Kiva. Democracy is the ultimate fishing net you can give to a people. Once they have a modern democracy, they can help themselves.

Looking forward to it. Happy July 4.

Paramendra.

Me @ BBC
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld

Related articles by Zemanta

• Union Square Ventures Job Opening: I Am Applying (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Fred Wilson: The Father of VC Marketing (tomloverro.com)
• Reading: Fred Wilson on credit cards (techstartups.com)
• Venture Capitalists Chime In About the "Agile Board" (readwriteweb.com)
• Video: Internet Investor Brad Feld on the Changing Dynamics of Startup Investments (gigaom.com)
• Brad Feld '87, SM '88 (technologyreview.com)
• The week in VC Blogs: week 8 2010 Feb 21st-27th (richardjordan.tumblr.com)
• Great Advice From Brad Feld (avc.com)
• Venture Capitalists Lobby Against Software Patents (yro.slashdot.org)
• Brad Feld: The Magic of Email Conversations (boxofmeat.net)
• Dealing with Rejection: Entrepreneurs are from Venus, VCs are from Mars (readwriteweb.com)
• Iran: The World Has Wasted A Year (democracyforum.blogspot.com)
• Fred Wilson's Gift To Me (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• The Al Qaeda, Internet, Globalization (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Brad Feld: Don't Be A Twammer (boxofmeat.net)
• Brad Feld: Email Is Still The Best Login (boxofmeat.net)

Sergey Brin's Is The Right Stand

Sergey's family had to flee Russia when Sergey was less than 10 years old. They fled political persecution. Memories like that never go away.

The Google leadership might present it like a group decision, but it has been so obvious to me Sergey has taken the lead on this one.

I grew up in a country that only recently became a republic. The country was a monarchy with a rubber stamp parliament - no political parties allowed - for most of my time. Democracy to me is as concrete as a brick wall. There is free speech, and there is no free speech, and the difference is stark. There are very real consequences.

My first reaction to the Google blog post of threatening to move out of China was unequivocal. No, this is not Google saying sour grapes to not being able to dominate search in China like it does elsewhere. This was a principled stand. And I admired it. I put it down in writing, I think as a comment on Facebook. I have always been fascinated by Google. I had it displayed on my personal homepage not long after the search engine showed up late in the 1990s before they had done any serious fundraising. But I never admired Google more until now. This Google-China standoff speaks to me at many levels.

What Google is doing is the right thing to do, and it is also going to prove to be a great business decision down the line.

To many Chinese the Chinese Communist Party is what the NAACP had been for the blacks. The CCP is going to bring back their ancient glory. Less than 1,000 years ago China was the leading country on earth. America did not even exist as a country.

China's economic growth these past few decades has been amazing. I have said it before and I will say it again, China needs to teach the rest of the Global South how to grow like China.

I want John Liu to at some point become Mayor of New York City. I do have the Asian pride thing going on. But it is that same pride that makes me firmly conclude China can not remain a one party dictatorship forever.

Free speech is the most fundamental of human rights on which all the other human rights rest.

And John Liu was born in Taiwan. And I am a Buddhist like the Tibetans.

A dictatorship is more likely to go to war, or more likely to engage in saber rattling. Iran's intransigence would go away if the democracy movement in that country were to succeed. China's border problems with India are in a big part to do with the fact that China is not a democracy. The idea of two nuclear powers going to war over pieces of rocks in the barren Himalayas is not exactly 21st century.

The future for China is one where both Taiwan and Tibet stay part of China, but that China is federal and democratic. Tibet and Taiwan are states inside a federal China. There is multi-party democracy. Human rights are respected.

But it does not have to be a democracy like America. It can opt to be a multi-party democracy of state-funded parties. The nature of democracy can be even more refined than what America has, but free speech is more fundamental. Human rights are elemental.

And a country that is not democratic, that does not accept human rights as a basic value can grow fast only when it is playing catch up, but it will stall once it is done catching up, and it has to depend on human creativity to create new industries, and come up with new inventions.

Manmohan Singh in India has proven a large, poor democracy can also achieve China-like growth rates. So it is not like democracy gets in the way.

I greatly admire Sergey's stand. Free speech is so basic. And until this stand it looked like the world was in a mood to stay in permanent peace with the idea of a one party dictatorship in China. The Chinese inside China could not do it. The foreign powers would not do it. Who would take the stand? Who will tie the bell around the cat's neck?

This stand by Google might be the beginning of the end for the one party dictatorship in China. And if it is, Sergey will be remembered as much for this as for his algorithms more than a decade ago. This is not an anti-China stand. This is an anti-persecution stand.

Sergey had to flee when he was young. This is him going back into that same arena. He is going to fight back with all he's got. And he has a lot.

Technology does not exist in a vacuum. Innovation does not happen in a vacuum. People are the purpose for technological innovation. Political and social issues matter. You want to organize the world's information because that will better people's lives. That is the only reason. People matter. People are at the core. People everywhere.

Sergey's stand is a pro-China stand.

Every tussle between democracy and dictatorship in history has been bloody. Fascism's defeat was bloody. Communism's defeat in Europe was bloody over decades, and across the world. Islamists are bloody in their ways. But one day all Arab countries will become democratic. That leaves China as the last bastion. Maybe we can make that confrontation not bloody. And Google is showing the way.

I am a Google person like some people are Apple people. I love Google. I have a feeling my first smartphone is going to be the Nexus One. (The iPhone, Nexus One, Or Droid?)



Jessica Vascellaro, The Wall Street Journal: Brin Drove Google To Pull Back In China Sergey Brin pushed the Internet giant to take the risky step of abandoning its China-based search engine as that country's efforts to censor the Web and suppress dissidents smacked of the "totalitarianism" of his youth in the Soviet Union. .... "One out of five meetings that I attended, there was some component specifically applied to China in a different way than other countries." ...... Mr. Brin and other executives prevailed over Chief Executive Eric Schmidt and others who felt Google ought to stay the course in China ...... Mitch Kapor, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, said Google's moral stand made sense long term, because China will eventually get more open...... "One of the reasons I am glad we are making this move in China is that the China situation was really emboldening other countries to try and implement their own firewalls," Mr. Brin said...... he was moved by growing evidence in China of repressive behavior reminiscent of what he remembered from the Soviet Union. Mr. Brin said memories of that time—having his home visited by Russian police, witnessing anti-Semitic discrimination against his father—bolstered his view that it was time to abandon Google's policy.......... . His father, he said, wanted to be an astrophysicist, but because of discrimination became a mathematician.
John Paczkowski, All Things Digital: Beijing: “Google is Not God” Google’s principled stand in China has very quickly turned into an ugly clash with the country’s government...... "Thinking about the US’ big efforts in recent years to engage in Internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory pre-dawn battle."..... directing Chinese searches to an uncensored search engine based in Hong Kong, essentially using Beijing’s “one country, two systems” policy against it. ..... indexing Twitter posts on its Chinese search site in open defiance of the country’s ban on the microblogging site.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sergey Brin urges US to act over China web censorship (Guardian) (techmeme.com)
• Sergey Brin on Google and China (yro.slashdot.org)
• Google's Sergey Brin Leads Charge Against Chinese Web Censorship (dailyfinance.com)
• Interview: Sergey Brin on Google's China Gambit (Steve Lohr/Bits) (techmeme.com)
• Google moves Chinese search to Hong Kong (news.cnet.com)
• Suddenly, Google founder wants US to talk more about human rights (americablog.com)
• Guest Post: Google.cn Pulls Out of Communist China (boycottnovell.com)
• Google to phase out China search partnerships (calgaryherald.com)
• Brin Drove Google to Pull Back in China (voices.allthingsd.com)
• Google's Brin Talks About China Gamble [Voices] (voices.allthingsd.com)