So Facebook Went IPO

Big deal. And I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. It really is a big deal.

GigaOm: Facebook just revealed its Kryptonite: mobile
GigaOm: Zynga & its Facebook Problem
New York Times: From Founders to Decorators, Facebook Riches
Jim Romensko: The Graphic Artist Who Is About To Become A Facebook Millionaire
Wired: Facebook’s ‘Letter from Zuckerberg’: The Annotated Version
Above The Crowd: Why Facebook Clearly Belongs In The 10X Revenue Club
AllThingsD: Zuckerberg Is the Billion-Share Man: Who Owns What, Who Makes What in the Facebook IPO
BusinessWeek: Zuckerberg Controlling 57% of Facebook Seen as Risk to Investors
Mark Zuckerberg: My Desk
Pando Daily: Mark Zuckerberg Loves It When A Plan Comes Together
Inside Facebook: The details: Facebook spent $68 million on acquisitions last year
ReadWriteWeb: Biggest Winners In Facebook's IPO
Mashable: Facebook IPO Reveals How It Made $3.71 Billion in 2011
Guardian: Facebook IPO sees Winklevoss twins heading for $300m fortune
Guardian: Facebook's letter from Mark Zuckerberg - full text

Facebook And Big Data
Finally Facebook Lets Me Reach Out To Non Friends
Facebook's Next Major Breakthrough
The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance
Facebook Will End Up The Social Graph Operating System
Should FourSquare Be Scared Of Facebook?
Facebook Alternative? Dave McClure Is Full Of It

Randi, The Flamboyant Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg In 2005
Jessica Mah, Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg Loves Union Square Ventures
Zuckerberg Has Stature
The Twins Were Rowing Boats

Glass Half Full Phase

Image via Wikipedia

Fred Wilson: The Word Bubble: There will come a time when the environment we are in will be in the rear view mirror. And entrepreneurs should be crystal clear about that. This is a time to raise money and sock it away for a rainy day. Because it will rain. ...... deals are actually companies and most venture investments are held for five to seven years. I've likened them to marriages over the years. Don't let the lust for the deal lead to a bad marriage that you have to be in for the next decade. ...... we are in the glass is half full part of the cycle. Investors are focusing on the upside and ignoring the downside. That part of the investment cycle lasts for a while and then things change and investors focus on the downside and ignore the upside. Markets are defined by greed and fear. We are in the greed mode right now

I will have to agree. A lot of people sat on a lot of money for about two years. But money does not want to sit still. Money wants to grow. And right now it feels like the basketball that was held at the bottom of the pool was let go. It is not going to end at the surface. It will eventually. But first it will go into the air a little. We are in the air a little phase.

But this is no bubble. I don't see an imminent industry wide collapse. Going out of business also happens in the restaurant business, all the time, but that does not mean the restaurant business is going through a bubble.

Two Upheavals Already

I have not even formally launched my company yet, but my startup team has already gone through two upheavals. And I think that is a good thing. With each upheaval the vision has become much more polished. And I make no bones about the fact that my life is not a democracy, my company is not a democracy. I have a vision, and the company is going to carry it out.

Is It A Bubble?

Image via WikipediaThis bubble talk/debate could last for the rest of the year. It might even spill into 2012. Because the craze is just beginning. My take has been that some real wealth is being created, but there sure is some accompanying froth. That is not something to complain about. On the cutting edge there are hits and misses. To expect for all hits is highly unrealistic. It just never has happened.

But the debate is robust and very real. Everybody who is a somebody has an opinion.

A Mini Bubble Burst In Three Years
Bubble, Boom Or Froth?
Bubble Talk Goes On: It's An Overshoot

Startups And The Art Of Selling

Image via CrunchBaseI for one think Facebook should have been forced to go public at a billion dollar valuation, or 10 billion max. But the company continues to be privately held. I could argue it has had several private IPOs.

There are several forms of exits. IPO is the rare exit. It is for the best of the breed. By definition most startups are not there, will never get there. Getting bought by a bigger company is a respectable, lucrative exit.

And there's the non exit exit. You don't go IPO. You don't get bought. But you become profitable. You start minting money. What's there to complain? I'd hope the vast majority of startups out there would go for this "exit."

Bundling Investors

Image via CrunchBaseFacebook not going IPO is real bad news for the average investors, people who might buy 10 or 20 stocks at $100 each. The growth in wealth that Facebook might see as it moves from a $10 billion valuation to a $50 billion valuation and beyond, all that is going to rich individuals and institutions. If Facebook had gone IPO at a billion dollar valuation, the 50 billion in wealth creation might have gone to average people.

Who Owns The Company?

Image via WikipediaI have been meaning to write this blog post for a while now, months, possibly over a year. Finally I am getting around to it. It has become urgent. I have a pre-launch startup.

For conventional wisdom I am going to refer to this, but later.

Mark Peter Davis: Entrepreneur's Guide To Raising Venture Capital

I do know Mark, but that is not why. And this might or might not be the best guide out there to venture capital. But I expect it to be sufficiently good to provide me with the framework of the venture capital business as it stands today. But I have made a point not to read through his posts. I want to express my thoughts before I get corrupted by conventional wisdom.

So who owns the company? Just like I have a bias for Founder CEOs, I have a bias for startups that will go IPO. And it is those two scenarios that I have in mind. So my thoughts might not resonate with startups with other kinds of exits, which ends up being most startups.

Yuri Milner's Smart Y Combinator Move

Image by davidcrow via Flickr

Wall Street Journal: Y Combinator’s Paul Graham On The $150K Per Start-Up Offer: “It’s probably one of the most surprising things that has happened so far,” Graham said. ..... Milner teamed up with SV Angel–the seed fund run by prominent angel investor Ron Conway–to offer $150,000 each in convertible debt in each company. .... Of the more than 250 companies that Y Combinator has produced since 2005, more than 20 have been acquired, but mostly for small amounts. The biggest success, by acquisition price, is Heroku Inc., which Salesforce Inc. bought in December for $212 million. ..... convertible debt–which converts to equity once the company raises venture capital at a set price–with no valuation cap and no discount, an extremely rare set of terms for entrepreneurs. ..... Y Combinator companies received $11,000 plus $3,000 per founder in exchange for 2% to 10% of equity ..... the average Y Combinator company raises $700,000 after the program. .... “The biggest change and huge change for better is now none of them are desperate,” Graham said. Fund-raising “takes a lot of time away from the company. Now they’re already there. They have that foundation.”

I don't think a Google or Facebook can come out of Y Combinator. The big iconic companies tend to have this streak of independence. But I think Y Combinator is great for middling companies. I'd be very surprised if any Y Combinator company goes IPO some day. But many have been and will be bought for a decent chunk of change. Many will stay mid size and profitable.

A Mini Bubble Burst In Three Years

Image via WikipediaThis is not me agreeing with Fred Wilson on the topic, but I do foresee a mini bubble burst a few years down the road. We are going through a relatively easy funding phase of what I see is going to be a boom decade.

The first mini bubble burst is that not every startup idea seeking funding is getting funded. Most are not. That is normal. So you are already starting with the natural selection process in place. Investors are not fools. They go in with high hopes. They do say no. All the time.

But of all the companies that are getting funded, it is inevitable not all will survive. Many will not. I don't know enough to get into more precise numbers. You could argue nobody does. But there will be weaning out. The wheat will get separated from the chaff.

Every new economic sector in history has seen a bubble, some big, some small. The biggest bubbles have been reserved for some of the most exciting new sectors. Bubbles are good things. Bubbles are the market trying to figure out what will stick, what will not stick. And there is no way to know except by trying.

Some failures just can not be avoided. The best policy is to make peace when that happens. But there are other failures that can be avoided. How do you make sure you still have your startup three years from now?

Build a real business. Focus on the fundamentals. Don't overspend. Start generating revenues and profits within a reasonable amount of time. Work hard. Maintain perspective. Don't stop taking risks. Build a great team. Be a great team. Eat right. Sleep right. Exercise. Don't ignore your relationships.

Be open to the possibility that there are many kinds of exits, most of them not big. If you can earn a living doing work you love, that is a great soft landing actually. Don't ignore that possibility while shooting for the stars.

Shoot for the stars.

Future Of The Internet: Easy, Says Dixon

Chris Dixon: Predicting The Future Of The Internet Is Easy: Anything It Hasn't Yet Dramatically Transformed, It Will.: Facebook’s “private” IPO with Goldman Sachs ..... the dot com crash of 2000 disillusioned many .... Already transformed: music, news, advertising, telecom. Being transformed: finance, commerce, TV & movies, real estate, politics & government. Soon to be transformed (among many others): healthcare, education, energy. .... The modern economy runs primarily on information, and the Internet is by orders of magnitude the greatest information mechanism ever invented. ..... People, companies, investors and even countries can’t stop this transformation.

I have ready many blog posts by Chris Dixon, and the content of most of them have been super, but the title of this blog post stands out. This is the best title to a Chris Dixon blog post yet of all I have read yet. It is bold, it is obvious. There is no beating around the bush. It is simple. Simple enough that makes you feel as to why you yourself did not push out that blog post title. You could have had it to your name.

This is Chris Dixon's best blog post of all I have ever read, and I have read a few.

Bubble Talk Goes On: It's An Overshoot

Image via WikipediaFred Wilson: Invest In The Mess
New York Times: A Silicon Bubble Shows Signs Of Reinflating
The Day I Got Called Sean Parker
Did Not Meet Fred Wilson, But Met Mazy Dar
Angel Bubbles: No Bubbles
Bubble, Boom Or Froth?

Fred has said repeatedly that what we are seeing is a bubble. First thing I say is this is not a yes no question. Is this a bubble? If you force ask me, my answer is no. This is not a bubble. This is hyperactivity. Will many angel investors lose money? Sure. But that does not make it a bubble. Even a top notch VC like Fred Wilson expects one third of his portfolio to go down under. And these are companies that he did not invest in on day one knowing they will go down. You think you picked a winner, you give them sufficient money and guidance, you go to bat for them, and they still go down. If Fred Wilson is at peace with a 33% failure rate, there are VCs whose failure rates are 66% and 90%. Most VCs fail. Most entrepreneurs fail. By some estimates as many as 90% of new businesses fail within a year of getting launched. Looks like 10% is all capitalism needs to survive.

GroupOn Did The Right Thing

Image via CrunchBase
Image via WikipediaSources: Groupon rejects Google's offer; will stay independent
Groupon Annual Revenues Actually $2 Billion

Secretly I was hoping this would not come to be. Google and GroupOn were not a good match. A great high tech company is not automatically a great high touch company. GroupOn does a lot of stuff offline. In that way GroupOn is not like YouTube at all. YouTube is all tech, all online.

This was not going to be a good buy for Google. And this would have severely limited GroupOn. GroupOn is just now getting started. This company could do really well independently.
Image via CrunchBase
Amazon buying Zappos was similarly a bad idea. Zappos was IPO material. The white venture capitalists who forced Tony into Jeff Bezos' arms acted racist.

Google, GroupOn: Facebook Needs To Go Public

Image via WikipediaFacebook has so far never made an acquisition. Acquihires like Dropio and Hot Potato don't count. And a company can not do internal innovation forever. The price you pay to get big is you are open to innovation from outside. You keep a clear vision of where you want to go as a company, and you make acquisitions along the way in emerging spaces and sub spaces.

Facebook was ready to go IPO last year based on its fundamentals. But a recession perhaps was not a great time to go public. But now the recession is over. Further delays will cause Facebook harm. To put it down bluntly, Facebook can not make GroupOn like acquisitions if it stays private.

How Companies Get Valuated

I don't know a whole lot on the topic. I have a broad idea. I get the concepts. But I have not bothered to master the details. There are too many versions, too many ways they get done. Android is not fragmented, what is really screwed up and fragmented is how companies get valued.

How companies get valuated reminds me of when they taught me several pre-Charles Darwin theories of evolution at high school. They were all over the place. They all lacked the basic beauty of Darwin's theory of evolution.

Dave McClure: Super Angel: Foulmouth

Master Of 500 Hats: July 2010: MoneyBall for Startups: Invest BEFORE Product/Market Fit, Double-Down AFTER.

Super Angels are a recent enough phenomenon that even Paul Graham only very recently wrote about it. There used to be angels and venture capitalists. Super angels have wedged themselves between the two, supposedly wanting to threaten both. Super angels are not your rich uncles, they are not family and friends, they have millions of dollars that they themselves raised, but they are not VCs. They pay way more attention to you than VCs can, they are agile, they have way more money than the traditional angels, and in many cases they are out to make quick money. They are not looking for the next Google, they are looking for the next company Google will buy.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Image via CrunchBase

I am in my 30s. Isn't it a little too late to be asking that question? I take solace in the fact that we live in an era when people will have a few different careers before they retire and go ahead and die. That would be fine except I seem to be having a few different careers at the same time, in parallel: no complaints. I have tried to learn positivity from my man Obama.

Finally I might have found it: a for profit micro finance startup with IPO ambitions. (Microfinance: The Next Big Thing?) And the fact that I am about a year away from my green card feels like no hindrance at all. I will just get someone else to incorporate the company. The conversation is in full swing, the work is on.

Google Car, Google Monorail
Physically Aware Internet
Solar Panels To Roll Out
To Natural User Interface
Offshoring The Wind Harvesting: Google Wind
Etsy, GroupOn, Zynga
Becoming Whole With The Mobile Web
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Before this I have been emailing my 12 line resume - in text format, my machine does not have Microsoft Office on it - to all sorts of people on Craig's List. For the longest time I did not even send cover letters. What is that? The thing is I have never had a job. Don't ask how that came to be, but that is the fact. Then I started sending cover letters, the same standard, half hearted cover letters where I was calling all sorts of jobs my "dream job." The truth is there is no dream job out there. My dream job necessarily has to be self created.

Then I have thought of tech consulting and social media consulting. (An Online Social Media Instructor, Not Your Usual Yoga Guru)
Image via WikipediaThere are more than a dozen coders in India on stand by for me as we speak. I find them projects, they get working, I pay them their hourly rate, take my cut, and we all end up happy: that has been the idea. (Becoming Whole With The Mobile Web)

I just talked to the guy in Kerala last night, and to the dude in Pittsburgh today.

I was going to doodle along for a year like that, doing a few things, but not really doing much, learn some Scala along the way, (Al Wenger Wants To Learn Scala) and get into the mobile web upon getting my green card. I have a mobile app in mind that would grow from the small screen to the big screen.

I have had people ask me if I might have run for president if I had been born in the US. First of all, people, I am utmost flattered. But that question is too theoretical. That is like asking what would life be like if earth had moon's kind of gravity. The mental exercise is not worth it. Microfinance fascinates me, the affordable housing issue in NYC does not.
Image via WikipediaThere are a few things I wanted to do in tech, but then I will keep my serial entrepreneur options open, and perhaps I will get to invest in ideas that I might not get to bring to fruition myself.

Large scale group dynamics is my thing. I am really, really good at it. (Iran) Even when I have expressed Nasdaq headed tech company ambitions, I have thought more in terms having money to pour into microfinance, and less in terms of private jets. But why take that long route? Why not go straight into microfinance? There is no limit to how much money you can raise if you do it right. This is potentially a market in the trillions of dollars.

But make no mistake, the tech part of this startup is central to what it is going to be. This is first and foremost a tech startup. The concept feels like having your cake and eating it too.

This is one brave new century.

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• Microfinance: The Next Big Thing? (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Google Car, Google Monorail (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Becoming Whole With The Mobile Web (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Al Wenger Wants To Learn Scala (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• A New Model for Microfinance (humanrights.change.org)
• As Microfinance Explodes in India, Regulators Step Up Oversight (fastcompany.com)
• The 2010s Belong To New York City (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• For-Profit Microfinance Matures, India and Africa Lead the Way (fastcompany.com)
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• Craig Newmark: Microfinance, the Grameen Bank, and Lisa Simpson (huffingtonpost.com)

Microfinance: The Next Big Thing?

Image via CrunchBase

TechCrunch: Kiva President On The Next 5 Years And Why Zynga Is Their Biggest Rival (TCTV): a never-ending fight for eyeballs and discretionary income. .... If building a real farm on Kiva can be as compelling as building a virtual farm on Facebook ..... the integration of game mechanics, social tools, mobile and new philanthropic verticals like green and water loans ...... Kiva will raise $1 billion in microloans by 2015..... loans to US citizens ..... Kiva is currently raising $1 million every six days. .... Shah and co-founder Matthew Flannery ..... making sure that the feedback loop between the person that they’re trying to help is really strong and broad

What was after search? Social. What was after social? Social gaming. What's after social gaming? I'd love that next big thing to be microfinance. You should not have to wait for white guys like Bill Gates and Bill Clinton to retire before the next big problem in the Global South can be tackled. The problems in the Global South have to tackled with Kiva ferocity, with GroupOn ferocity. Crowd sourcing is where it is at.

Racism caused the Great Recession. There was all this surplus capital. And instead of pumping all that into global microfinance and global infrastructure projects for certain 10% annual returns, the wise guys on Wall Street pumped it into existing houses in America through nefarious schemes, and the whole
Image via CrunchBaseeconomy collapsed. It was only a matter of time. They did not create wealth. They built a huge, big house of cards.

The beauty of crowd sourcing is there is no one person, or one committee responsible. Everyone is in. There is no center. Once the basic message is clear, there is a riot.

Microfinance needs to be packaged better. It has to be parceled out in to small chunks at both ends. It is not just about the small businessperson at the other end. It also has to be about the small investor at this end. People should be able to invest $100, or $1000 at a time, preferably $100. You walk in to a store like you might walk in to buy a lottery ticket, or you might step in for a Western Union money transfer. For $100 you also get to receive emails about the person at the other end who received the loan. You get emails from Kiva.

Kiva, I think, is in a trillion dollar industry. The biggest thing Kiva could do is morph from being a non profit organization to being a for profit company with IPO ambitions. That is the only way it could beat Zynga. Could it beat Zynga? I think it could. Sure thing. Make micro lending fun. I never spent a dime on Farmville. But I would love to put $100 into some farm in Uganda if the experience had Farmville like fun.
Image via WikipediaOnly a for profit company could deliver that. You hire top talent by becoming a for profit company with IPO ambitions.

There is room for 100 Zynga size companies in this space.

Micro lending is not just for the Global South. It is also what needs to be pumped into the inner cities in America. The challenge for Kiva is to enrich the feedback loop.



Image via CrunchBase

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Twitter Should Go For A Netscape-Like IPO

Netscape was just a browser. It was not making any money. But it went public. It acquired a market value of billions overnight. That launched the dot com craze. That might have partly been responsible for many dot com booms and busts in the years ahead. The message that a business need not make money was, well, wrong. But the internet was very real, the web was very real, dot com was as real as it gets.

I think Twitter should similarly go public. And with the newfound wealth it should start zapping up companies left and right in the Twitter ecosystem. It should integrate all the hottest features into Twitter itself.

A tweet is like the atom in physics. A tweet is the building block to so many wonderful things. Twitter is utility. It is that fundamental. The revenue generation can wait. With the Netscape browser it was hard to imagine how money was going to be made. With Twitter, it is not that hard.

Are Bing and Google paying Twitter money to be able to search through all the tweets? Why did Twitter not do what Sponsored Tweets and Ad.ly are doing?

Twitter has to evolve and evolve fast if it is to go past the tech elite. You don't end up with a billion users if you stick to the same old same old. Rapid expansion asks for acquisitions. Acquisitions are done

Cover of Relapse

with money. After you go public, you have loads of cash.

A Twitter IPO might help jerk America out of its economic slumber of over a year. The craze would begin all over again.

I Have Access To Twitter Lists
Jeff Jarvis, Me And Twitter
I Must Be Following A Lot Of People On Twitter
NYC Twitter Elite: Number 12
Twitter Top 100 NYC: I Am In
Twitter Top 100 NYC
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Twitter Should Hand Over Search To Google
Twitter Number 115 In New York City
Twitter, TechCrunch, And The Stolen Docs
The Best Follow Friday I Ever Received On Twitter
Space, Time And Twitter: Are There Plant Twitters?
My Twitter Suspension Lifted
Can Tweet Google, Can't Tweet Twitter
Monetizing Twitter: A Few Ideas
How To Increase Your Following On Twitter
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Real Time Search: Twitter Is Not Doing It
Google Falling Behind Twitter?

Eminem: The Relapse: Twitter
Converting To The Mass Follow Formula On Twitter
NewsDesk: China, Twitter, Hawking, Obama
Digg Button, Twitter Button For Your Blog Posts
Twitter Is Not Micro
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Goal: A Billion People On Twitter
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
I Talked To Google Through Twitter And It Worked Like Magic
Twitter And The Time Dimension
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
TCC: Twitter Community College
Twitter Tips: It's A Bird, It's A Bird
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
I Get Twitter

My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher 

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That StartUp Mentality

Image via Wikipedia

It is a mindset. It is a personality type. If a tech entrepreneur were not a tech entrepreneur, he/she would be standing at the edge of a cliff, or facing a hurricane on the high seas. There is something innate about risk-taking. Very few attempt it. Very few of those who attempt succeed. That is why the rewards are so astoundingly huge.

But then that startup mentality is being forced upon the rest of the population. The internet and globalization are going to inject the startup mentality into ordinary jobs. There are degrees of risk taking. Ordinary jobs will have low levels, low doses of risk taking, but it will be there. It is there. It is here.



Looks like the worst part of the bad news of a bad economy might be behind us. You can get gloomy about what just happened. Or you can objectively look at it and see capitalism's creative destructions. What will happen next is way more exciting than what was there before. The jobs, companies and industries of tomorrow stand to be created. This is high time for a mega renewal of the human spirit. I am optimistic. I was throughout the past six months of bad news. All hard economic times of the past decades have also been periods of major innovation, of companies launched that went on to do big, bold things. I don't wish a bad economy upon anyone, but you have to wonder why.

You have to stay hungry also during good times, or success will get the better of you. The trick is to stay hungry during good times. What gets your juices flowing? Do you got fire in your belly?

On The Web

AT&T And Verizon's Start-Up Mentality - Forbes.com
Techcrunch takes on Israeli startup mentality | ISRAELITY
Teaching the Startup Mentality
Startup Mentality
European vs US startup mentality | anders.tyckr.com how often would you say that two of your friends start the same business idea - separately - without them knowing about each other ..... reports keep coming in that the mobile social network market is going to be huge. ..... Europeans do not aim big enough, and on the other hand, US startups go super big with sometimes very crazy ideas. But crazy ideas are only crazy and funny if they are done with bad timing. ...... Going too slow might be a problem, and is probably as hard to fix as going too fast. ..... I would not want to miss a minute of the action to come.

In The News

EBay Unveils Skype IPO Plans BusinessWeek Skype sales surged 44%, to $551 million, last year and the company expects them to top $1 billion in 2011. The user base surged 47%, to 405 million, in 2008. ..... Zennstrom and Friis reportedly offered less than $2 billion for Skype. An IPO could fetch $3 billion to $5 billion ...... Skype could find itself in closer competition with such sites as Facebook or Twitter. ..... "I see [Skype] as a Ferrari that's only firing some of its cylinders."
Plus: Skype in Your Pocket
Google's Trademark Tussle
Business Exchange: Search Advertising
Goldman, Give it All Back
Taxing Grandma to Pay Goldman Sachs
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Getting to Know Yourself
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• Science Proves the Obvious: Twitter Users Are Evil and Wrong (gawker.com)

Craig Silverstein

Paramendra Bhagat: Dolphin

Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived
Money For Yahoo And Money For Google
Search: Much Is Lacking
Google Books: Primitive
Google Audio, Google Office
Google Video
Google: Free, Wireless Internet Access, Pay Per View Video
Yahoo Phone, Google Office, Google Finance
Google's To Do List Keeps Growing
In Defense Of Google Digitizing Books
Google's Corporate Transparency
Google And Languages
Google Again
Google Video Has Hit The Docks
Google And Browsers And More
Google: Poised To Be The Number One Software Company In The World








On The Web

Craig Silverstein's Home Page
Google's man behind the curtain - CNET News the search company is poised to raise $2.7 billion in one of the hottest tech initial public offerings since 2000. ....... The company recently renewed an exclusive PageRank license from Stanford that's valid through 2011. ....... understanding language is kind of the last frontier in artificial intelligence ..... In terms of timing, I typically say about 200 to 300 years. ...... Our algorithms do scale, and if, you know, the size of the Web doubles, and the machines double, then we are keeping pace. ...... I used to know everyone in the company, and now I do not, and it makes me sad.
Craig Silverstein grew a decade with Google When he started work, Silverstein figured he would last four or five years at Google before burning out. Or perhaps the company would evolve to the point where he wouldn't feel welcome anymore. ....... or be a stay-at-home dad. But he still believes that search needs significant improvement and that it might take 100 years to realize.
Video results for Craig Silverstein
Craig Silverstein lost in admiration for Google’s unexpected ... Only one man has been with Google since the beginning, apart from Larry Page and Sergey Brin ...... for Mr Silverstein, from the inside, it was not until Playboy published a big story about Google in early 1999 that he realised how things might go. ....... “I always imagined we were going to be an 80 to 100-person company,” Mr Silverstein, 35, told The Times. Google has about 19,000 staff around the world.
UNC Media Advisory -- Google Technology Director Craig Silverstein..
First Impression: Meeting Google´s Craig Silverstein - Ralf's... Google´s director of technology and first employee of Google - or Google´s man behind the curtain

In The News

Expect lower temperatures, bigger ball at Times Square celebration CNN
61-Second Minute Takes World into 2009 DailyTech
One Microsoft Way's top 10 of 2008 Ars Technica
Windows 7 Leaked To The Internet InformationWeek
Facebook faces ire of 85000 mums Straits Times
Next from Apple: A Large-Screen iPod Touch? PC World
New Year's Eve to be cold, windy in NYC United Press International
FCC's Martin Drops Porn Filtering Idea BusinessWeek
iWork may become a Web Application at Macworld? SlashGear
Interview: Pytey of the iPhone Dev Team Washington Post

US STOCKS-Wall St closes out worst year since Depression Reuters
Russia Says It Will Halt Delivery of Natural Gas to Ukraine Washington Post
Citigroup CEO Pandit, Chairman Bischoff Forgo Bonuses Bloomberg
Jobless claims data paint bleak picture for 2009 The Associated Press
Dell Turnaround Hits Bump With Reorganization Woes CNNMoney.com
Merrill Lynch Settles Discrimination Suit New York Times
Slovaks adopt euro Reuters
Montana Investors Lost $18 Million With Madoff, Regulator Says Bloomberg






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