The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance

Image via WikipediaThere are five broad categories on the cutting edge: web tech, clean tech, bio tech, nano tech, fin tech.

Validation From Fred Wilson: Froth
The Entrepreneur Does Have A Boss
Who Owns The Company?
You Have To Be A Little Wild

Google and Facebook fall within the web tech domain. Google is the next Google. There is no next Google. Facebook is the next Facebook. There is no next Facebook.

But there remains a Google/Facebook size opportunity in mobile tech, which is a sub category of web tech.

2015: A Mobile Tech Company Will Storm The Room

Leave Yunus Alone

Image via WikipediaThe Stink From The New York Times
Nazrul Islam Chunnu: Motherfucker

Telegraph: Bangladeshi leaders decide Nobel financier Mohammad Yunus must go: Professor Yunus is Bangladesh's most respected international figure ..... Prof Yunus was now too old and that the government wants to redefine the bank’s role and bring it under closer regulation. ..... the government of Sheikh Hasina, which, according to Western diplomats, regards his international profile as a political threat. ..... The government’s stance also sets it on a collision course with Western governments, aid and finance organisations ..... Hillary Clinton has voiced her fears that Grameen Bank’s independence is under threat ..... former Ireland president Mary Robinson and former World Bank president James Wolfensohn, launched Friends of Grameen to save the bank from a government takeover. ..... Yunus said the government wanted to take control of the bank from its 8m borrowers and savers ..... The bank’s borrowers and savers own 75pc of the company, while the government has a 25pc stake. According to the bank, it lends $1bn every year while lifting 5pc of its borrowers out of poverty. ...... Sheikh Hasina, who said the bank was “sucking money” from the poor and using them as “pawns to get more aid”. ..... Yunus said government control would lead to the bank being used to help “win elections” and fuel corruption and that he would not step down until the government promised to maintain the bank’s independence and mission to help the poor

This is like Putin going after that businessman dude in Russia. This is a severe abuse of state power. While they are at it, the Bengalis should go ahead and disrespect Rabindranath Tagore as well. This is insane.

Tuesday 2/15 Noon EatUp: 46th Between 5th And 6th: Schnitzel & Things Food Truck

"There ain't no such thing as a free lunch."
- Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize in Economics

Be there, check in on FourSquare!

Person Of The Social Media Week: Oleg Voss
February 15: EatUp?
My First Smartphone Is Going To Be A Nexus S

Confirmed: I Am In Line To Get A Chrome Notebook

My First Smartphone Is Going To Be A Nexus S
The Chrome Notebook Needs No Anti Virus B.S.
Chrome Notebook Pilot User?

Immigration Mess/Humiliation And Window Shopped Tech Entrepreneurship

Image via WikipediaOnly a few months back I got out of my immigration mess/humiliation. The immigration laws in this country are insane. They are racist. They make no logical, economic sense. They make no globalization sense. They make no internet sense. They make no 21st century sense.

I am not even fully out of it yet. But now I got a little bit of a legroom in these United fucking States. This fucking country. Thank God for the internet, or there would be no breathing room.

For a few years now I have gone from tech event to tech event like some guy whose startup never really took off. It has been humiliating to say the least. I know that is not who I am. I am as good as they come.

Normal People Easy To Get Along With

Image via Wikipedia

Fred Wilson: Difficult Is Good: He then said, "sometimes we make money with brilliant people who are easy to get along with, most often we make money with brilliant people who are hard to get along with, but we rarely make money with normal people who are easy to get along with."

I am so not a VC. I am on the other side. Fred Wilson's best MBA Monday post - according to me - is one where he got an entrepreneur - Charlie - to relate his story.

This quote from Dan Valentine makes total sense to me. And I understand it 100%.

The best entrepreneurs tackle the biggest problems. Those problems are, by definition, badass. Others have not touched them because they are big and bad. But we operate in paradigms. You already know what a McDonald's burger looks like. That is a paradigm. That gives you peace of mind. You know.

Person Of The Social Media Week: Oleg Voss

I attended my final event of the Social Media Week yesterday at Edelman, a Zagat event, and there I spotted the Person Of The Week, food truck owner Oleg Voss.

February 15: EatUp?

Image via WikipediaJanuary 15 was the first ever World FoodSpotting Day, and I made a point to go over to Philadelphia to celebrate. It was an amazing experience. I later tweeted saying I had never had so much fun eating with perfect strangers before.

But once a year is not enough. The 15th of each month needs to be an EatUp day.

My First Smartphone Is Going To Be A Nexus S

Image via WikipediaIf Google ships me a Chrome Notebook for free, as is likely, I am going to buy me a Nexus S phone. I am a Google fanboy. I adore Steve Jobs, he is a living legend. But I have never bought an Apple product. I would like to stay with the masses. I am more of a Dell, Walmart, dollar pizza kind of guy.

Nexus S: The Best Phone Out There
Nexus S Is Da Bomb
The iPhone, Nexus One, Or Droid?

I am going to think I paid for the laptop - I do need a new laptop, I have needed one for months now, this machine has been feeling slow, it's a Toshiba Satellite from years ago - and I got the phone for free. I have to think that way because in the order of things the laptop is the one I can not do without, absolutely not.

The Chrome Notebook Needs No Anti Virus B.S.

Image via CrunchBaseChrome Notebook Pilot User?

There's nothing to infect. What are you going to infect? There is no desktop. It is like every time you start your machine, you are loading the operating system afresh.

That is such relief. The anti virus business has always felt like a scam to me. I have always felt like that annual 45 bucks ought to go to Microsoft instead and Windows ought to be free.

I told them. They did not listen. And now the Chrome OS is going to kill Windows.

Chrome Notebook Pilot User?

This morning I logged into my Gmail account and my first reaction was, oh no, my Gmail account got hacked. My inbox was flooded with emails from just one address. Looked like someone had taken over.

eRockit: Super Bike

Validation From Fred Wilson: Froth

Image via WikipediaWatch the first video here. Fred has come around to using my word: froth.

But then I have also inched a little in Fred's direction. I recently used the phrase mini bubble burst.

I think we are both still blind men trying to figure out the elephant. But at least we are trying to figure out. Most others are simply making wild jumps.

Some real wealth creation is taking place. But every new emerging sector will necessarily be accompanied by froth. That is the nature of the beast.

There will be a slew of sob stories in a few years but I don't see any imminent collapse. We are in the first year of a boom decade.

Related articles

• Wait, Did They Say Froth? (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Bubble Talk Goes On: It's An Overshoot (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Did Not Meet Fred Wilson, But Met Mazy Dar (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Fred, How About Some Money? (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Bubble, Boom Or Froth (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Froth or famine? (businessinsider.com)
• As For Quora: Blogging Still Rules (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Event At Hunch: Gender Talk (4) (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Union Square Ventures: A Real Choice (technbiz.blogspot.com)

Fred Wilson, Soraya Darabi: Both Crazy About Music

Image via CrunchBaseFred Wilson
Soraya Darabi

Fred Wilson is the most talked about VC at this blog, and Soraya Darabi is probably the most talked about tech entrepreneur at this blog. It just happened to be that way.

Both are crazy about music.

Both are avid New Yorkers. You have to be one to know one.

Arab Focus, Microfinance Focus

Image via WikipediaWhat is happening in Egypt gives me immense hope. It feels like the Arab world is about to have its Berlin moment. If the misguided people in DC don't mess up, we will see Arab dictator after Arab dictator wiped out.

Arab Dictators Are Shaking
Egypt: A Revolution, Not A Reform Movement
How Many People Could Mubarak Kill?
Arab Dictators Will Fall Like A House Of Cards

Mubarak's fall is not about Egypt, it is about the Arab world at large. Gaddafi has to go. The Saudi king has to go. The king in Jordan has to go. The dictator president of Syria has to go. I don't even know the names of all sorts of small league motherfuckers who rule the smaller countries in the region like those countries were family property. All of them have to go. Just leave.

I am needed. I have done this before, though the scale of what is happening now is much larger than what I did in 2006. I have decided to slow down a little in terms of the running commentaries on all things tech I am used to delivering at this blog. I am going to pour more time into my other blog, Barackface. That's my politics blog.

50 Hours Into One Five Minute Pitch

I might have a major pitch/presentation to make some time next week. And I think I will be putting about 50 hours of work into it. A lot of it will be bifurcated blogging. When I talk about the state of the global microfinance industry, that is a public blog post. But then the DNA formation that is taking place for my startup, that is stuff for my private blog.

There is also the no small matter of having a slide deck. I am not a huge fan of PowerPoint presentations. You can pack more into one blog post than you can into 50 slides. But slides have their place. And people still ask for them. So what I have come up with is a hybrid model. You get a slide deck, some words and phrases there link to some of my blog posts.

Turning The Table Upside Down With Food

Cover of John LennonFood/Social = Physics, Coding = Mathematics
Project Noah: FoodSpotting's Sibling Company

Food has been a weapon for sexism for the longest time. You are a woman, you belong at home, you need to raise children, you need to be in the kitchen, you need to cook. Food.

Raising children is such a beautiful experience, John Lennon took five years out of his life to raise his son full time. But that same act can be used as a weapon of sexism. It has been.

You reject food, you reject children. You take a stand. That was one thread of feminist protests a few decades back. You don't marry.

Project Noah: FoodSpotting's Sibling Company

Image by Nic*Rad via FlickrI just showed up at Fred Wilson's blog, and read through his post for the day. I quit coffee, but have not quit Fred Wilson's blog that I visit near daily. You know I visited because I leave a comment at the bottom of every post I read. I check in the AVC community way.

So I am reading the post and I am thinking, I just found a sibling company to FoodSpotting. Instagram is a sibling company to FourSquare, Project Noah is a sibling company to FoodSpotting.

This is exciting, and underestimated. This is nothing less than a quiet revolution. My first event of the ongoing Social Media Week was the FoodSpotting/Whole Foods panel. I blogged afterwards. I started working on another post right away but never got to completing it. And I am going to cannibalized that for this post. Or maybe it will stay a separate post, my next post: Turning The Table Upside Down With Food.

Food/Social = Physics, Coding = Mathematics

Met The Sixth Bihari

Cover of Denise RichardsI showed up for what I thought was a panel discussion on Assange and Wikileaks earlier in the day, instead much of the discussion was about denial of service attacks.

But the Q and A session surfaced the sixth Bihari I have met in America. The dude went on and on about how great Bihar was but global media, social and otherwise, had not been paying attention to the glorious history and greatness of the 80 million Biharis. It was one of those and your question is moments. My man. Fellow Bihari.

Slumdog Millionaire: A Movie About My People
Third World Guy

Tweet Pitches To First World Women

Image via CrunchBaseI just sent out tweet pitches to every Twitter handle I could get hold of on this page: A Field Guide To The Female Founders, Influencers And Deal Makers Of The New York Tech And Media Scene.

These First World women need to be caring about my Third World women, and my FinTech startup would be a great way to do that.

Tweet 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21.

Seven Social Media Week Events

Image via WikipediaI tried very hard to limit myself to few Social Media Week events this year. First I decided on one: the party Thursday. Then I added one more. Then one. And I am like, that's it. But now looks like I will have attended seven Social Media Week events by the time the week is over, one of them on LiveStream. That counts. I got to witness the entire panel discussion, and got to ask a question on Twitter.

This morning the UN panel discussion was great, except the moderator chunked off the Q and A session. What a bummer. I approached him later and asked the question anyway.

"What is happening in Egypt right now, we did this successfully in Nepal in 2006. I was the only Nepali in America to have worked full time for it. We did good. That inspired protests in Tibet and Burma, both of which were mercilessly crushed. Iran's was another failure in 2009. Tunisia was a success, but Egypt is struggling. Social media is important. My blog was my primary tool when I did what I did, not phone calls, although those I did, not events, I attended quite a few. But at the end of the day social media is just a tool. Ultimately the challenge of a political revolution and of confronting the ugly, concrete versions of sexism in some parts of the world are social and political in nature. The solutions are primarily political. Would you agree?"

Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Food/Social = Physics, Coding = Mathematics

Image via WikipediaEinstein, the most celebrated physicist in human history, my favorite Dead White Male, started out struggling with maths. Much later in life he liked to joke that he was still struggling with maths. Early memories die hard. The key mathematics that gave shape to the Relativity, he had to ask around for. A mathematician friend of his led him in that direction.

What Einstein started with was physics. It really bothered him that light rays bent near the sun and no one had bothered explaining why.

Coding is like mathematics. Social is the physics. And the buzz is not here yet beyond a very small circle right now, but food's day will come. If you think about it, food has a very, very special place in the social universe. Food is the crown jewel. By the time you get to the level of food, social becomes dazzling. It becomes like watching the night sky if you are fascinated by stars.

I got a glimpse of that dazzle when I attended the FoodSpotting/Whole Foods panel this morning at 95 E Houston. I was amazed by the venue. It seems like Google is not the only dog in town with an office building that occupies an entire block.

2015: A Mobile Tech Company Will Storm The Room

Image by Emiliano Elias via FlickrYou did not foresee Netscape in 1990, or Google in 1995, you did not foresee Facebook in 2000. I have a feeling there will be a similarly monumental mobile tech company that will enter the scene around 2015. It is hard to predict what shape or form it will take. It is even harder to locate the founder. But she/he will sure worth be betting on, even if you can only come into her round two, or round three. But such visionaries are hard to locate even when they have already entered round three.

Over time I am going to try and foresee the details of such a company. But I admit right now I have no clue. Broad generalizations don't count. But let me take a crack at the situation.

Could You Have Predicted A Google In 1990?

Image via WikipediaOr a Facebook in 2000? I think not.

Predicting the far future is not hard, it is impossible. Or at least it is impossible according to the fractals theory by one of my favorite thinkers Mandelbrot who died a few months ago.

Fractals: Mandelbrot
Fractals And FoodSpotting

I like Eric Schmidt, but nobody has the crystal ball to see the technology scene as it might stand 50 years from now. Even broad generalizations are hard to make. Specifics are outright impossible.

Nelly Furtado: Night Is Young

Chairlift: Bruises

The Bird and The Bee: My Love

Kylie Minogue: Get Outta My Way

How Steve Jobs Gets Things Done

I found this amazing article in a tweet by angel investor and entrepreneur Hiten Shah. I follow The Angel List on Twitter. Go read the full article.

The Entrepreneur Does Have A Boss

Image via WikipediaA lot of people have this misconception that people who don't like to have to answer to bosses start their own companies. Entrepreneurs don't have bosses.

Perhaps it is the case that the entrepreneur does not have a boss. What the entrepreneur has is a goddess: the market. As an entrepreneur you have to meet your numbers. As long as you meet your numbers, you are in good shape.

Entrepreneurs do get fired. All the time. The entrepreneur version is to go out of business. The goddess can get mad at you and wipe you out.

There is a reason most people are not entrepreneurs. Someone once said being an entrepreneur is like being gay, it is not like you have a choice. I think there is some truth to that. It is a personality type thing. Some people are just more bent on doing the entrepreneur thing.

Shhh, Don't Tell Anybody

Don't tell anybody, I am going to a Wikileaks event.

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.

You Have To Be A Little Wild

Image via WikipediaYou have to be a little wild to be doing the tech entrepreneur thing.

For one, the risks are high. All else equal you will more likely fail than succeed. The success stories make it to the press. The sob stories? There's not enough newsprint on the planet. And it is not one risk, one hump you get over. There are risks after risks after risks. Every step of the way. It is roller coaster. If you are not going to enjoy the ride, the solace of some day reaching the destination might be false. You might never get there. The journey is where it is at. The journey itself is the reward. If you don't think so, get into another line of work.

You have to be able to look at the establishment and look the other way. You have to be able to look at the status quo and sneer. You have to jolt. You have to give them the finger.

A Rationale Or Two For Blogging

Image via WikipediaFred Wilson: Do You Ever Get Bored Of Blogging?

I left this paragraph as a comment in reply to this blog post by Fred.

You have said a few times that you could not do your work without your blog. That is the best rationale I have seen for your daily blogging. True for me as well. My blogging is integral to my work. I am early stage, so I am even more dependent. Blogging is also like working out for the mind. It feels like doing push ups and is great fun. Blogging is one of my favorite things to do online. I would be a less intense consumer of content if I had not been an avid blogger.

Smartphones: Cheap Is Good

Image via CrunchBaseThe idea is to get the phone out to as many people as possible. If almost everybody has a smartphone then we are talking. Then we got critical mass. And the way to get there is through super cheap smartphones. I am glad we are headed that way.

GigaOm: The Future of Cheap Androids Begins Now

we’ll need to see unsubsidized handsets priced at or under $100 that can be used on a month-to-month basis ..... in Europe and elsewhere, it’s not uncommon to buy a phone, then purchase a SIM card from whichever carrier is currently offering the cheapest voice and data rates ..... By 2013, we expect 1 GHz smartphones to be available for $100. ..... By the end of this year, I expect to see no-contract Android devices costing $99 or less, paired with reasonably priced pre-paid plans.

The worst idea the smartphone industry ever came up with has been the two year contract. Phones go stale in six months, a year max.

Do You Use Hashtags In Emails?

I found myself using a hashtag in an email recently. First time. But I liked doing it. I wrote a few lines of email, and then I put down the hashtag at the end which captured the entire email in one word. I felt good doing it.

Honeycomb: Looks Like Finally Google "Gets" The Tablet

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeGoogle likes to iterate. They will put out something lousy. And finally on the fifth attempt they will get it right. The iPad had no real competition for an entire year. But now looks like that is about to change.

TechCrunch: First Impressions Using Android Honeycomb, Google’s iPad Rival

I am someone who has never bought an Apple product. I love Google like some people love Apple. It is the web thing. I like Google's thing for the web.

Metallica: Seek And Destroy

Looking For A Super Bowl Watch Party To Go To

Image via WikipediaI am not all that into football. I am more a World Cup Soccer kind of guy. I don't even know who is playing who on Sunday. But I end up liking the commercials. And I am on a lookout for a Super Bowl Watch Party to go to.



Almost every thing I know about football comes from one Al Pacino movie. I get it. Alright, I get it.

Atmosphere: Freefallin'

The Phoenix Foundation: Buffalo

Peter Bjorn And John: Second Chance

Bright Eyes: One For You, One For Me

(Via Fred Wilson)

A MeetUp Pivot

Image via CrunchBase

New York Observer: Screw Meetup: Organizers Up In Arms Over Redesign: In the new redesign, ordinary users can arrange for events, leading some to declare that organizers have been downgraded to moderators..... less than 1 percent of organizers active on Meetup have complained or commented on the redesign .... a simple solution. “If they don’t like users organizing events, they can just turn it off. It's a feature organizers have full control over.” .... "As we see how people are using the new tools we will keep iterating to simplify and improve the experience."

People love the Facebook newsfeed today. It is central to the Facebook experience. But when Facebook first introduced it, there was major ruckus. It is inertia. People dislike change. They are used to doing things one way. They would like to keep doing things the same way.

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.

The Chrome Browser At 10%

Image via WikipediaLast I checked, it was at 5%, but even back then it deserved to do better. Next thing you know it will have hit 20%. Chrome has nowhere to go but up.

InfoWorld: Chrome breaks 10 percent browser market share for the first time

Chrome is the browser I use. It is minimalist. It is fast. It does not feel like there is anything at the top. All you get is the web. I like that.

Google calls it a "modern" browser.

Google's dragging its feet on the Chrome OS Netbook is unforgivable. That is what will take the Chrome browser roaring into the 20s and 30s and beyond.

Mark Zuckerberg Loves Union Square Ventures

Union Square Ventures: You Love Me, You Love Me Not

Mark Zuckerberg saw Twitter and he liked it immensely. Today the news feed is central to the Facebook experience.

He saw FourSquare and he liked it immensely. The world got Facebook Places.

Now he has a crush over Disqus, it seems like.

Zynga has been a major money maker for Facebook.

All of these are Fred Wilson's portfolio companies.

Facebook Going After Disqus Now?

Facebook Going Into Blog Comments Is Huge

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeFacebook Going After Disqus Now?

I have said several times at this blog that if Google wants to "get" social, it needs to go into the blogosphere. But now looks like Facebook is about to beat Google there too. This is a really, really smart move on the part of Facebook.

Non Profit Microfinance Vs For Profit Microfinance: The Stupid Debate

Image via WikipediaThere has been a stupid debate going on for a few years now that has taken new life the past few months. There is a school of thought that says microfinance can be non profit and non profit alone.

There has been some serious abuse of microfinance. A lot of MFIs - microfinance institutions - have been messing up the last mile in serious ways. Charging ridiculously high rates is one of them. Some debt collection methods have been shady.

Facebook Going After Disqus Now?

Image by skidder via Flickr

Caroline McCarthy: Facebook's next big media move: Comments: Facebook is planning to launch a third-party commenting system in a matter of weeks ..... This new technology could see Facebook as the engine behind the comments system on many high-profile blogs and other digital publications very soon....... it's an obvious and direct competitor to start-ups that provide commenting technology, like Disqus and Echo. With Facebook Places adopting much of the "check-in" methodology that smaller competitors Foursquare and Loopt offer, and Facebook Questions operating in the same space as Quora

Facebook Places did not kill FourSquare. Actually the day Facebook Places launched, FourSquare had its biggest day to that date. I expect something similar to happen to Disqus.

On the other hand, I really like the idea of comments sections at blogs where people necessarily have to use their real names. I think that would enhance the quality of comments.