Carpet Bombing Angels

Image via WikipediaI reached out to a whole bunch of my followers on Quora earlier today seeking 5K type angels. I have about 800 followers. I don't know how I got them but they are there.

If I missed any of you, let me know, I'd like to pitch you too. :-)

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NOLOH: Not One Line Of HTML

NOLOH was conceived in the Spring of 2005 out of the frustration on the part of a talented young developer, Asher Snyder, who didn't know enough not to ask hard questions. After beating his head against a web programming challenge that would have been trivial in a desktop application Asher wondered, "How come writing Internet applications that have sophisticated user interfaces like desktop applications is so difficult?"

Hackers And Founders MeetUp: Amazing

Facebook Comments To Go: Facebook Nailed It

Image via WikipediaFacebook Messages got touted by the media as the Gmail killer. Well, I have been using it, it is great, but it is no Gmail killer.

TechCrunch: Facebook Rolls Out Overhauled Comments System (Try Them Now On TechCrunch)

I have not used the Facebook Comments thing yet that you are supposed to be able to have added to your blog, but I am liking the description of it. I think Facebook nailed it.

The FoodSpotting Android App Is Here

Image via CrunchBaseTed Grubb: the man behind the myth.
Spotted Blog: The FoodSpotting Android App Is Here!
Mashable: FoodSpotting Comes To Android
Fred Wilson: Mobile Notifications
TechCrunch: Android Users Get An Official Taste Of Foodspotting Just In Time For SXSW

The iPhone app took FoodSpotting to 600,000 downloads and counting. The recent Instagram integration - Instagram is on its way to overtaking FourSquare and Gowalla combined - is worth at least a million downloads. And this Android app is worth 1.5 million downloads and on.

I say power to the people. Power to the masses.

Now launch a campaign for food trucks that says FoodSpotting Certified!

Scoble, Get Out Of Town

The Top Quora User Scoble Agrees With Me, But I Disagree With Him

My Failures

Image via WikipediaMy first step into tech entrepreneurship was in the late 90s. I was not the leader of the team, but I was a founding member of a team, lead by an Indian American woman out of Philadelphia, that was trying to build the top South Asian community online.

The company raised 25 million dollars round two and dutifully succumbed to the dot com bubble burst. What ensued was a nuclear winter.

She suggested I drop out of college. I should have. It is not like I was having fun in Kentucky: I hated the place after my first year. Over a year after I left promising to come back after graduation, the thing had already disappeared.

Indian Hurdle

Image via WikipediaKiva has not been able to enter India. That is sad. (Source: Quora)

Bihar, Darbhanga
Incredible India
Advantage India, Disadvantage India
Having Kenya And Chinatown Thoughts

Night Sky

Lake Tahoe Milky Way Night Time Lapse from Justin Majeczky on Vimeo.

Watch full screen.

The Angel List Controversy, Fred's Marketing Controversy

Image by Lachlan Hardy via FlickrThere are two major controversies raging in the blogosphere right now. One is to do with The Angel List. The other is to do with our own Fred Wilson's blog post about marketing. Fred has started a s_itstorm by suggesting the best tech startups don't need marketing budgets. In fact, that is how he spots a great tech startup when he sees one.

The Angel List controversy I am sanguine about. I don't see two sides to the argument. There are many ways to invest. The Angel List is just one of them. Efforts like The Angel List have surely democratized the investment climate for the early stage startups. But there are old school holdouts with proven track records who think the process at The Angel List is too diluted. You can't really find nuggets of gold there.

I have said before that I don't expect an iconic company like Google, Facebook to emerge out of Y Combinator. But Y Combinator has been a great entrance to the scene. The majority of startups are not going to go IPO. And Y Combinator works great for such middling efforts.

Santogold/Santigold: Brooklyn Anthems

Brooklyn And Santogold/Santigold
Barack Is Going To Need Me All Over Again

Brooklyn And Santogold/Santigold

Image by The U.S. National Archives via FlickrSantigold: MySpace, Wikipedia, YouTube

Barack almost took Brooklyn during the February 2008 primary. Things were looking so bad before the primary day, Congressman Weiner urged Hillary to make an appearance in Brooklyn, and she did.

I moved to New York City summer of 2005 and placed myself in the smack center of the borough.

Darabi Hits Top 5 Again At This Blog

The first time was here. Never underestimate the power of a controversy to generate page hits. More page hits from a magazine article controversy than from World FoodSpotting Day.

Bihar, Darbhanga

Image via WikipediaI am increasingly thinking in terms of India. More specifically the great state of Bihar. Specifically my birthtown of Darbhanga. I am thinking in terms of Darbhanga as the place I want to start with.

I know the terrain. I know the state language, the national language, the local languages.

India has been the largest microfinance market in the world. Bihar is India's poorest state.

But I need to do my homework first.

Twitter Is Amazing For Networking

Image via WikipediaTwitter is absolutely the best tool out there for networking. Because it is so low pressure. There is much power in 140 characters.

You do have to know the kind of people you are looking for. In my case I am looking for angel investors. There is The Angel List that everyone knows about. Recently I created one called NYC Angels.

You try to enter into the conversation. Once you locate the herd where you want to hunt, you start replying to tweets. You read articles people have tweeted, and you write back your comments. Most of the time you will get ignored. The fish don't bite. And that's okay.

But I got one big shot to agree to meet me. And I am in talks with another with whom by now I have moved over to email. There is rapport.

In Foley Square A Libya Feeling

Image by Rob Blatt via FlickrI have been obsessed with news about Libya. So when I showed up for the Foley Square rally to express solidarity with Planned Parenthood earlier today, I kept thinking about Libya.

This event had enormous buzz. When you hear about an event on Facebook, and PlanCast, and over email and maybe one or two other ways, you know something's going on. And this rally was as big as I expected it to be. Looked to me like the entire New York congressional delegation was there. And many other speakers.

Incredible India

"I want to be a truck when I grow up."

A Gurkha Joke

Image via WikipediaMore people from Nepal died in the two world wars than people from any non warring country. The Nepalis fought on the side of the British. The feudal rulers of Nepal kept the British in India happy by supplying soldiers.

When Thatcher invaded the Falkland Islands in the 1980s, the Gurkhas were at the forefront of the swift victory. It is said they ran with their knives/khukris, not guns.

The politics of fighting for another country is another topic. And I have my views. But for now, here's a joke.

This was World War II. The British were busy defending themselves in Burma. One Gurkha got lost in the jungles of Burma in the north. After long weeks of walking he finally showed up in the capital city of Rangoon, down south. He was asked, how did you do it? How did you make it all the way to Rangoon?

"That was not a problem, Sir," the Gurkha soldier replied. "I had a map."

The officer took a look at the map. The guy had a really old map of London with him.

Guns Of Brooklyn: Santogold

With shared music tastes - if this is any indication - Fred, I might even let you invest in my company! ;-)



(Via Fred Wilson)

Soraya Darabi In New York Magazine

Foodspotting Co-Founder Soraya Darabi Likes to Pick Food Off Other People’s Plates, Doesn’t Advocate Gummy Bears for Lunch

A Tweet From Someone Running For Congress

My Reply

Hackers And Founders MeetUp: Amazing

Image via CrunchBaseLast night I dropped by the Hackers And Founders MeetUp after a long gap of months, and it was just an amazing experience. It was about how I felt - very comfortable - and the people I met - fun and interesting and amazing - and some work leads I was able to generate. I might have found myself a business consulting gig. And I am constantly on a lookout for people to grab. If I can't get them in round one, I will need them in round two. That tends to be my attitude.

My Secret Desire To Become A Great Cook

Image via WikipediaI harbor secret desires to become a great cook and a great dancer. But the definition to both are very, very specific to me.

I want to be able to cook super healthy. I believe that has to be the starting point. But then you also have to take into account taste.

And looks like Google has news for me.

Wired: Google Recipe Search Cooks Up Next Gen of Search: Google introduced a recipe search engine Thursday that serves up dishes based not only on the ingredients you may have on hand, but the calories you want to consume and even how much time you have to cook. ..... About one percent of the queries on Google are for recipes ......

I Knew Google Would Deal With Content Farms

Image via CrunchBaseAbout a decade ago when blogs became popular as a platform, the blogosphere started seriously skewing the Google search results. Google took care of that. Google made the problems go away. In the recent years content farms have messed things up. I have known all along that Google has what it takes to take care of the problem. And looks like Google just delivered.

Content farms do have their place. But they don't get to skew search results.

The Letter A: Positioning Matters

South By South West
Just Because My Name Ends With An A
Fred Wilson, Soraya Darabi: Both Crazy About Music
Happy FoodSpotting Day Soraya Darabi
Soraya Darabi
Social Media Is For Real

South By South West

Bloggers' Block For Fred Wilson: 10 Blocks Of Emergency

Image via WikipediaI learned the top VC blogger in the world has hit some kind of a bloggers' block. That is an emergency situation, people. I am declaring an emergency for 10 blocks in every direction from Union Square. All startups in the vicinity, please take note.

You are being urged to participate in the comments section here. If you don't, the emergency is not going to be lifted. And you are going to be deprived of your daily staple of blog posts from Fred Wilson. Think about that.

Not Rich Yet

Image via WikipediaI am not rich yet, and it really, really bothers me.

For me it is about the power. The power to run and grow a corporate organization. The power to do good. The power to go after the stated mission of curing poverty.

Unless you yourself can create serious wealth, how can you claim you are in the curing poverty business?

Democracy + Education + The Market = Wonderful Things.

Microcredit is only a small part of microfinance. Microfinance is only a small part of the many tools needed for the War On Poverty.

Wordpress For Mobile App Creation

Image via Wikipedia

ReadWriteWeb: Like WordPress for Mobile App Creation: Cabana is a Service to Watch: Is it possible for a visual drag-and-drop mobile app creation tool to deliver a sophisticated product? ..... Drag and drop addition of features like a camera, check-ins on services like Gowalla or Foursquare, integration of the Instagram photo API and many more things are possible. ..... There is a clear demand for this kind of light app publishing technology

This is the future people. Until the mobile web attains the same levels as the big screen web, we will need apps. And just like every offline business needs its own specific website, the mobile phone app has become the equivalent of the website on the big screen web. And the only way to meet that demand would be through services like this that promise to take the wizardry out of mobile app creation. Anyone who can drag and drop should be able to build an app.

Like David Noel?

Twitter thinks I am like David Noel? Why would Twitter think that? I'd not have thought that myself.

Michael Yavonditte: An Exemplary Entrepreneur/Investor

If you don't have a Twitter handle, you are not in tech, period. You do not exist. You are a figment of my imagination. And a Twitter handle is so much easier to give out. And your Twitter page should allow for more in depth getting to know. Hashable knows all this.



Tweet 1
Tweet 2
Tweet 3
Tweet 4
Image via CrunchBaseTweet 5
Tweet 6
Tweet 7
Tweet 8
Tweet 9
Tweet 10

Just Because My Name Ends With An A

Image by Felipe Beiza via Flickr

Black Buddhas: The Madhesis Of Nepal: Documentary

Black Buddhas

Third World Guy
Rootlessness And The City
Met The Sixth Bihari
Slumdog Millionaire: A Movie About My People

Social Media Is For Real

I am not getting this. I think you have to be global at many levels to truly appreciate social media. I don't feel any kind of a "multiple edentity disorder." Social media makes me whole. Minus social media I feel all too fragmented.

I was born in India. I grew up in Nepal next door, attended high school in Kathmandu, not my hometown, came to America for college at a time when I could not have told you the cultural differences between Kentucky and California. A one year crash course in Kentucky's social conservatism cured me of that fast.

Cultural differences are for real. As of today I don't give two hoots - absolutely don't care - about anybody's birthday, not mine, not anyone else's. That does not make me an uncaring person. That means I grew up in a culture that celebrates festivals, not birthdays. They say every single day in Nepal somewhere a festival is being celebrated.

Advantage India, Disadvantage India

Image via WikipediaI first thought in terms of India. An Indian does not need to look far and wide to find poverty. It's right there. It's right there in the backyard. India has the vast majority of the dollar a day, two dollars a day people.

I'd start out by knowing the culture. I'd know the language. And when I say that I mean to say English also, not just Hindi, not just Maithili and Bhojpuri. India is the biggest English speaking country in the world.

And there is the size. I could take the company IPO based just on Bihar. Bihar alone is that big. It would make sense to polish the basic business model in Bihar and then take it to Africa, rather than otherwise.

India is a vibrant democracy, the biggest in the world.

Top Discussion At A Top LinkedIn Microfinance Group

Image via WikipediaA discussion I started a week ago (and kinda forgot about) at a LinkedIn group with over 1200 members has become the top discussion at that group. The group is Microfinance Focus. This activity has made me take a serious look at LinkedIn for the first time. This thing is working, yo.

This has also made me look at India all over again. India was the country I started with in terms of where I wanted to go. But I was advised that the Indian government makes it very hard to bring money into the country. It is much better to start with some middle income country in Latin America. So I am thinking Costa Rica, more recently Paraguay. Much more recently I have been thinking Kenya. But I have had this gnawing feeling that a Bihari needs to be thinking Bihar.

Slumdog Millionaire: A Movie About My People

Raising Money, Building Teams

Rootlessness And The City

Image by joiseyshowaa via FlickrI was born in India. I grew up in Nepal next door. I came to America for college. When I was applying for colleges while in Nepal, I did not have a favorite college in mind. I liked all sorts of colleges. Every prospectus I picked up I absolutely fell in love with. Now I realize what I was really applying for back then was to get into New York City. People who go to all those colleges all end up in New York City.

I have something akin to a PhD in race relations. There is the conscious level of the mind, the subconscious level, and there's deeper stuff. Racial identity can inhabit the mind at several levels. That's what makes a white guy high school drop out detain the top movie star in India for an hour at the New Jersey airport. Your name is Khan? You must be a terrorist.

Libya On My Mind, Libya On Your Mind

Image via WikipediaRight now is a great time to follow me on Twitter. I have been reading up on the Arab democracy movements and sharing the links with abandon. I have also been blogging. My blog posts automatically show up in my Twitter stream.

2011 is 1989. This is big, this is historic. This will be a year to remember. Nothing like this has happened in Arab history ever before.

I am thinking Libya. I am thinking Saudi Arabia. Heck, I am thinking China, and I am thinking Burma.

Pray for Libya. Meditate for Libya. Every ounce of mental energy counts. It does not matter where you are. People braving the streets deserve to be in your thoughts.

And, yes, Iran's time will come all over again. 2009 was not a wasted year. That was dress rehearsal.

Two Events: Global Impact With Social Media, Digital Dumbo

So I am doing the Monday morning thing of opening up the email from Charlie O'Donnell. His weekly events newsletter is the best thing Charlie ever did.

Charlie Bit My Finger

Charlie Bit My Finger

Charlie O'Donnell At His Inspiring Best
The Most Popular Dish In New York: Shake Shack Burger, Madison Square Park
General Assembly: Singing Praises

The top commenter at the blog This Is Going To Be Big has been blocked from leaving comments at the blog. It happened around FourSquare Day last year. I gladly shook Charlie's hand at the FourSquare Day Party completely unaware he had gone ahead and blocked me at his blog not long before that.
Image via Wikipedia
"Life is unfair."
- JFK

No URL Bar: Big Change

Image via Wikipedia

Conceivably Tech: Google May Kill Chrome URL Bar: he elimination of the URL bar, which could be the most significant UI change to the web browser since its invention. ...... aim to increase the viewable space for web and application content. ...... Chrome led the pace, but it is IE9, which has the most efficient UI at this time, in terms of available pixels to web content. ...... The classic navigation version, compact navigation, sidetab navigation as well as a touchscreen version. ...... The compact navigation model would only have one line and place the navigation buttons, a search button, tabs and menus next to each other. The URL bar is gone and the URL of each tab is not visible at all times, but only displayed when a page is loading and when a tab is selected. ...... allow users to open multiple Chrome windows and apply different users to them. For example, if you use multiple Google accounts, you have to sign out/sign in between different accounts. Via multiple profile support you will be able to be signed into different accounts in parallel and use them at the same time – in different browser windows. ........ future Chrome windows will show the Google account name not just in the window when you are on a Google page, but in the browser windows itself next to the window control buttons minimize/maximize/close. ....... If a user closes all Chrome windows and the reopens a window, then the window will assume the identity of the most recently closed window. If a user closes three windows with three different identities and the reopens three windows, the windows would assume the identity of the three identities again

It is great to see Google want to keep innovating in the browser space. Having more real estate when you are browsing helps. Being able to access multiple Google accounts is a big one. It is not unusual for people to have a private Gmail account and also a work account on the Gmail platform these days.

Microfinance: No Substitute For Good Governance

Image via WikipediaDemocracy is basic. I am a firm believer in democracy. The year a country becomes a modern democracy is year one in that country's life. Lack of democracy, bad governance, massive corruption, and civil war are situations that are not within the domain of the microfinance industry. Basic good governance is critical for the microfinance industry to have a playing field where it can start performing, it can start to lift people out of poverty in large numbers.

There is plenty of diversity within the microfinance industry. There are many right ways. And microfinance is not the only tool with which to cure poverty. China has lifted more people out of poverty the past few decades than any other country, and it does not even allow MFIs to come in.

Singularity: I Am Not Convinced

Image via Wikipedia

Time: 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal: Kurzweil believes that we're approaching a moment when computers will become intelligent, and not just intelligent but more intelligent than humans. When that happens, humanity — our bodies, our minds, our civilization — will be completely and irreversibly transformed. He believes that this moment is not only inevitable but imminent. According to his calculations, the end of human civilization as we know it is about 35 years away...... computers are getting faster faster ...... Maybe we'll merge with them to become super-intelligent cyborgs, using computers to extend our intellectual abilities the same way that cars and planes extend our physical abilities. Maybe the artificial intelligences will help us treat the effects of old age and prolong our life spans indefinitely. Maybe we'll scan our consciousnesses into computers and live inside them as software, forever, virtually. Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us...... even though it sounds like science fiction, it isn't, no more than a weather forecast is science fiction ....... it will be the most important thing to happen to human beings since the invention of language...... He holds 39 patents and 19 honorary doctorates. In 1999 President Bill Clinton awarded him the National Medal of Technology...... The Singularity Is Near, which was a best seller when it came out in 2005 ..... Bill Gates has called him "the best person I know at predicting the future of artificial intelligence." ..... In real life, the transcendent man is an unimposing figure who could pass for Woody Allen's even nerdier younger brother. Kurzweil grew up in Queens, N.Y....... someone who gives 60 public lectures a year..... technological progress happens exponentially, not linearly. ....... Exponential curves start slowly, then rocket skyward toward infinity....... We will successfully reverse-engineer the human brain by the mid-2020s. By the end of that decade, computers will be capable of human-level intelligence. ...... 2045 .... the quantity of artificial intelligence created will be about a billion times the sum of all
Image via Wikipediathe human intelligence that exists today....... Once you decide to take the Singularity seriously, you will find that you have become part of a small but intense and globally distributed hive of like-minded thinkers known as Singularitarians. ....... They think in terms of deep time, they believe in the power of technology to shape history, they have little interest in the conventional wisdom about anything, and they cannot believe you're walking around living your life and watching TV as if the artificial-intelligence revolution were not about to erupt and change absolutely everything........ When you enter their mind-space you pass through an extreme gradient in worldview, a hard ontological shear that separates Singularitarians from the common run of humanity. Expect turbulence....... Proponents of seasteading — the practice, so far mostly theoretical, of establishing politically autonomous floating communities in international waters ........ After artificial intelligence, the most talked-about topic at the 2010 summit was life extension. Biological boundaries that most people think of as permanent and inevitable Singularitarians see as merely intractable but solvable problems. Death is one of them. Old age is an illness like any other, and what do you do with illnesses? You cure them. ....... The mice didn't just get better; they got younger....... damage can be repaired periodically. This is why we have vintage cars. ...... Kurzweil has published two books on his own approach to life extension, which involves taking up to 200 pills and supplements a day. He says his diabetes is essentially cured, and although he's 62 years old from a chronological perspective, he estimates that his biological age is about 20 years younger....... Once hyper-intelligent artificial intelligences arise, armed with advanced nanotechnology, they'll really be able to wrestle with the vastly complex, systemic problems associated with aging in humans....... t many people who are alive today will wind up being functionally immortal....... People invested a lot of personal effort into certain philosophies dealing with the issue of life and death. I mean, that's the major reason we have religion." ........ strong AI or artificial general intelligence, doesn't exist yet. ..... there are things going on in our brains that can't be duplicated electronically no matter how many MIPS you throw at them. The neurochemical architecture that generates the ephemeral chaos we know as human consciousness may just be too complex and analog to replicate in digital silicon...... Multiple biochemical processes create chemical modifications of protein molecules, further diversified by association with distinct structures at defined locations of a cell. The resulting combinatorial explosion of states endows living systems with an almost infinite capacity to store information regarding past and present conditions and a unique capacity to prepare for future events." That makes the ones and zeros that computers trade in look pretty crude. ...... introducing a superior life-form into your own biosphere is a basic Darwinian error....... Markram has said that he hopes to have a complete virtual human brain up and running in 10 years ..... In Kurzweil's future, biotechnology and nanotechnology give us the power to manipulate our bodies and the world around us at will, at the molecular level. 
Cover via AmazonProgress hyperaccelerates, and every hour brings a century's worth of scientific breakthroughs. We ditch Darwin and take charge of our own evolution. The human genome becomes just so much code to be bug-tested and optimized and, if necessary, rewritten. Indefinite life extension becomes a reality; people die only if they choose to. Death loses its sting once and for all. Kurzweil hopes to bring his dead father back to life...... Within a matter of centuries, human intelligence will have re-engineered and saturated all the matter in the universe. ....... There are more than 2,000 robots fighting in Afghanistan alongside the human troops...... Nothing gets old as fast as the future...... Singularitarianism is grounded in the idea that change is real and that humanity is in charge of its own fate and that history might not be as simple as one damn thing after another.

I could run at two miles per hour. I could run at three miles per hour. If you extrapolate that then I should be able to run at 60 miles per hour. But I don't think that is happening.

I have not read enough on the topic, I have not read much at all. So these are my first impressions.

Besides my idea of singularity is end of poverty, a total spread of democracy, universal broadband, things like that.

Larry Wants To Become A Household Name

Image via WikipediaLarry Ellison for a brief period became the richest person in the world, and he very much continues to be one of the richest. But he never became a household name like Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg, for that matter. If it is any solace to him, the two Google founders or Eric Schmidt did not become household names either.

The thing about Oracle is the largest database company in the world does background work. Windows is in your face. But the software that processes your credit card transactions stays out of sight.

When Vinod Khosla Took A Break From Tweeting

I sent out a tweet to Vinod Khosla. Chances are he never saw it. But for a guy who had been tweeting near daily to that point took two weeks off after that. That is not a good sign.

Aggressive Fundraising, Aggressive Recruiting

I sent out this tweet to an angel investor yesterday.

Alexa Is Paperless (5)

Alexa Is Paperless (1)
Alexa Is Paperless (2)
Alexa Is Paperless (3)
Alexa Is Paperless (4)

City Bakery After PaperlessPost
Dumbo And Union Square
Friday 2 PM On: PaperlessPost.com
Alexa's PaperlessPost
Alexa Hirschfeld: CNN 2010 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever