Good things can happen at a Buzzd party. (Buzzd Party Thursday) If you need to know, my Venmo handle is the same as my Twitter handle which is my first name. (@paramendra)
Finally Google Has Figured Out A Way To Keep Up With My Blog
The impending Age Of Abundance was prophecied in the scriptures thousands of years ago.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Venmo Me For My Charm
Good things can happen at a Buzzd party. (Buzzd Party Thursday) If you need to know, my Venmo handle is the same as my Twitter handle which is my first name. (@paramendra)
Finally Google Has Figured Out A Way To Keep Up With My Blog
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Randi For Reshma
Dear Paramendra,
My name is Randi Zuckerberg. I was born and raised in New York, attended school in New York City, and currently lead political, media, and non-profit initiatives for Facebook. Like you, I'm very excited that Reshma, at age 35, can become the youngest woman in the House of Representatives.
Reshma truly embodies the qualities of a candidate for this generation: young, energetic, whip smart, and compassionate. I've been very impressed with Reshma's smart use of social media, fully integrated into her campaign. Reshma listens to her constituents, empowers her supporters to help spread key messages, and uses Facebook and other powerful tools to include everyone in the political process.
No matter where you live, supporting candidates like Reshma is important to all of us. Please help to spread Reshma's message to everyone you know!
How can you help?
1) Connect with Reshma on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/reshma2010 by clicking on the "like" button
2) Once you "like" Reshma's Page, click "suggest to friends" link under Reshma's photo and invite your friends to support Reshma as well.
3) Update your status on Facebook with a link to Reshma's Page by typing @Reshma and choosing Reshma's Page in the drop down menu that pops up. (very cool feature that not too many people know about!)
4) Make a contribution to ensure that Reshma's campaign keeps gaining momentum! Every donor counts, no matter how big or small.
5) Sign up to petition and help get Reshma on the ballot!
6) Be responsible for getting five people you know in New York registered to vote and out to the polls on September 14th.
Thanks so much for your support -- I could not be more excited to support such a smart, talented, accomplished woman on her journey to Congress. We'll see you on Facebook now, and in Washington soon after!
Best,
Randi
P.S. Please read Reshma's smart op-ed in The Huffington Post today about education: "Don't Just Reform Our Schools...Transform Them"
Support the campaign by making a contribution and volunteering.
Signup for email updates at reshma2010.com, or stop receiving email updates here.
You can also follow @reshma2010 on Twitter or Facebook.
Reshma Saujani: Don't Just Reform Our Schools .... Transform Them (The Huffington Post)
..... performance-based teacher evaluations and expanding the cap on charter schools ...... New York's children lost out on the first opportunity to secure $700 million in essential educational funding. ....... We are on the verge of graduating the first generation of Americans that will be less literate than the one before it. ...... we need to move past 20th century battles and get serious about 21st century transformation. ...... I wouldn't be running for Congress if my public school teachers didn't let me stand on their shoulders and see the world. ....... . In New York City, teachers are given lifetime tenure after only three years of teaching and layoff decisions are made on the basis on tenure, not performance. ...... I propose creating a Teachers to the Top program to provide Race to the Top grantees with supplemental teacher training in data management, performance tracking, and technology. In addition, we must re-balance our evaluation system from a high-stakes "testocracy" to one that more holistically measures student growth and performance. ...... Another myth is that reform is about charters schools versus traditional schools. ...... Charter schools are publically funded institutions that are privately operated, with stricter data-driven accountability and usually a non-unionized environment. ..... I propose creating RAISE, or the Readying all Instructors and Schools Exchange, an online platform facilitated by the Department of Education to promote collaboration and best practice sharing of successful instructional and school management strategies among all schools. ...... 21st century skills, such as technological fluency, financial literacy, and foreign language training. ....... ensure that every child participates in arts, music, and physical education classes and has access to healthy meals and after-school programs. ..... an era when new industries can emerge, evolve, and dissolve in one lifetime, learning cannot stop at high school - or even college. We must re-conceptualize workforce transition and continuing studies education. .......
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
Buzzd Party Thursday
Image of Nihal Mehta- Buzzd Co-Founder and CEO Nihal Mehta.
TechCrunch: Buzzd Aggregates Check-Ins From Foursquare, Gowalla And Others In Social City Guide
Adotas: Mehta Has Always Been Buzzd On Mobile Marketing
“Since ‘01 we’ve been saying ‘Next year is going to be the year of mobile!’ And next year always is — the next year always doubles.”
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Finally Google Has Figured Out A Way To Keep Up With My Blog
Image via WikipediaBut now news is Google is out with Caffeine. I mean, I am on Google's Blogger platform for a reason. I did not go for WordPress. I figured if I am already on Google property they will have no excuse not to index me as soon as possible, sooner the better.
I see Caffeine as Google's way of saying thank you for using our blogging platform. We are going to try and remove a few more layers between you and your potential audience. There are bloggers who blog daily. In the recent weeks I have been doing more than that. I have been blogging several times a day on average. That is profuse. I am glad Google has now enhanced its capabilities for the growing web. I blog often, I often have smart, insightful things to say. I share interesting uptakes on tech events in town. What's the use in not sharing?
Google, thanks for catching up. Keep up the good work.
Via TechMeme
The Official Google Blog: Our New Search Index: Caffeine: Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish. ..... With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally...... Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day.
The Official Gmail Blog: Making It Easier To Video Chat, Voice Chat, And Group Chat In Gmail
The Chromium Blog: An Update On Google Cloud Print: Google Cloud Print, a service that enables any app (web, mobile, desktop), on any device, OS, or browser, to print to any printer. Development is progressing quickly and we are now testing the service internally at Google ....... Google Cloud Print will work with all printers, including those that are not themselves web-connected (we call these “legacy printers”). ....... Today, HP announced a full suite of cloud-aware printers ranging from $99 consumer printers to business-oriented printers. This pioneering work is a big enabler for the cloud print vision and all these printers will work with Google Cloud Print out of the box.
Electronista: Skype Won't Use FaceTime, Still Hints At iPhone 4 Video Chat
Search Engine Land: Google’s New Indexing Infrastructure “Caffeine” Now Live: Google’s Matt Cutts added that “Caffeine benefits both searchers and content owners because it means that all content (and not just content deemed “real time”) can be searchable within seconds after its crawled.” ...... Caffeine is a revamp of Google’s indexing infrastructure. It is not a change to Google’s ranking algorithms. It is live across all data centers, regions, and languages. ..... you can estimate how often your pages are crawled by taking a look at your server logs or checking the cache dates in Google ....... ......Content owners will reap the benefits of Caffeine without doing anything at all. In fact, there’s really not much, if anything content owners can do.
Bing Community: Use Bing To Search Facebook And Twitter: bing.com/social ..... a re-designed homepage that shows improved trending topics derived from both Twitter and Facebook data
TechFlash: Bing Updates Social Search, Adds Top Facebook Shared Links: a new section of search results on its Bing search engine that will aggregate tweets, Twitter trends and the top links being shared at any given moment by users of Facebook
Twitter Blog: Links And Twitter: Length Shouldn't Matter: Since early March, we have been routing links within Direct Messages through our link service to detect, intercept, and prevent the spread of malware, phishing, and other dangers. ...... We want users to have this benefit on all tweets. ..... It should be easy for people to share shortened links from the Tweet box on Twitter.com. ...... When this is rolled out more broadly to users this summer, all links shared on Twitter.com or third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL. ..... Ultimately, we want to display links in a way that removes the obscurity of shortened link and lets you know where a link will take you. ..... routing links through this service will eventually contribute to the metrics behind our Promoted Tweets platform and provide an important quality signal for our Resonance algorithm ....... analytics within our eventual commercial accounts service. ..... Ultimately, every link on Twitter will be wrapped. ...... we'll wrap the shortened links you submit.
Advertising Age: AOL To Hire 'Hundreds' Of Journalists, Reorganize Content Division: grouping all the sites into 17 "super-networks." ...... one overarching conclusion: produce more content, faster. ..... to be the world's largest producer of high-quality content ....... "We are going to be the largest net hirer of journalists in the world next year" ....... produce content they want, which leads to engagement, which leads to what advertisers want ..... will also look to new launches, acquisitions and partnerships ....... Currently there are about 40,000 freelancers contributing to AOL ......... the number of people that click, how long they stay, and the amount of ad revenue associated with it. ...... Yahoo is now calling itself "the world's largest media company" ...... Like AOL, Yahoo has concluded that its original content performs and monetizes better ...... a key rationale for acquiring Associated Content is the sheer number of contributors (340,000) on its freelance rolls.
Paid Content: David Eun Puts AOL On A URL Diet With ‘Super Net’ Strategy: the new AOL content structure—a slimmed-down 30-plus sites channeled into 17 “super” networks— ..... the previous URL-based approach with more than 80 distinct sites ...... —AOL News & Info, AOL Entertainment, AOL Life, and AOL Commerce (plus the AOL.com front page as its own)—but with a TV-like emphasis on programming and production. ...... bringing together the best of media and technology. ...... the company has shifted the ratio from 20 produced internally to 80 percent produced in house...... “You iterate, gather intelligence. Iterate, gather intelligence. Rinse. Repeat.” ...... the digital media company of the 21st century. ...... “we will end up having the most amount of content at the deepest level to drive the most engaged audiences on the web.” ...... a data driven way to organize around the most important networks of information. ..... more than 100 million uniques in the U.S. and some 250 million globally
GigaOm: How Zynga Survived Farmville: “Zynga has been horrible in terms of its ability to predict its success,” said Williams, the company’s VP of network operations. Not that it’s a bad problem to have. Under his watch, Zynga has grown from a few dozen servers to “several thousand” ...... without Amazon FarmVille would have failed ...... Zynga uses Apache PHP on the front end, memcached for active user play and MySQL on the back end. ..... Post-FarmVille, Zynga has a new model for rolling out game launches. ..... tries to maintain a 50-50 split between using EC2 and data centers
TechCrunch: Zynga’s FrontierVille Looks To Recreate The Success Of FarmVille In The Wild West: It’s been almost exactly one year since social gaming powerhouse Zyngaunleashed what was destined to become an online phenomenon: FarmVille.
The Daily Beast: John Sculley On Why He Fired Steve Jobs: “I haven’t spoken to Steve in 20-odd years,” Sculley tells The Daily Beast. “Even though he still doesn’t speak to me, and I expect he never will
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Scott Contrarian Heiferman Does It Again
Image by jdlasica via FlickrSo Scott Heiferman smashed Dawn Barber's iPad with a sledgehammer. I ran into Dawn later.
"Are you guys still friends?" I asked her.
Scott was offering the 2010 version of that famous 1984 ad, of course.
Scott presented MeetUp Everywhere.
And then he introduced ThePoint.com guy. Ends up that site did not take off. So they launched a side project that did take off: GroupOn.
"I started out wanting to change the world," he lamented." And I have been reduced to dealing with coupons."
Most startups fail, but the trick is to rise from the ashes.
At one point Scott called AVC.com "a stupid blog." Then he whispered, "I should not say that. He is one of my investors."
The Highlight Of My Internet Week
Not MeetUp
Women In Tech-Media Event At JP Morgan: Internet Week
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far
The Biggest NY Tech MeetUp Ever?
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever
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The Highlight Of My Internet Week
Image of Anu ShuklaAnu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla
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Tuesday, June 08, 2010
Not MeetUp
After Entry Level Jobs, An Internship
Lady Liberty Whispers
Entry Level Jobs
Job Search
Me @ BBC
Not Union Square Ventures
There is an old Indian school of philosophy - and old in India means thousands of years - called Neti, Neti, not this, not this.
Women In Tech-Media Event At JP Morgan: Internet Week
Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far
Neha Chauhan is a great Moderator. This was my second Chauhan event, and it was just great. She has this ability to bring together a great group of panelists. And I like her emphasis on women. I am for a healthier male female ratio across the board. That has to be extra true for tech and media. New companies can not replicate the sexist social arrangements of old companies.
Mostly the panelists talked about their work, their challenges and dreams, and those are for the most part gender neutral. And the question answer session later was as robust as the first part of the program. I was mesmerized by the intellectual oomph of many of the things the panelists had to say. These were go getters. They were entrepreneurs. They might not always get it at first try, but get they will.
The final part was when you mingle. That is an important part. Time permitting I relish that part as I did with this event. That is a great time to ask the panelists a few more questions and meet some of the people in the audience. It was a house full event.
I was so glad I showed up. And I had the honor of sitting one seat in front of the moderator's mother who was skillfully handling three different cameras. I got to meet a panelist mother later who I told she looked like the Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. Hello Jordan. Jordan Reid was also at the Social Media Week panel put together by Neha Chauhan back in February.
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever
In my question from the floor I focused on one of the themes of the evening, that many, many more men are coders, and so they have an edge in tech. I don't believe that to be true. Being an entrepreneur is a higher level skill than being a coder. More than 99% of coders go work for someone else. They can be hired. The important part is can you put together a full team that also includes coders, that is the real challenge. A full team will have tech people, and marketing people, and designers, and what not, but the leader of the team has to bring all that together. And that leadership can be provided as well by women as men. If you need developers, and you have to hire male developers, hire them. There are plenty of those around. What we don't have enough of is people who start and build companies. We need more women entrepreneurs.
Event: Women in Tech-Media
Date: Monday, June 7, 2010 from 7-9pm
Location:
277 Park Avenue
2nd Floor
New York NY
Speaker bios:
Jennifer Hyman has been the Chief Executive Officer of Rent the Runway since the company's founding in November 2008. She is responsible for all areas of the business including technology, fashion, sales, marketing, operations, customer experience, and people management.
Jennifer founded Rent the Runway with her Harvard Business School sectionmate Jennifer Fleiss. They received funding from Bain Capital in May 2009 and launched the site in early November 2009. Rent the Runway is a members-only fashion community that launched in November 2009 with the goal of building customer loyalty for designer brands by enabling a woman to rent a dress before a special occasion in her life for 4 days only.
As a "Netflix for fashion" Rent the Runway is trying to give women access to the "Carrie Bradshaw closet" and encourage them to experiment with new trends, colors and designers without the guilt of a dress she's only going to wear once. Rent the Runway's launch was met with accolades from the NYTimes, the fashion media and blogosphere and already has over 425K members.
Before Rent the Runway, Jennifer was the Director of Business Development at IMG where she focused on the creation of new media businesses for IMG's Fashion Division. She also ran an online advertising sales team at WeddingChannel.com and before that, she was an in-house entrepreneur at Starwood Hotels, creating new leisure business for the company, including a wedding business that was recognized on Oprah for its innovation.
Jennifer received her BA from Harvard University and MBA from Harvard Business School. She is on the Board of an all girls public school in Brooklyn. She currently resides in New York City where she enjoys the entrepreneurial lifestyle, neighborhood restaurants, socializing with friends and family and all things fashion!
Dorothy McGivney worked for almost six years at Google until a serious case of wanderlust sent her on a trip around the world. After spending the better part of a year visiting destinations like Patagonia, Nepal, and Japan, she decided to combine her background in online advertising with her passion for exploring to create Jauntsetter, a travel site and e-newsletter for New Yorkers.
Jordan Reid founded RamshackleGlam.com, a “Haphazard Guide to Happiness,” in March 2010, shortly after departing her position as the resident Lifestyle expert at NonSociety.com. At RamshackleGlam.com, Reid’s focus is on home décor, style, entertaining, cooking, and do-it-yourself projects, as well as advice for couples in committed relationships.
A 28-year-old Harvard grad, Reid has been a part of the social media world since August of 2009, when she decided to turn her love for creating an exceptional home environment into a full-time gig. Reid immediately developed a passionate fan base of over 70,000 readers per month, with whom she corresponds on a daily basis about everything from relationship troubles to cooking tips.
Reid self-produces a webcast, “Ramshackle Glam with Jordan Reid,” that can be seen on Vimeo, YouTube, TheGloss.com, and Reid’s own site. She is a writer for Cosmopolitan, TimeOut NY, TheGloss.com, and Styleite.com. Reid is also a regular Lifestyle correspondent for BetterTV, and has appeared on MSNBC, VH1, NBC’s New York NonStop, and Exclusiv, among other nationally and internationally syndicated lifestyle programs.
On Ramshackle Glam, Reid has conceptualized and executed successful ad campaigns for companies including TJ Maxx, Starbucks, Bloomingdale’s, KAO Brands, Rambler’s Way, Melrose Street Clothing, and Perfume.com.
Tammy Tibbetts created She’s the First, a global campaign that promotes the importance of educating girls in the developing world. With an education, every girl has a chance to break barriers and become “the First” to achieve her special goals. Shesthefirst.org leverages young women’s passions and networks offline and online via social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube) to fundraise for sponsorships that will send girls to school.
Tammy works for Hearst Magazines Digital Media, where she led the creation of DonateMyDress.org, the nonprofit site of Seventeen’s Teen Network. She has created multiplatform, interactive web experiences for teen girls, for which she's managed partnerships with music and retail companies, local schools, and dress drive organizations nationwide. She is also Director of Operations of the MacDella Cooper Foundation, which supports vulnerable children in Liberia, and serves on the Foundation Board of New York Women in Communications. She is a Phi Beta Kappa journalism graduate of The College of New Jersey.
Neha Chauhan (Moderator) is currently an investment banking analyst at JPMorgan, having joined the company after graduating from Harvard University in 2008. With a background in technology and web design, Neha plans to launch her own new media venture early next year. Outside of the new media sector, Neha’s prior work experience includes internships at DANNIJO Jewelry, Bank of America, 85 Broads, L’Oreal Paris, and the Office of Senator Hillary Clinton. In her free time, Neha works closely with the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, specifically on initiatives for young people. She is interested in social entrepreneurship, and most recently launched a microfinance pilot program in Panajachel, Guatemala. To combine her interests in technology and philanthropy, she developed My Social Impact, a website that uses social media to track social impact. Neha organized this year’s Women in Tech-Media event for Internet Week NY.
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Monday, June 07, 2010
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
Me @ BBC
What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger
Chris Dixon On Twitter: Not Impressive
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
Paul Graham: Y Combinator
The only guy in the video I don't know is the guy in the middle, Malcolm In The Middle. Who is he?
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Zuckerberg Has Stature
Image by deneyterrio via FlickrD8 Conference Speakers
Mark Zuckerberg is the Steve Jobs for his generation. 10 years from now he is still going to be CEO of Facebook, and he is still going to be doing wonderful things. The Facebook of today is the Mac computer. He still has the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad in him somewhere.
I admit to totally having missed out on the brouhaha surrounding him and his company the past few weeks. One reason might be because my privacy settings on Facebook have been set to Everyone for a long, long time. I have hundreds of friend requests from people I don't know. I did that for them. If you want to take a look at my pictures of New York City, be my guest. On the other hand I have one photo album that I have shared with only three people.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison's 1995 Network Computer Vision
Yesterday I added the Like button to my three blogs. I have been meaning to do that since the Facebook F8 Conference. I would like to see that Like button next to every article I read on the web. Before this button I had to bring articles of interest to me that I wanted to share into my stream using clumsy techniques. It felt like trying to blog on the Geocities platform. Having the Open Graph feels like having access to the Blogger platform, finally. I really like the Like button. Is there a button for that I can click on?
Why Will Facebook Itself Not Do Facebook Enterprise
Facebook And Twitter Suck When It Comes To Searching Their Own Sites
Time, Facebook Connect, And Comments
Tweets And Facebook Updates: The Mumbojumbo
The FriendFeed, Facebook Merger
Facebook Landgrab: A Friday Midnight Call
Facebook And Mashable: Social Media And Social Media Blog
Is Google Wave Social Enough To Challenge Facebook, Twitter?
Facebook's Ad Space Is Different
Facebook Faceoff Firefox
Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter
What Should Facebook Do
TweetDeck, Power Twitter, Twitter Globe, Better Than Facebook
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Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Image via WikipediaI did 1,000 crunches before I showed up, and here was Fred Wilson trying to impress me and a few Indians with yoga talk. There is a Bruce Lee school of thought. Your tummy muscles are the most important. If you want to feel the strength, do your crunches.
I did my 1,000 crunches, had my lunch. I was sweating like Mark Zuckerberg by the time I headed towards the train station. Zuck has proven beyond doubt genius is 99% perspiration. (The Hoodie)
I thought I was running a little late. The place was downstairs, in the basement. It was dark. When Fred showed up half an hour later, he was like, "Ugh, this place is so dark, I needed to be here at 2 AM instead."
It took you about five minutes to get your eyes adjusted to the light. I caught both Fred Wilson and Scott Heiferman during their first minutes. I had the advantage of well adjusted to the dark eyes.
"Are you coming Tuesday"? Scott asked me.
"Of course I am coming. Absolutely," I said.
Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far
I briefly talked about Reshma 2010: Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly.
"The Scotts in the Bay Area are behind her," I said: Jack Dorsey, Randi Zuckerberg. "We need to get behind her here too."
Scott is one of the earliest people I got to know after I moved to New York City. Every time we meet, we meet like old friends, but I have never been able to get him to reply to my emails, most of which have been FYI emails anyways. I have long made peace with that as a productivity issue for him. The circle he maintains email communication with must be tied to his work. And I am glad. Look at the distance MeetUp.com has covered in five years. Scott in many ways is the original tech entrepreneur in town. The NY Tech MeetUp he launched has been a major platform. If no longer saying hello to me will mean MeetUp.com goes to ever newer heights, I will happily swallow that pill too. Scott is one of those people who can make it sound like "change the world" is not a cliche phrase.
This was a few years back. A friend told me Scott was number five on the list of the top people in tech in New York City, as put together by the Silicon Alley Insider. I was like, no way. But I know the guy!
Today I told Scott I had applied for a MeetUp.com job, but Greg told me it was an entry level position.
"It does not have to be," Scott said. "Good luck."
That is Scottspeak for MeetUp.com has a department that handles the hiring decisions, I hope they like your application. I liked the spirit in which it was said.
"Honored to be meeting you for the first time," I said to Fred. "I watched your debate online. You won easy. But you did have a hometown advantage."
disrupt on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free
He was as gracious as possible before, during and after the debate. He has been the exact opposite of Mike Tyson after a victorious championship fight. He maintained that mode in his response.
"It was not much of a debate," he said. Talking to a group of Republicans about tax cuts is not hard, he has insisted.
He got hold of his name card as if anyone there needed to know what his name was or what he looked like, then he went to the bar to grab a soda, walked back to me and said, "Who put this together? Who organized this?"
He sounded puzzled as much as curious. I could have burst out laughing right there. I did not know. I took a guess and pointed at two important looking guys. Maybe them? Then I spotted Shana. I motioned her and asked her. She took him to the guy who had organized the MeetUp.
People got together in small groups. People moved around. Fred moved from group to group. I mostly wanted to listen to what he had to say. He was relaxed, and he was making insightful comments about some of his portfolio companies, and some of their founders.
The Gotham Gal did not show up because she was busy cooking for a party they are throwing Tuesday evening, Fred said. I have not visited her blog nearly as often as I have visited Fred's whose blog I visit almost daily, but when I have visited her blog I have learned a lot, perhaps more than from Fred's blog because she touches upon topics I know very little about, stuff like the local non profit scene, for example.
At one point I found myself with these three other Indians, two business partners, the leader of the team was married to this young woman who had made it to the interview phase of the two job openings at Fred's VC firm.
I got to meet the Columbus, Ohio, woman who is now in the Analyst position. Fred said one of the new hires is going to be bi-coastal, maintaining apartments in both the Bay Area and in New York.
So Fred walks over. He says he just wanted some water. I pass on the message. I get a glass of water in my hand, I pass it on to him. He sits down. A small crowd forms around him, about 10 people.
There is this discussion about the entrepreneurship scene in India. There is some frank talk. Some of the Indians volunteer to say things can get rough. The bureaucracy can be a nightmare sometimes. Society is more hierarchical. The culture is more sexist. The venture capital industry is not there yet. It can prove hard to pay your electric bill. They don't want your money. And if you don't pay, they cut off your electricity. But there are rewards to being able to navigate the culture. Labor is cheap and top quality. I said a high school friend of mine tried it in the US, that did not work, now he works his dot com based out of Kathmandu, and it has been working wonders, making him a lot of money. The guy gets on national television there, I said. That would be Kathmandu.
He talked at length about Twitter and David Karp of Tumblr. Twitter is set to do $100 million in revenue, but could they do a billion, he asked. He said Karp had that personality type that is the entrepreneur personality type. Every conversation he has with you he is trying to sell you something, either he wants you to invest in him, or he wants you to partner with him, or he wants to sell some idea.
He also pointed out New York is not there yet when it comes to the tech startup culture that the Bay Area has. Culture is really the word.
Fred said he was making an effort to get more software engineer graduates from the top schools to end up in New York City. That is another thing I really like about Fred. He loves this city. Look at the names of his current and former venture capital firms.
Then he walked over to the next group of people before he walked away. With that final group, there was a spirited discussion about "gold." I was feeling a little lost. Da what? Ends up Fred's blog post for the day that I had not yet read was about gold.
Fred Wilson: Gold Vs Real Assets
These were people who were fond of Fred Wilson. Fond is the word. It was a nice gathering. The gathering was proof a blog is a very real, social entity. It can bring together people. But if Fred had showed up at the San Francisco AVC MeetUp instead, the 100 plus RSVPs would not have been in New York, they would have been in San Francisco.
Fred has his standing in the tech community for work he has done, companies he has invested in. A few years back Geocities had been the best deal he ever did. By now it is between Twitter and Zynga, although the Twitter story is more compelling, and FourSquare could be doing really well in a few years. A Twitter IPO will get the Twitter story into the mainstream. Jack Dorsey talks about Fred Wilson every chance he gets.
I have a feeling after a Twitter IPO he and his firm might reach new heights.
Meeting Fred in person was not dramatic, as in, now I know what he looks like, what he sounds like. After months of reading his blog, I have a fairly good idea of his thought processes. I have watched hours of Fred Wilson videos on YouTube. So I had a fairly good idea of what he looks like, what he sounds like. But there is something about meeting in person. It feels real. Not that he ever felt unreal to me. He is down to earth, normal, pleasant, curious about things, passionate about his work. It is just that his accomplishments are outsize.
During the event I felt a certain tension. I can't be a full fledged tech startup guy right now. That is a year or two away for me. But I advise one startup - PayCheckr - and am in talks to become a full timer with another: TeaSpiller. I am itching to get into the scene.
Larry Ellison's 1995 Network Computer Vision
Lady Liberty Whispers
After the event, around 5:30, I walked over to the Apple store on 14th and 9th. The iPad felt a little heavy in my hand. The virtual keyboard sucks. The thing had to heat up if held long enough. I think the world of Steve Jobs but I don't seem to relate to his products. It is as if he is a great president of a country on a planet I don't live on, or at least a country on a continent very, very far away. I found myself gravitating to a large screen Apple computer with a regular keyboard. I just wanted a browser, a big screen, and a physical keyboard. My fear is they might make the Chrome OS netbooks too small. Got to keep the screen big enough.
From there I walked over to the Chelsea Piers to take in the Hudson. There is something about that smell of water that can collapse time. That water can smell like some of the water from a long time ago.
I walked back to Union Square and went into the McDonald's there. I eat healthy for the most part. But I think it is important to eat one bad meal once in a while.
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Saturday, June 05, 2010
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