Netizen

Friday, June 11, 2010

Employment Authorization Card: It's Here

So my Employment Authorization Card arrived earlier today in the mail. What that means in my case is I can't go anywhere outside America for the next year. As a practical matter, I don't see me going anywhere outside New York City. There is so much to explore right here.

But ultimately I do want to have been to all parts of the world just like I have been to all parts of America. I got time. I plan on staying thin.

Then I show up in immigration court in June 2011 and hopefully the judge waves a magic wand and turns that piece of paper into a green card. Then I become eligible for entrepreneurship. Before that I get to blog about it.

The next best thing to entrepreneurship is joining a small, early stage team. You can not be the founder, but you sure can be a founding member.

There has been more drama behind this little piece of paper than I would have liked. But I am glad to have it in my hand. Now let's go get a job.

"I will prepare and perhaps my time will come."
- Abraham Lincoln

Lady Liberty Whispers
Immigration Status
Job Search
June 3 Immigration Court Date

Tomorrow

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

World Cup 2010: Into Africa - Two Teams, One Cup

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far

World Cup party
Saturday, June 12, 2010 from 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM (ET)
The Parlour Bar
250 West 86th Street (at Broadway)
Downstairs
New York, NY 10024

Firing Founders: Mostly A Bad Idea

Image by Annie Bannanie 09 via Flickr

Because-I-can is not a wise use of power.

My first disagreement with Fred Wilson, expressed at some third party blog, about a year ago, was with his assertion that there was too much money in the venture capital business. I find tremendous overlap between his and my thought processes most of the time, and I respect him as a person through our disagreements, and I sure admire his work, but I think I just came across my second major disagreement with Fred.

Fred Wilson: Parting Ways With A Founding Team Member

Fat Can Work, But Lean More Often Does

I am going to paraphrase my summary statement from an earlier debate where I was on Fred's side: firing a founder can sometimes become necessary, but that has to be the exception rather than the norm. Fred seems to think that has to be the norm.

If I look back at our most successful investments over the almost 25 years that I have been in the venture capital business, almost every single one of them has seen a founder or critical founding team member shown the door as the company scaled. It's almost inevitable.

And here Chris Dixon and I seem to stand shoulder to shoulder. I have disagreed with Chris before, fundamentally: Chris Dixon On Twitter: Not Impressive.

(W)ow, Fred, I've never disagreed with one of your posts as much as I do (with) this one. (U)nless a cofounder is deliberately underperforming or engaging in terrible behavior etc you should never fire him/her. (P)ut them in a different role or something if they can't manage/scale.

There are a few things Fred is right about. One, that letting go of an early team member is not easy. And he has put in a lot of sense into how to do it. If you do have to let go a cofounder, do it right. Do it fast, and be generous in the process.

I am in favor of vesting more stock than is contractually obligated to be vested. And severance so the person can take some time and decompress is another way to be generous. Most of all, be generous with the way you talk about the person's contributions. Call them a founder if they are a founder. Recognize their contributions both internally and externally and continue to do so. And help them find another situation where they can work their magic again.

What he has not talked about enough although he has touched upon it is the circumstances in which the cofounder has to let go. He makes it sound like this has to be routine practice, and I find that alarming.

Fred, I guess I see your point to an extent, I can see some instances where a cofounder might need to go. But I'd see your side better if you were to also talk of instances where a founder's departure was a really bad idea. Famous example: Steve Jobs and Apple. A recent example and close to your home: Etsy. Sometimes a charismatic cofounder might be "did in" just because he/she was not adept at the smoke room politics of a big team.

And he has not talked about the alternate which Chris Dixon touches upon. There are alternatives to let go. You could create a new, smaller role for that early team member.

My argument is not that this firing should never happen. I am suggesting this has to be rare, and there has to be a healthy debate as to what the circumstances would be that would warrant such a let go.

Severely diluting angel investors and mercilessly kicking out early team members is not venture capitalism, it is vulture capitalism. All the top tech companies of today have had their founders intact. Sometimes venture capitalists kill or stunt the growth and promise of companies they invest in with their unwise use of power: because-I-can.

Mozart died an early death because he was a creative genius who could not have been adept at the brute force ways of the dumb people around him.

Steve Jobs getting fired by Apple was a terribly bad idea. I have been angry at that Pepsi guy this entire time, and I am someone who has never bought an Apple product. A recent example close at home: why was the Etsy founder brought back? It is a DNA thing. There are people who are good at managing, and good at managing at big scales, and are good at scaling, but they lack the DNA, and that is why they did not start the company they now work for. It is tempting to give all the power to those technocrats, but that can be defeating. You trade muscle for essential DNA.

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..."

On that note, I am for a much simpler, transparent formula for the investment climate. That probably is another blog post.

Paul Allen left early for health reasons. Bob Miner was not fired by Larry Ellison, he left on his own. Steve Wozniak, it can be argued, did not scale either. These incidents do not prove Fred Wilson's point, they only disprove another of his pet points, that a company must have a Co-Founder. That is my third major disagreement with Fred. Every historic company has had this one key, indispensable member. That second person was a junior member, an early member, but not a Co-Founder. Companies are not founded by Siamese twins. But, again, that would be another blog post altogether.

Ben Horowitz: Why We Prefer Founding CEOs: The conventional wisdom says a startup CEO should make way for a professional CEO once the company has achieved product-market fit. .... The macro reason: that’s the way most of the great technology companies have been built ..... founding CEOs consistently beat the professional CEOs on a broad range of metrics ranging from capital efficiency (amount of funding raised), time to exit, exit valuations, and return on investment. ..... why are great technology companies so often run by their founders? And why do professional CEOs sometimes succeed? ...... Professional CEOs are effective at maximizing, but not finding, product cycles. Conversely, founding CEOs are excellent at finding, but not maximizing, product cycles. Our experience shows—and the data supports—that teaching a founding CEO how to maximize the product cycle is easier than teaching the professional CEO how to find the new product cycle....... innovation is the most difficult core competency to build in any business. Innovation is almost insane by definition: most people view any truly innovative idea as stupid, because if it was a good idea, somebody would have already done it. So, the innovator is guaranteed to have more natural initial detractors than followers. ........ the founder’s courage to innovate despite the doubters. ....... Comprehensive knowledge .. Moral authority .. Total commitment to the long-term ..... Great founding CEOs tend to have all three and professional CEOs often lack them. ...... This knowledge is nearly impossible to replicate. Without it, thoughtful people lack the courage to bet the company on entirely new directions......eems totally natural that Larry Ellison transformed Software Development Labs from a consulting business into a software company called Oracle ....... An excellent example of existing, invalid assumptions paralyzing a whole set of companies recently played out in the music industry. ...... Despite this dynamic history, modern record company executives badly missed the most sweeping technical innovation—the Internet. How was that possible? By the time the Internet arrived, all of the original founders of the record companies had been bought out, retired, or died. The new, professional CEOs were unwilling to let go of the most basic assumptions driving the cost structure of their businesses........They were proficient at running the current business, but lacked both the courage and the moral authority to jeopardize the old business model by embracing the new technology. ...... Hastings wasn’t married to the old distribution model precisely because he invented it. ...... Any serious innovation requires a heavy investment. Beyond the up-front cash, costs may include lower growth, bad publicity, and internal grumbling as existing features atrophy. Recently, we’ve seen Facebook’s founding CEO Mark Zuckerberg make a series long-term bets........

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

“I always say that the person who stuck an online banner on a phone should be shot.”
- 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.”

Finally Google Has Figured Out A Way To Keep Up With My Blog

Image via Wikipedia

For the longest time I have wondered why my blog posts don't show higher up in the Google search results. For a few days about a year ago Google had me happy. When I did a search on Cupcake Android or Donut Android, I showed up among the first few results. I expected my page hits to jump into the hundreds of thousands. It did not happen. It took me a while to get a sense that Google results are tied to zip code, or something like that. So it was not like everyone in the world who was doing a search on Cupcake Android or Donut Android was seeing my blog on the first page. So I have been lukewarm about FroYo.

But 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

Scott Contrarian Heiferman Does It Again

Image by jdlasica via Flickr

Scott blew it last night at the NY Tech MeetUp. There were some great demos for sure including one with a HTML 5 inkling: Thumbplay. And it was great to see Tikva Morawati's KnowMore.com up there. I told her last night I will be at Ignite NYC tonight, but I can't be: something came up that will have me tied to 10 PM. Nate showed up in formal attire last night: that was a letdown for me personally. His trademark jeans and shirt with the cut on the sides, the curve cuts look better, I think. But I am all for trying out new looks. Iterate.

So 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

The Highlight Of My Internet Week

Image of Anu Shukla

The highlight of my Internet Week has been my two hour lunch Monday with Anu Shukla at Tamarind. She is just this fun, cheerful person. And she has Sabeer Hotmail Bhatia stature in entrepreneurship. It feels great to be friends with her. She happened to be in town, and we had lunch we had been planning to have for months. The lunch had nothing to do with Internet Week, of course. It just happened to happen on the first day of Internet Week.

Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla

Pages

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Hey Now, Hey Now

Friday, June 11, 2010

Employment Authorization Card: It's Here

Tomorrow

Firing Founders: Mostly A Bad Idea

Venmo Me For My Charm

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Randi For Reshma

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Buzzd Party Thursday

Finally Google Has Figured Out A Way To Keep Up With My Blog

Scott Contrarian Heiferman Does It Again

The Highlight Of My Internet Week

Pages

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Friday, June 11, 2010

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