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.