I Must Really Like Movies

Super Bowl reminded me of the Al Pacino movie Any Given Sunday. Valentine's Day reminded me of the movie The English Patient. I must really like movies.

These two are two of the very best movies out there.

The English Patient stands out. It is one of the very best movies in its genre, if not the best. There are a few scenes - one in particular, the thimble scene - that make me cry. The opening act is a class act. Ugh, that music.



The EnglishPatient
Looking For A Super Bowl Watch Party To Go To

Just Found Out Mike Hudack Is Also A High School Dropout

Dropping out of high school is obviously not enough. You also have to go ahead and create a Blip.TV or, in David Karp's case, a Tumblr. But I just now found out Mike Hudack is a high school dropout. Wow.

I knew the name for a while. And I had followed him on Tumblr a while. I had seen him in a video online, he was on some kind of a panel. He came across as a man to watch. There is this raw intensity an entrepreneur throws out like a halo. This guy definitely had it.

Cheaper iPhone: Way To Go

Image via CrunchBase

Forbes: Apple: Cheaper iPhone Could Expand Addressable Market By 6x: expand distribution to more carriers .... add the 8 largest carriers that do not currently offer the iPhone .... address the mass market by offering a reduced price version of the iPhone ..... the company is considering doing just that. The new version of the phone would have a much smaller screen size, and be sold to carriers for about half the price of the current iPhone ...... Apple’s move downscale would involve a non-data plan phone. ..... iPhone 5 .. to arrive in June ...... an iPhone without a data plan. “Like the iPod Touch, this device would be able to handle music, movies, Internet (via WiFi or cellular), and third-party apps” ..... such a phone could sell for $149 and $199 at retail and require only a voice plan

An iPhone actually costs as much as a cheap Dell laptop. Think about it. That is ridiculous. You feel like you paid $200, when you actually paid more like $500. They put you on a monthly plan. Every month you pay a little bit for two years. It is like buying a house. The house takes 30 years, the iPhone takes two years. That is ridiculous.

Apple should try but I believe the mass market already belongs to Android. The neutered iPhones that Apple intends to serve for lower prices will be matched, have been matched by fully functional large screen Android phones in those same price ranges. Why not buy a full phone for cheap? Why buy an iPhone?

The Bitly Story

The Bitly of today was not the Bitly that got launched. Bitly was launched by visionary founders as a site where if you got bit by a dog, you would take the picture of the dog, the bite, and your face in pain, and you would post the pictures online to share with the world. That was the idea. But it was way ahead of its times. The word spotting had not been invented yet.

And so Bitly pivoted and became the URL shortener that you know today. And it has been quite a success, would you say?

Alexa's PaperlessPost

Image via CrunchBaseI first met Alexa Hirschfeld when she was sitting on a panel during Social Media Week 2010. We have met here and there, stayed in touch, an email here, an email there. I brought this idea months ago. I said let me do a few blog posts about your startup. Finally looks like I get to do it. We are meeting Friday. She says they just moved to a new office. It is near Union Square. Most tech startups in Manhattan are near Union Square for some reason.

This is not going to be an act of journalism. I am not a journalist. This is not a professional blogger out to gather material either. This is one tech entrepreneur reaching out to another. But this is the age of social media, so it is not just going to be a let's-catch-up kind of conversation. The conversation will happen and then it will spill over to my blog, which is just fine by Alexa.

A Small, Historic EatUp

So around noon I showed up. Oleg was there, his wife was there, his brother was busy serving.

Amy Cao of FoodSpotting showed up. This was not my first time seeing Amy, but this was my first time talking. And we talked at length.

There was this guy. He said he was just passing through town. He was in the city for a few months. He showed up. He said he knew Amy from meeting her at a few events.

So when it was time for the group photo, it is this guy and me, with Amy taking the shot. And I am feeling a little awkward. I hope she got the truck in the background. The truck matters. I am just an eater.

Both the dude and Amy took pictures of my food. My lunch was on the house.

Amy and I first talked on Twitter. Then I saw her briefly at the FoodSpotting panel the first day of Social Media Week, but did not get to talk.

Microfinance: The Basics

Image via WikipediaThe basic premise behind microfinance is simple: access to credit is basic, it is a human right. You give people three tools - education, health, credit - and they fly. Traditional credit has depended on your ability to put down some collateral. And that has cut off a large swath of humanity. There are over a billion people who live on less than a dollar a day. There are over two billion people who live on less than two dollars a day.

Yunus in Bangladesh has proven the default rate among these small borrowers tends to be really, really low. 98% of those who borrow pay back. That is a much better rate than rich people and corporations in New York City. Their default rate is higher.

So what gives? Why were mad men bankers pouring trillions into real estate and shady finance tools a few years back instead of pumping that money into microfinance? Stupidity. Racism.

You can't build enough schools and colleges and print enough textbooks on time. But you can hope to take everyone online. Similarly microfinance has to be taken to all those people. Microfinance is the ultimate fishing net.

When Zuck's Facebook Account Got Hacked

BBC: January 26: Facebook blames bug for Zuckerberg 'hacking': Facebook has said "a bug" was to blame for an odd posting purporting to come from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. ..... Overnight, the cryptic message was posted to the Facebook fan page in the name of the 26-year old billionaire founder. .... It called for the site to become a "social business" with investment from its users. .... The message, left in the name of Mr Zuckerberg, read: "Let the hacking begin: If Facebook needs money, instead of going
Image via Wikipediato the banks, why doesn't Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? ..... "Why not transform Facebook into a 'social business' the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it?" ..... Muhammad Yunus is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the founder of the Grameen Bank, which offers small loans to people who have no collateral to get started in business...... The message also linked to a recently edited Wikipedia article about social business and asked readers: "what do you think?"

The English Patient

The Google/Facebook Of Microfinance

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

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

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

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

2015: A Mobile Tech Company Will Storm The Room

Leave Yunus Alone

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

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

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