June 2012
2 posts
Drownout
Ari Emanuel Is wrong about the following
Cool interview. Insight into the beast - Hollywood. But a fallacious argument that Hollywood believes at it’s peril. It starts with a sound one: in the 90s there wasn’t much distribution for content. Few channels and they had lots of power. The years of tech have changed this - more tech in cable = way more channels and more viewing methods like DVR & of course the massive beast...
Coddling nerdy Engjneering losers like this guy is...
“I think Google+ is an effort that does not deserve the engineering minds at Google. This is mostly a personal bias. I see Google as solving legitimately difficult technological problems, not doing stupid things like cloning Facebook. Google, in my opinion, lost sight of what was important when they went down this rabbit hole.” ...
If you are thinking of starting a "content"...
Don’t. What the Forbes model of contributed content means for journalism by Jeff Sonderman Published May 29, 2012 2:09 pm Two years ago, Forbes.com was a news website like most others . Today, it is less website, more operating system — an underlying layer of technology that hundreds of contributors use to publish independently. Lewis DVorkin , who...
May 2012
38 posts
Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 4 Notes Essay
You startup’s aim is to stake out a little monopoly of something, with helpful guide to lies people tell themselves and each other that make the search for monopoly hard. And, an extremely brilliant section on Tech Frontiers - the area to be hunting in when deciding on your market. http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-cl…
Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 4 Notes Essay
You startup’s aim is to stake out a little monopoly of something, with helpful guide to lies people tell themselves and each other that make the search for monopoly hard. And, an extremely brilliant section on Tech Frontiers - the area to be hunting in when deciding on your market. http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-cl…
Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 4 Notes Essay
You startup’s aim is to stake out a little monopoly of something, with helpful guide to lies people tell themselves and each other that make the search for monopoly hard. And, an extremely brilliant section on Tech Frontiers - the area to be hunting in when deciding on your market. http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-cl…
Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 4 Notes Essay
You startup’s aim is to stake out a little monopoly of something, with helpful guide to lies people tell themselves and each other that make the search for monopoly hard. And, an extremely brilliant section on Tech Frontiers - the area to be hunting in when deciding on your market. http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-cl…
Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 3 Notes Essay
My summary: think of value creation as creating a little monopoly of something. Ignore all that Perfect Competition rhetoric about capitalism. http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/20955341708/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-cl…
Amol at Disrupt
This was fun. It should be weekly.
Favorite from TC: Social Bicycle
This photo brought tears. Really.
A photograph of a young black boy feeling President Obama’s hair has been on view in the West Wing for years. http://nyti.ms/Jqv56y
Bubble index: dumb stuff at TechCrunch
Entourage Beer.
Is it a bubble?
Dinner conversation with - founder of one of the premiere ecommerce companies today who sold early - founder and cto of one of the billion-dollar-club startups to arise lately - meOn the one hand - lots of dumb entrepreneurs and startups On the other hand - a lot more rational “how to take it forward” and will-never-get-an-A-rounds But the smart guys thought lots more dumb stuff than...
TechCrunch Disrupt
Peek is presenting on a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt this week, so I am here today checking out my first TC conference. Exciting. Small. Very small compared to big mobile events like Barcelona. See the full gallery on Posterous
Peter Thiel with some context on IPO pricing
When IPOs got their reputation: It was an unusual IPO because Netscape wasn’t profitable at the time. They priced it at $14/share. Then they doubled it. On the first day of trading the share price doubled again. Within 5 months, Netscape stock was trading at $160/share—completely unprecedented growth for a non-profitable company. Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class 2 Notes Essay...
PG on capitalist values
If Lenin walked around the offices of a company like Yahoo or Intel or Cisco, he’d think Communism had won. Everyone would be wearing the same clothes, have the same kind of office with the same furnishings, and address one another by their first names instead of by honorifics. Everything would seem exactly as he predicted, until he looked at their back accounts. Oops. // Very…Gramsci...
My review of Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup - Class...
Technology is progress that will change the world. Mere copying is boring. Startups are the right entity type to make technology and motivate people: small companies. And the essence of a startup is an insight that others don’t have. So you need to be right but not - again - a copier. http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/20400301508/cs183class1
Bootstrapping vs Monstering
USV: BootstrapA16Z: Monster Bootstrapping With all the talk of massive amounts of cash sloshing around the web/mobile startup ecosystem (including things I’ve said recently), you would think that nobody bootstraps anymore. But that is not true at all. Last week my partner Albert blogged about our most recent investment in Behance. Behance was bootstrapped… ...
Who is nearby?
Every app needs this feature. It’s not an app. It is better as a feature of local apps - like maps or lbs. Make it!
The New Yorker cover nails it, this week
Though it is from an arbitrary week in 2011, it is spot on. The journalism too. Stories about TS Eliot and foraging? Bring it. (Part of my Last Years NYer reading series) Sent from a Peek-like device
What the "giving up citizenship" thing means
It means Saverin made his insane fortune in America, and now he doesn’t want to pay tax on it. He couldn’t have done the same in Brazil or Singapore - cofound Facebook as a college student. Which is why people come to America. And it doesn’t mean he won’t continue to invest in America - he has done so multiple times. It just means once you are very rich, dynastic wealth...
Siri transcribes a song
Singing: Call five mom I I did it all alone and no one helped me all of mine is fine Leybridge long and hard and they just washed me Speaking: All by myself I did it all alone and no one helped me all by myself I did it all alone and they just watched me
How I plan to dress for the Tour de Brooklyn bike...
http://trendoracle.com/301895/the-vintage-four/
Obama wins
Oldie but goodie: Why Wesabe Lost to Mint
My summary is: better product http://blog.precipice.org/why-wesabe-lost-to-mint
Call me using this link
Set up a call with me or just call me — https://clarity.fm/#/amol
Read later battle royale: Startup as craft vs....
I am geniuinely curious whether Instapaper will beat back the extremely good-looking, multi-platform, evidently at-least-somewhat-venture funded attack by Pocket. It’s kind of a Craft vs. Series A showdown.
Queensboro, upper deck
An event filled week with PS1, Frieze, the PEN talk at the Standard, and today this 5 Boro ride. Greatest city in the world!
I am leaving the job market after a long period of...
Take that Obama
RIP MCA
St Ann’s and Stuy t-shirts and the generation raised by the Brooklyn hippies http://m.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sashafrerejones/2012/05/adam-yauch-mca-be…
Trending now
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exquisite_corpse#section_1
Martha Wainright and almost Cibo Matto and...
Memo.m4a Listen on Posterous
The end of Blockbuster
A propos of Netflix doomsaying lately, here is a check to Peek from the BB liquidation. Remember when those guys were going to strike back?
Free Netflix
All these dummies freaking out about the new interest of incumbents in competing against Netflix are wrong. Netflix hasn’t even unleashed Comcast’s worst nightmare yet: free, ad-supported shows.
What I know about you
Here is what I know about you, my email correspondents, via Rapleaf. And for a few dollars more I could know it on a person by person basis. Wow.
Togetherness, 2012
Fact checking TechCrunch and Arrington
Read this review knowing they shut down shortly after. http://m.techcrunch.com/2010/02/03/kwedit-launches-the-first-completely-unrel…
A single essential word scrawled on this meeting...
April 2012
32 posts
A prediction about HTC
After Samsung’s last quarter with the galaxy, I predict that HTC is accelerating their Windows Phone development. How to know? They will have a big new Windows phone launch by September.
The pre-launch original Google Phone was a Peek...
http://www.bgr.com/2012/04/25/googles-original-vision-for-the-google-phone-un…
Jason and DataPop raise $7mm
http://pandodaily.com/2012/04/24/datapop-raises-7-million-to-optimize-online-…
Three more 2011 New Yorkers down: Sep 5, Nov 21,...
March 14Tina Fey excerpt from Bossypants - the best bit really by far - “things Lorne Michaels taught me about management” (how to deal with emotional people). ~so impressed by this I bought her book and read enough that I decided it wasn’t worth continuing~Back to the issue: Funny true humor piece by Anthony Lane! Jill Lepore on the turn of the century compatriot of William...
Thank you David Cameron
For cutting the border staff by half. 90 minutes waiting at passport control. Yay Olympics!
Very worthy longread on Stanford
Will Stanford and Silicon Valley Transform Education? : The New Yorker http://m.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/30/120430fa_fact_auletta?currentPage=all (Sent from Flipboard)
Pretty good idea: Uber for buses
Uber Meets Super Shuttle http://blog.randylubin.com/post/21635542675/thought-experiment-uber-meets-super-shuttle (Sent from Flipboard)
Kellogg's deserves to die
In a world with less time for cereal, the Kellogg team in Battle Creek, Mich., is leaping into new snack markets — as reflected in its pending deal for Pringles. http://nyti.ms/IfJDXq Sent from a Peek-like device
Founder-centric vs idea-centric
Most VC investors are people centric. The idea matters but it could change, you won’t. So people-centric means it is an important part of how the pitch is assessed. Can you get this done? Are you creative, resourceful, unstoppable, smart, passionate, focused, and capable *generally* and on the subject at hand? But consider another upshot. I bet you haven’t thought of this before. ...
Never give up. No, pivot. No, ignore skeptics. No,...
Advice for starting startups is often contradictory. But it is always right.