The Latest from TechCrunch |  |
- Google Is Searching For Beautiful Minds, But So Far No M.I.T. Students Have Broken Its Code.
- Dell Bulks Up On IT Consulting With $3.9 Billion Acquisition Of Perot Systems
- iMinds Launches Audio Encyclopedia Tracks For Learning On The Go
- Hollywood, We Have Plenty Of Half-Services. It’s Time For A Whole One.
- Tweet Scenes Launches Yet Another Twitter Background Creator
- TechCrunch50 Had Internet And Then Some. Mariette Systems FTW.
- Adobe Gets Into Widget Distribution And Advertising With Help From Gigya
- From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.
- RedesignGoogle: A Contest To Revamp The World’s Most Popular Search Engine
- Greetings!
- What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation?
| Google Is Searching For Beautiful Minds, But So Far No M.I.T. Students Have Broken Its Code. Posted: 21 Sep 2009 08:46 AM PDT It used to be that M.I.T was filled with code-breakers. The movie A Beautiful Mind takes place there and in real life it’s always had close ties with the military and intelligence agencies. Tech companies also like to recruit there, and Google is no exception. In search of some beautiful minds, Google has been putting up signs around the M.I.T campus with a code that say, “If you can figure this out, you may have a future with Google.” If they crack the code, which is a fairly simple substitution cipher, it reveals a phone number where they can leave their contact information. So far, no M.I.T. students have been able to crack the code, or at least they haven’t bothered to leave a voicemail. Maybe they need some help. The first person to crack the code gets a TechCrunch T-shirt, or maybe a job at Google if you call the number and leave your name. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco           |
| Dell Bulks Up On IT Consulting With $3.9 Billion Acquisition Of Perot Systems Posted: 21 Sep 2009 07:45 AM PDT Searching for growth and better margins, Dell is expanding its enterprise IT consulting business by acquiring Perot Systems for $3.9 billion in an all-cash deal. Perot Systems is the IT consulting and integration services company founded by Ross Perot in 1988 four years after selling Electronic Data Systems to General Motors. (EDS is now part of HP, which bought it last year for $13.9 billion). The shift to consulting services will make Dell look more like IBM (and HP). Dell has an existing services division, which will be rolled into Perot Systems. Peter Altabef, the current CEO of Perot Systems, will run the combined IT Services business. Both Dell and Perot Systems are based in Texas, which should make the combination go smoother. Perot Systems will bring about $2.5 billion in annual revenues to Dell at its current run-rate, which is not a lot considering that Dell did $61 billion in revenues last year. And Perot Systems isn’t exactly a profit machine. In the last quarter, it’s net income was only $31 million, on revenues of $628 million (a 5 percent net margin). Maybe Dell can pump up those revenues by plugging Perot Systems into its existing enterprise customers, which account for about a quarter of Dell’s total revenue. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| iMinds Launches Audio Encyclopedia Tracks For Learning On The Go Posted: 21 Sep 2009 05:00 AM PDT Australian-startup iMinds is hoping to re-create the experience of reading an encyclopedia, except on your iPod. The startup is launching audio-versions of encyclopedia entries, with topics such as “The Federal Reserve,” and “D-Day Invasion,” that can be downloaded fro, Audible.com or iTunes. Currently, there are 72 different “MindTracks” available that give a well-rounded subject overview of a general knowledge topic in a variety of subject matters including politics, sports, pop culture, science and more. Each track is eight minutes and costs $0.99 cents on iTunes. IMinds’ CEO and founder Olivia Wood says she created the tracks for people to gain quick, yet informational, “snacks” of information during their commutes or at the gym. She says that iMinds has already gained considerable traction in foreign countries, like Japan, as a tool for learning the English language. IMinds faces competition from the many non-fiction audio books on iTunes but what may set iMinds apart is its short length. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Hollywood, We Have Plenty Of Half-Services. It’s Time For A Whole One. Posted: 21 Sep 2009 01:06 AM PDT
Now, choice is of course a good thing, but the problem is that each of these services don’t really offer much choice. If you want a complete way to get movies over the web, you almost have to have all of these boxes. That’s because the movie studios form partnerships and alliances with various services and not with others. And they have silly rules about who can stream/download what, when, and how. It’s a mess. And Hollywood really needs to sort it out soon, or they are just asking for trouble as broadband continues to improve. Now, none of this is to say that Epix is bad. It sounds pretty good. They claim to have more than 3,000 titles from Lionsgate, MGM and Paramount at launch. And eventually, they want to tap the full library of over 15,000 movies between the partnering studios. They also claim that Epix will have the largest collection of HD films streaming online. That’s all great, but what they don’t say is that even at 15,000 titles, that’s just a sliver of what’s out there — it’s only movies from those few studios. And, if you want this content in your living room, you’re going to need Verizon FIOS, which only some 2 million people have. I still find it preposterous that I can walk into a Blockbuster and rent a movie the day it comes out, but cannot do that with all new releases on iTunes and the Xbox 360. Even more perplexing is when studios demand movies be pulled (or made for purchase only) so they can run them on the premium cable channels. Netflix has a great selection of old movies, but has basically no new films. And the HD selections on all of these services are pretty poor. So while it may sound great that another competitor (Epix) is entering the game, it’s really just another half-effort. I’ll be honest, I’d rather have one service that has everything I want, even if it’s slightly more expensive, then 10 of these half-services. I do not want or need more boxes or pipelines coming into my home just to get content that one of my 5 other boxes doesn’t have because of some backward-thinking licensing agreements. Of course, while I say all of this, I do not expect it to change anytime soon. Even Apple, which famously bullied the music business into its one-music-store-to-rule-them-all (iTunes), has had a lot of trouble getting the movie studios in line. It’s a crapshoot every week when new movies come out on iTunes whether they’ll be available to rent or only buy (or neither). And the total number of HD downloads — which were unveiled in March — can’t be more than 25 or 30 total, still. The problem the movie studios face is that while broadband limitations in this country have limited piracy, speed and options are slowly improving. It’s only a matter of time before piracy becomes a large scale issue if Hollywood doesn’t start coming up with some kind, any kind, of comprehensive plan for digital distribution. Obviously, we ran into the piracy problem the previous decade with music, and the lone success to rise up was iTunes. Why? Because it had all the major labels on board and was very consumer-friendly. The current offerings from Hollywood are anything but. More isn’t always better. Sometimes, it’s just more. Even in Hollywood. Actually, especially in Hollywood. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Tweet Scenes Launches Yet Another Twitter Background Creator Posted: 21 Sep 2009 12:30 AM PDT
Tweet Scenes is owned and operated by a web design and development company (Carnes Media) with over a decade of design and branding experience. Carnes Media has done sites like Tatango, who we recently covered, Derek Media, and many others. There are lots of free alternatives to Tweet Scenes, like TwitterBackground.com, which is currently the number one free Twitter backgrounds site. According to Nathan Carnes, the founder of Tweet Scenes, there aren’t any good Twitter background companies that make good quality backgrounds for the brands on Twitter. Also, you should consider the fact that there are numerous third party applications that don’t use Twitter.com, so you will never see the backgrounds. It’s a little unclear why someone would pay $129 for a Twitter background when you could get one for free — if you wanted to spend that much you might as well just find a designer to do it for you. If you don’t like the background you get, there’s a money-back guarantee. You can find an example of one of the backgrounds below. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| TechCrunch50 Had Internet And Then Some. Mariette Systems FTW. Posted: 20 Sep 2009 10:58 PM PDT
It’s been a real problem for us over the years. We’ve thrown money at the problem. We’ve tried new vendors and technologies. We’ve prayed. And cursed. I’ve offered vendors a big wet kiss of a post on TechCrunch if they could get it right. They never have. Last year we had a full day Internet outage at TechCrunch50, and it wasn’t better on day 2. The only good thing about an Internet outage is that most attendees can’t blog or tweet about it, since they can’t get on the Internet. Giving 2,000 hard core Internet users simultaneous access from a single location is very, very hard. I’ve seen grown men cry when they tried and failed. This year, though, WOW. There was more Internet at TechCrunch50 than you could shake a stick at. And for that, Mariette Systems gets that big wet kiss I promised. The team: Ernie Mariette, Cliff Skolnick and Tim Pozer. They came in, brought bandwidth (100 Mbps line-of-site microwave link from WiLine and 30 Mbps from Telekenex), hooked it into a BSD router and distributed it throughout the building via more than 100 Cisco switches and 28 wifi access points. There were hundreds of ethernet connections (and power strips) at attendee tables. Plus dedicated bandwith to Ustream, the DemoPit area and the main stage. And, overall, lots of very happy attendees. There were more than 1,200 simultaneous connections at peak points, and bursts of up to 88 Mbps inbound bandwidth usage. But no one was ever cut back. And I noticed multiple people in the audience watching the live Ustream feed on their laptops. Others were watching the US Open livestream. In other words, the audience was totally wasting bandwidth. And it was wonderful. In fact, I was a little disappointed that the audience failed to make our Internet fail. They tried their best, and were found wanting. Thanks very much, Mariette Systems. We owe you. And we love you. Keep doing Apple’s WWDC and other huge events, but keep your calendar clear for our conferences, too. I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Adobe Gets Into Widget Distribution And Advertising With Help From Gigya Posted: 20 Sep 2009 08:50 PM PDT Many of the widgets scattered across the Web are made in Flash, but Adobe doesn’t participate in the widget economy. Today, it is taking a first tentative step towards changing that with the release of a new Distribution Manager for widgets created on the Flash Platform. In addition to making it easier for people to share the widgets across 70 Web and mobile destinations, it will track their usage, and serve as a widget ad network as well. Adobe is obviously interested in getting into the advertising end of the business, which is why it recently announced it is acquiring Omniture for $1.8 billion. Rather than just getting paid once for the tools to create Web apps and content, it wants to get a piece of those recurring advertising dollars too. The widget distribution play is along the same lines, except that for now Adobe is doing it through a partnership with Gigya, the widget distribution and advertising network. What that means is that any money Adobe makes will be split more ways, but in return it achieves faster entry into the market. The Distribution Manager allows Flash developers to put a share button on their apps, which opens up a menu giving consumers the option to send that particular widget to Facebook, iGoogle, MySpace, My Yahoo, or various other destinations. It also supports the iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Symbian phones. (Since the iPhone does not yet support Flash, a version of the apps must already be present in the iTunes Store in non-Flash form). Many advertisers themselves are creating Flash widgets which they are hoping will be spread around virally. They can buy installs on Adobe’s widget network for $1 per install. On the flip side, developers who choose to run these ads will get an effective CPM of $5 (i.e., for every 1,000 impressions). Adobe and Gigya will split whatever is the difference between those two numbers, which will be a function of the exact (undisclosed) revenue share, the number of times an ad widget is installed, and how often it is passed along. Developers also get an Adobe AIr app which helps them keep track of all of their widgets. They can measure unique users, number of impressions, interaction rates, installs, and how many times it is passed on. The Distribution Manager can also break down installs and usage by social network, device, or country. The next Flash platform service Adobe wants to role out is the ability to develop an app once and distribute it anywhere without re-writing the app. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| From Nothing To Something. How To Get There. Posted: 20 Sep 2009 03:07 PM PDT
I was one of those kids who just couldn't stop trying to start a company. I think I just really feared working for the Man. Problem was, I seemed to suck at the whole startup thing. Multiple attempts followed by multiple failures. At some point I just said, "screw it, I'll get a high paying job." Problem was, I couldn't stop thinking of the next great thing that got me ridiculously excited. Turns out, it wasn't so much that I was the problem. Rather, I didn't have anyone around me familiar enough with startups to tell me that I was doing it all wrong. This is the first post in what's going to be a series of blogs on how to go from nothing – no connections, no team, no money and no knowledge of how the startup industry really works – to operating a growing business. I mentioned to Mike that I was going to kick this series off over on the Meebo Blog, but he suggested I start it here. Gladly! So for this first post, here's the best advice I can give you: join an awesome founding team and get your product out the door ASAP. Then, forget everything else, VCs included, and just build. One of the things I do as a founder of a later stage startup is to meet with early stage entrepreneurs to help them get their companies going. Nine times out of ten, the meeting ends with them asking me for introductions to VCs. Little do they know that, even if they could raise VC, it'd start them down the wrong path. So, this is what I tell them: At the exact moment you had your idea, ten other people had the exact same idea. There was just something in the environment that made it the right time for folks to think that one up. The race has already begun! Who's going to execute first? Who's going to execute best? If you want to waste nine months trying to raise VC money for that idea, great. But six months in, you're gonna cry when you see someone else put out that same product you're pitching me right now. Like I said, forget everything else and just get your product out the door. Now. Inevitably, the excuses begin: I need to hire people to build the product. I don't know any developers. I need money for the servers. I want to get that last promotion at my current company first! Here's the rub: in consumer internet (and often enterprise), if your founding team doesn't have the chops to get a prototype of your product out and in the hands of a blogger to test and write about, you might as well save yourself a lot of pain – you're not going anywhere. Need proof? Just look at some of the most successful tech companies in the last decade: eBay, YouTube, Sun, Oracle, Apple, Cisco, Facebook, Yahoo!, and Google. All of them share a couple common traits: they launched before taking outside investment, and they were able to do it because they had a set of founders with the skills to build the initial version of the product themselves. Only eBay was founded by a single individual – the rest were team efforts. With that background, let's get to the three most important things you can do to go from nothing to a kicking startup. First and foremost, find a great founding team. One person is almost never enough. You just can't do it all. Rather, team up with one or two other people who have skills synergistic – not overlapping – with your own, but with similar goals and passions. I can't tell you how frequently teams of three business school students tell me they're going to start the next great consumer Internet company. When I point out that they're all business people, and wonder who's going to build the product, they almost always fall back on "we'll get a couple of undergrads to do it," or, "we'll outsource it." If I hear either one of those, I know the startup's already dead. Sorry, folks. Harsh, but probably true. The best composition is probably one engineer whose passion lies in the pixels on the screen and another engineer whose passion is making bits fly really fast through servers. In Meebo's case, for example, I was lucky enough to partner up with Elaine and Sandy. Elaine is a JavaScript wizard who has a great visual eye and makes sure every pixel is in its place. Sandy is a straight C nerd and is all about efficiency. Together, they built the first versions of Meebo from scratch. Now, if you have a business guy along for the ride, that works too. But let me tell you, the sum total of my contribution to Meebo prior to our launch was getting us incorporated (read: easy) and suggesting that "the button might look better over there" (read: not much). Post launch, if you gain traction, is where the business person will help take the load off of the technical folks. The business person can take all the meetings while the technical folks work on making the product better. Second, like I said, forget everything else and just get your product out the door. No office. No phone system. No hiring. No press. No legal muck. No raising money. No looking for partnerships (who's going to partner with you anyway?). The success or failure of the adoption of your product is what will create 99% of the initial value of your company. If no one ever uses your product, you have no value. Oh, and for the record, raising VC does not help get traction – in another blog post, I'll argue that if anything, it hurts. So just forget everything else and focus on what matters – getting an alpha of your product out the door and into the hands of your friends and family. Use some URL like www.mygreatstartup.com/shhh.html. Then, once you've fixed the initial bugs and incorporated a feature or two that everyone requested, go live. Remember: keep it simple. The initial product you build is for you – you don't know what features everyone else wants. Launch fast and light, and listen to your users for feedback. In the product, always have a way to ask for user feedback. Remember, once TechCrunch or GigaOm writes about you, you'll most likely get crushed with a single surge of traffic (we fondly call it the "blog spike"), only to watch almost all of it flitter away. Take advantage of that surge to learn and iterate. Finally, get good mentors. If someone had been there and just told me "join a great founding team, focus on the product, and forget everything else," I would have saved a lot of time and heartache. A good mentor is someone who has been part of the startup community themselves – someone who has a realistic understanding of some of the basic dos and don'ts of starting up. You don't need many – one or two to begin. In Meebo's case, two of our friends, Todd and Cam, gave us a ton of pre-launch advice. Every time we started straying down a wrong path, like flirting with just talking to that one VC or even thinking about approaching a company about a partnership, they'd always come out with something like, "is that going to get the product out faster?" Trust me, once you've launched and achieved traction, you'll have your pick of mentors, VCs, partners and all the legal expenses you need. I hope that some of this hit home for those of you who've been working on your own startups. In later posts I'm going to get into more detail on specific topics like hiring, raising money, what types of ideas have the potential to get big, finding your founders, and the like. You can follow them over on the Meebo Blog, so bookmark this post and Mike tells me they'll link to subsequent posts. Alternatively, follow me on Twitter (@sethjs) where I'll mention when I put up a new post. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| RedesignGoogle: A Contest To Revamp The World’s Most Popular Search Engine Posted: 20 Sep 2009 12:47 PM PDT
WebMynd has posted all the details details on its blog, but here’s the gist of it: designers are invited to revamp Google using any CSS modifications they’d like. The contest starts accepting submissions today, and will run through November 1. Then, a number of judges (which include Y Combinator’s Paul Graham, the WebMynd team and — full disclosure — myself) will pick the best designs. The winners will take home a brand new MacBook Air. The nice thing about the contest is that it isn’t purely theoretical — you’ll actually be able to start using the new design in your browser, using a stripped down version of WebMynd’s browser plugin. The Plugin, which launched back in March, gives users the ability to customize their search experience and includes a number of other features, like a comprehensive browsing history (advanced features won’t be enabled by default on the streamlined contest plugin, but users will be able to turn them on). Here are a few of the early submissions to the contest. You can see a full gallery here.   Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| Posted: 20 Sep 2009 12:21 PM PDT It’s time for a quick primer on the proper way to interact at conferences and other business events. Since I just came back from one of those types of events, this is on top of mind for me. What’s surprising is how few people get it right and move a conversation towards their business goals. The rest let ego and sloppiness get in the way, usually leaving people on both sides of the conversation frustrated. I’m here to help. I get approached a lot at technology events (usually entrepreneurs), and I also approach others (usually about a story I’m working on). A typical frustrating interaction for me: I am being hit on all sides by people saying hello, or trying to pitch me, or whatever. A new person pops up in front of me. They look vaguely familiar. A hand is thrust towards me and they say “hey Mike!” At this point all I’m thinking about is damage control. I frantically try to remember if I’ve met him/her before. Because if I say “nice to meet you” and I’ve met them before, I usually get a “yeah well we met three months ago, i can’t believe you don’t remember” back with a negative tone. If I’m not sure, and usually I’m not, I say “nice to see you.” It’s a trick I’ve learned that sort of works in any situation. Any anyway, I’m also already annoyed that the person put me in an awkward situation. Then the person jumps right into whatever it is they want. Often its to step aside for a pitch. Which puts me in bad situation no. 2, because I probably can’t step aside at just that moment. And the middle of an event is certainly not the time to expect me to pay attention to whatever you’re pitching. And since you deserve that attention, why start things off in such a crazy way? Remember your ultimate business goal. It isn’t to have me listen to a pitch. It’s something more. Like a story on TechCrunch about your startup, or an introduction to someone who can help your project. If you keep the ultimate goal in mind, you won’t screw up by forcing intermediate goals that don’t really help you, and just frustrate the listener. So here are my tips for making the most of these interactions:
Some of the most well known people I know never assume people they talk to know who they are. Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, for example, introduces himself to me every time I see him, and asks if now is a good time to talk. I’ve known him since 2006, and it’s far from necessary. But I always appreciate how polite he is. Want to be like Roelof someday? A good start is basic business etiquette. Just because someone can’t register your face, name and workplace in less than the second it takes for you to say hello to them doesn’t mean they don’t want to help you out. Just help to avoid that awkward moment by giving them all the information they need. And then watch body language for your cue to wrap things up. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
| What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation? Posted: 20 Sep 2009 10:10 AM PDT
Back in 1986, when Bill Gates was still making sales calls, he pitched my group at First Boston on why we should bet the farm on Windows. Despite the risk involved, we gave his fledgling startup the deal. This wasn't because of his financial backers (he didn't even drop any names), but because we believed in his vision and nerdiness. In the same way, Google became a huge success long before the deep pocketed VC’s arrived to ride Larry and Sergey’s coattails. They simply had a great technology and winning strategy. So I'm miffed by the National Venture Capital Association's (NVCA) claim that companies like Microsoft and Google "…would not exist today without the funding and guidance provided during their early stages by venture capitalists." And I'm amused that the NVCA claims credit for creating 12 million jobs and generating $3 trillion in revenue (that's only 21 percent of U.S. GDP). In the software industry (which includes Internet/Web 2.0), they stake claim to 81% of the all jobs created. Yes, 81%. Can they please give the entrepreneurs who risk their life savings, max out their credit cards and put their families in the back seat a little more credit? We're not talking about divvying up the company's stock here, just a pat on the back. How'd they come up with these numbers? They added up all the revenue generated in 2008 by any company a venture capitalist ever invested a dime in. So if John Doerr bought Bill a lunch in 1985, they'd count Microsoft as part of their empire. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. But seriously, the NVCA numbers aren't even remotely credible. How can VCs claim credit for the revenue of a company which they cashed out of twenty or thirty years ago? And even then, claiming credit for 81% of tech jobs and 21% of GDP? More to the point, would those jobs never have been created if the VCs had never appeared on the scene? How can the NVCA prove causality? The answer is, the NVCA can prove nothing and a growing pool of data suggests that VCs at best have little to no impact on these companies and at worst have a negative impact. I just completed a research project in which we interviewed the founders of 549 successful companies in several high-growth industries – the ones VC's are most likely to fund. We selected companies that had made it out of the garage and were generating real revenue. Guess what? Hardly ten percent of the serial entrepreneurs took venture money in their first startups. In their subsequent launches, the proportion who took venture money went up to a quarter. In other words, three-quarters of even the most experienced entrepreneurs didn't rely on venture capital (new report to be released in October). NVCA claims that VCs created entire industries like biotech and turned the software development and semiconductor industries "…into prime drivers of the U.S. economy." I am a big fan of Vinod Khosla's and believe he is a real pioneer. But he is the exception rather than the rule. The fact is that VC's follow innovation, they don't lead. They go where they smell blood. The correlation between venture capital investments and productivity growth was researched by Masako Ueda, a professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison. She analyzed total factor productivity (or TFP, which is a measure of innovation) in several industries. She found that VC investment actually lagged behind TFP growth by two years and later rounds of VC investments actually caused a decline in TFP. In other words, venture capital slowed down the innovation process. What's more she found that delayed TFP growth is correlated with first round VC investment. In simple English, this means that money goes where the innovation is, not the other way around. The NVCA report also touts all sorts of statistics about how their investments outperformed the overall economy. But this isn't what Kauffman Foundation's Paul Kedrosky found when he researched the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies. His study determined that from 1997-2007 venture industry lagged the small-cap Russell 2000 Index by 10 percent (this includes returns from the dot-com hey-days). What's more the study found that only 16 percent of these 900 companies had venture capital backing. And less than 1 percent of the 600,000 new employer businesses created in the United States every year obtain venture capital financing. What's behind the NVCA's voodoo economics? Even though they vehemently deny it, VCs are looking for bailout money and tax-breaks. After spending so much time, energy and breath in the past decade arguing that government subsidies distort markets, now the wealthy, bloated VC community wants its own handouts. My VC friends complain over drinks about a new breed of VCs who are crowding out the really smart and experienced. These gold digger VCs bear MBAs and have no real operational experience but plenty of taste for IPOs. (Interestingly, if they don’t have an MBA, they have a law degree. Go figure.) With all this dumb VC money sloshing through the system, VCs end up funding hordes of "me-too" companies. This leads to declining returns and high startup failure rates. Everyone loses. What we need to do is to apply the same rules to VC's which they impose on their companies – force them to make tough choices and get their business models in order. And instead of giving the tax-breaks to the middlemen, let's give these directly to the entrepreneurs who take the risks and create the innovation. It is the entrepreneurs who fuel the economy, not the venture capitalists or investment bankers. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco   |
I was reading over a pitch tonight for a new streaming movie service called 
Companies and brands always want to have their Twitter profiles and background images fit their profile. 
Technology conferences are supposed to have Internet. Most don’t. In fact, audiences are trained to be grateful for even a trickle of bandwidth. Maybe enough to get off a Tweet or two. But uploading photos and videos is something that you do later, after the event is over. Because it can take days.
This guest post was written by 
This is a guest post by Vivek Wadhwa, an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Executive in Residence at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @| You are subscribed to email updates from TechCrunch To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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