Friday, December 03, 2010

The Day I Got Called Sean Parker


So I am at this NY Tech MeetUp after party last month, feeling fresh - I had skipped the presentations, and gone straight to the after party; presentations are work! - working the room, outenergying most, saying hello, and next. And I shake this guy's hand after approaching him, and he says he has seen me at Fred Wilson's blog.

"It is so great to meet you in person finally," he says.

Thank You Jesus

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Did Not Meet Fred Wilson, But Met Mazy Dar

Last night I showed up for the AVC MeetUp: 11 W 17th St. Fred Wilson did not show.

Web 2.0 Summit 2010: Fred Wilson, John Doerr
Change The Ratio: Fred Wilson, Rachel Sklar
Bubble, Boom Or Froth?
Binary Investments, The Middle Kingdom, And Super Exits
Event At Hunch: Angel, Super Angel, VC
Event At Hunch: Gender Talk (4)
After Party
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Netizen Has Arrived: A Link From AVC
Fred Wilson: A DJ

But I got to meet Mazy Dar. Mazy was part of a team that sold a company for $650 million in 2008 two weeks before Lehman collapsed. That was a close call. He now has a startup that sits at the confluence of mobile, and finance, and enterprise. This startup is going to be shaking things.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Angel Bubbles: No Bubbles

Image representing Y Combinator as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
Naval Ravikant: There is No Angel Bubble. There are Many Angel Bubbles.: The total amount of additional capital flowing through the Silicon Valley early-stage ecosystem, thanks to Super-Angels and newly minted millionaires, is on the order of half-a-billion dollars or so. It’s no more than a middling-sized VC fund. Would the emergence of a new VC fund be considered a bubble? Would the collapse of one signal disaster? ..... Most of the small companies being funded will fail, but the ones that hit will generate fantastic returns. And because of their small size and operating costs, a greater percentage will be able to get “ramen profitable” than was traditionally possible. ..... we’re all going to have to become even more comfortable with failures, re-starts, and the kind of team re-combination that one sees from one Y Combinator Demo Day to the next. ..... Angel investment valuations have been climbing very quickly ..... a small number of high-profile Angel investments, moving small amounts of capital but at very high valuations, can make the entire market look overvalued. ..... Seed is the new Series A .... an incredible renaissance in technology, with smart phones taking computing to local arenas and social networks taking it into the mainstream populace ..... we’re going to see the equity gap narrow between the founders of raw startups and early key team members.
I think this is new, uncharted territory, rather than bubble territory. Bubble would be if we were a year or two from imminent collapse. I don't think we are.

Brazil


Brazil: Rio de Janeiro: Videos (2)
Brazil: Rio de Janeiro: Videos
Brazil: Sao Paulo: Videos (2)
Brazil: Sao Paulo: Videos
Brazil: Sao Paulo: Photos

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Google, GroupOn: Facebook Needs To Go Public

Marissa MayerImage via WikipediaFacebook has so far never made an acquisition. Acquihires like Dropio and Hot Potato don't count. And a company can not do internal innovation forever. The price you pay to get big is you are open to innovation from outside. You keep a clear vision of where you want to go as a company, and you make acquisitions along the way in emerging spaces and sub spaces.

Facebook was ready to go IPO last year based on its fundamentals. But a recession perhaps was not a great time to go public. But now the recession is over. Further delays will cause Facebook harm. To put it down bluntly, Facebook can not make GroupOn like acquisitions if it stays private.

Google, GroupOn: Integration Will Be Key

Marissa Mayer at LeWeb 2009 / Day 1Image by earcos via FlickrThis is not a merger, this is an acquisition, but it feels like a merger. Granted this is no AOL Time Warner - thank God - but it feels like a merger more so than the YouTube acquisition felt. The YouTube acquisition felt like an acquisition, a big acquisition but still an acquisition. This feels like a merger.

Google, GroupOn: Marissa Mayer's Stalking Of Andrew Mason

Marissa MayerImage by jdlasica via FlickrAndrew Mason first spotted Marissa Mayer at South By Southwest. He did not think much of it. He did not think someone like Marissa Mayer might actually know who he was. Only two years before he had been eating Ramen noodles. He could still feel the taste of Ramen in his mouth.

Google, GroupOn: Say No The First Time

Marissa MayerImage by jdlasica via FlickrHotmail was hot. So Bill Gates wanted to buy it. The joke in the industry for a decade and a half had been that Microsoft was always one step behind.

Sabeer Bhatia was summoned for some face time with Bill G. Bill Gates offered $200 million.

"Can I sleep on it?" Sabeer Bhatia replied. He flew back home to the Bay Area where he lived.

Google, GroupOn: It's The G Factor

Marissa Mayer at LeWeb 2009 / Day 1Image by earcos via FlickrI am going to post a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that GroupOn always wanted to get bought, and it wanted to get bought by Google. From. Day. One. GroupOn plotted for this day to come before its inception.

Why do I say that?

Google, GroupOn: GroupOn Perhaps Was Not The Next Big Thing

Marissa MayerImage via WikipediaApple and Microsoft were born around the same time. They were not at peace. Netscape came along. Microsoft killed Netscape. Google offered to sell itself to Yahoo. Yahoo refused. A few years later Bill Gates offered to buy Google "at any price." Google refused. Google tried to buy or bury Facebook. Facebook survived. Facebook tried to buy Twitter. Twitter refused. So Facebook hunkered down and "learned" as much as possible from Twitter. Facebook has tried to buy FourSquare, more recently it has tried to bury it.

See, there is that buzz factor. The company that had the crown seat in the buzz kingdom until recently is able to spot the next taker and gets uncomfortable.