Happy Birthday Amitabh

Nexus Prime: A Birthday Gift To Me?
Tweet 1, Tweet 2

Events: Week Of October 10

Monday, October 10
6:30-10:00pm Ignite NYC 13
Sheraton New York Hotel & Towers, 811 7th Avenue, The Metropolitan Ballroom, Second Floor
B/D/E 7th Ave

7:00-9:00pm Google Presents: HTML5 and Modern Web Apps Overview
New Work City, 412 Broadway, Floor 2

Tuesday, October 11
7:00pm NY Tech Meetup
NYU Skirball Center, 566 Laguardia Pl
E/F to West 4th

Wednesday, October 12
5:30pm Web 2.0 Expo Startup Showcase
Central Park West

Thursday, October 13
6:00pm-9:00pm ER Accelerator Happy Hour
Connolly's NYC, 121 West 45th Street, 3rd Floor

Friday, October 14
5:00-6:30pm South Asian Journalists Association: Meet Imran Khan & Bobby Ghosh
Columbia Journalism School
Lecture Hall, one flight up from the lobby
116th Street & Broadway (#1 subway to 116th St stop)

9:30pm Amit Gupta Event
New Work City
412 Broadway, Floor 2

tyDi Featuring Tania Zygar: Vanilla

My Take On AirTime

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeSean Parker's AirTime Could Net Him Tens Of Billions

I have not read up on it much, frankly there is not much to read about, not much has come out. So some of what I am going to say is based on my own thoughts on the space.

(1) It has to be video. It can't be audio, and it can't be photos. Global broadband will get there.

(2) It has to feel like you got into a private plane to fly around the world.

(3) I should have the option to make myself unavailable, and when I am busy talking to someone already, I am unavailable by default.

(4) I should have the option to flag and block people. A person/account flagged/blocked by a certain number of people should have their account reviewed, possibly suspended. Could be 100 blocks. The person being blocked should get a count of how many times it has happened.

(5) Random connections has to be the starting point of the experience. No real names, no real identities. If people want to wear masks, fine. Their choice.

(6) The "next" button is key to the idea of random connections.

(7) When trying to find people to talk to I should have the option to specify geographical area of interest, language preference (or lack thereof), and topic of interest. That would still be random connections.

(8) If both parties to a talk give each other a thumbs up they should have the option to connect again at a later time of their choosing through the service itself.

(9) This need not be a two person thing. People should have the option to engage in five or 10 people talks. Still random. Group talks on a shared topic might be more fun than a two person talk.

(10) The option to "friend" a stranger after a certain number of successful conversations.

(11) How would you define the social graph in this space? That is very much an open question.

(12) Keep it simple starting out.

Sean Parker's AirTime Could Net Him Tens Of Billions

Sean Parker is a billionaire already at a net worth of over two billion. The guy is 31.



Napster, Facebook, Plaxo, Causes, Spotify, AirTime. Before today I did not even realize Causes was his thing. You live and you learn. Plaxo was annoying, don't you think? And yet that is the company he is most proud of.

I learned of AirTime very recently. But you only have to do a search on the term Chatroulette at this blog to get a feel for my passion for the topic. Just like the Google guys gave jobs to people like Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee, Sean Parker should rope in the Russian dude, give him a small cut, not legally required, but might be beneficial.

Chatroulette Is For Real
ChatVille Is Live Now: "What ChatRoulette Should Have Been"
Chatfe Happy Hour With Paul Orlando
Penises For Sale: The Russian Mafia Is On It
Chatfe: Audio, Interest Based Random Connections On Skype?
Paul Orlando In The New York Times

The social graph that Facebook has mapped is not really all that cutting edge. I mean, I already knew these people. I did not need help knowing them. But I do need help, a lot of help, getting to know people I don't know, I might never meet. AirTime could help map that uncharted social graph, and that is big.

The Color Social Graph Might Work Better For Books, Movies, Music
Finally Facebook Lets Me Reach Out To Non Friends

In many ways I am looking at AirTime as Sean Parker's first startup. This is the one he gets to do his way. This is the one he gets to own a big chunk of.

I really like this guy. He is always thinking big. He paints in broad strokes. His visions tend to be sweeping, panoramic. Not for him is incremental innovation. He is always wanting to do the next big thing. And now through AirTime he is trying to tackle the most virgin aspect of the web. The landscape of what he is trying to navigate is so shapeless right now.

Maybe the guy should rope me in in some kind of an advisory role. I could not think of a better preparation as I gear to launch my own microfinance startup. I think I am in a position to contribute.

Sean Parker's 2009 Email To Spotify
Sean Parker: Mystery Man
Sean Parker, F8, HTML5, Android
Sean Parker: Video: Facebook, MySpace
The Sean Parker Analogy
Sean Parker, Billionaire, Was Really Poor Once
The Day I Got Called Sean Parker
Paul Graham: Wrong About NYC
White Male Conspiracy To Drive Me Homeless

Sean Parker's 2009 Email To Spotify

Image via WikipediaImage via CrunchBase
----- Original Message -----
From: Sean Parker
To: Daniel Ek; Shakil Khan
Sent: Tue Aug 25 13:49:35 2009
Subject: thoughts

Daniel/Shakil,

I've been playing around with Spotify. You've built an amazing experience. As you saw, Zuck really likes it too. I've been trying to get him to understand your model for a while now but I think he just needed to see it for himself.

Facebook has been in partnership discussions with various companies to fullyintegrate music download with the Facebook profile. Most of these deals would have resulted in the wrong user experience and I've done my best to stop them where they didn't make sense. In particular, there's no way that iTunes could enable the right experience on Facebook. Business development teams have a bias for working with the top player in a given market, especially when they don't understand that market. Unfortunately, partnering with iTunes would not only have created the wrong user experience, it would have had disastrous consequences for the emerging digital music industry.

I'm looking forward to meeting you guys sometime in early September, though I'm pretty excited about what you've done and I can't resist sharing some of my thoughts with you here first.

Your design is clean, elegant, tight, and fast. While it's clearly lacking some important features (the social stuff you alluded to, etc), I think you've done a great job with sequencing. You nailed the core experience around which everything else can later be built.

Twitter Asks

Well, Jack, I am glad you asked. Finally. I have been spouting over the months without even being asked.

Twitter: Too Complex
Twitter At Five: Not Spitting Out Well
Twitter ---> Instagram ---> FoodSpotting
Screw Twitter, Screw Facebook
Tweet Embed Option Needed
Twitter: $45 Million To $150 Million To $250 Million
No, Biz, Twitter Has Real Issues
Real Time Search: Twitter Is Not Doing It
Space, Time And Twitter: Are There Plant Twitters?
Monetizing Twitter: A Few Ideas

My Relationship With Ashton Kutcher

Twitter Trouble?
Why Jack Dorsey Invented Twitter
The Mother Of All Twitter Lists
The New York Times Is Bullish On Twitter

The Good

(1) That Twitter exists. That it got invented. It was necessary. Twitter could become Google size. Or maybe it is too late.

The Bad

(1) 2000 was when Twitter's time had come. Waiting all those years was a bad move.
(2) Removing the Founder CEO was a bad move. I don't know all the gory details, I don't even want to know. But that was a bad move. If the same would have been done to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook also might have been by the wayside. It is a DNA thing.

The Ugly

(1) You don't get to delete my tweets. All my tweets are belong to me. And I want them available, to me and to all interested third parties. Real time also means real time as it happened yesterday. I want to be able to search through all my tweets.



Feature Requests

(1) I want to be able to delete many Direct Messages at once, not one at a time.
(2) I want to be able to search through my Direct Messages like I can my email inbox.
(3) I want Facebook like notifications for new tweets where I am mentioned, new Direct Messages. I am talking about that red button on Facebook that shows up with a number.
(4) I want to be able to embed tweets in my blog posts in an easy way. There should be an embed button like there is a reply button, a retweet button. Generate one or two lines of code max. If YouTube can do it with videos, I mean.
(5) Why only 20 lists? I want to create more lists. If you can't give limitless, give me 50, give me 100.
(6) From the Home page, when I click on the Retweet link at the top next to the Mentions button, I should end up on a page that gives me an overview of all my retweet data/information.
(7) Same with the search button. I should be able to customize my searches. Search all of my tweets. Search all of my tweets from this time period to that time period. Search all tweets by people who follow me. Search through all tweets by people I follow. Search all tweets. Search all tweets from the specified period. Search all tweets from a specified geographical location, might be a city, a country, region, a continent. Search through all tweets from a specified location and a specific time period (for when I want to relive a revolution). Search only through tweets with images attached. Search only through tweets with videos attached.
(8) Clicking on Lists should also take me to a page that should automatically display the timelines for my top two or three lists.
(9) I don't have this problem yet, but after I become rich and famous (like you) I want to be able to read many tweets at once. Give me visualization options so I can read 100 tweets at once. As in, these are the last 1,000 tweets from people you don't follow in one infographic. And I would want an embed option on that "read." I want bragging rights.
(10) My profile page should have links to my Facebook page, my blog, my LinkedIn page without taking up too much real estate.
(11) I can now upload a picture directly to Twitter. Thanks. That should also apply to video clips that are a minute or less.
(12) First and foremost - and I repeat - do the search thing.
(13) Tell Sean Parker I said hi.

Breakfast With Albert (Wenger)

I don't want you to think I was sitting across the table from Albert Wenger, and we had breakfast. That is not what happened.

There were 100-200 people on two floors. We did have breakfast, cupcakes and milk. And Albert was there. But he showed up on stage mysteriously from behind.

Events: Week Of October 3

8:30am - 10:00am CreativeMornings/NewYork with Albert Wenger
Galapagos Art Space DUMBO, 16 Main Street, Brooklyn

So there was breakfast. And there was Albert Wenger.

I think he gave a great talk. It is a shame people like him get outgunned by stupid people lobbying really, really hard on Capitol Hill to defend old industries that can not be defended.

I was sitting in the front. I got to ask the first question. I asked him if he were to put together a trillion dollar stimulus bill for this economy what might it look like? He said the biggest part of it would be about getting cheap broadband to everyone. That reply was in total sync with my own thoughts on the topic.

America And Europe Need To Learn From Japan
The Mini Me Stimulus Bill Lacks Imagination



What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger

Steve Jobs: 1997

Rest In Peace, Steve Jobs

Sean Parker: Mystery Man

The New York Times: Apple’s Visionary Redefined Digital Age

worth an estimated $8.3 billion ..... A Twitter user named Matt Galligan wrote: “R.I.P. Steve Jobs. You touched an ugly world of technology and made it beautiful.” ..... the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad ..... transformed not only product categories like music players and cellphones but also entire industries, like music and mobile communications. ..... Starting with “Toy Story” in 1995, Pixar produced a string of hit movies, won several Academy Awards for artistic and technological excellence, and made the full-length computer-animated film a mainstream art form enjoyed by children and adults worldwide. ....... was neither a hardware engineer nor a software programmer, nor did he think of himself as a manager. He considered himself a technology leader, choosing the best people possible, encouraging and prodding them, and making the final call on product design. ....... In his early years at Apple, his meddling in tiny details maddened colleagues, and his criticism could be caustic and even humiliating. But he grew to elicit extraordinary loyalty. ...... “Toy Story,” for example, took four years to make while Pixar struggled, yet Mr. Jobs never let up on his colleagues. “‘You need a lot more than vision — you need a stubbornness, tenacity, belief and patience to stay the course,” said Edwin Catmull, a computer scientist and a co-founder of Pixar. “In Steve’s case, he pushes right to the edge, to try to make the next big step forward.” ........ Mr. Jobs was the ultimate arbiter of Apple products, and his standards were exacting. Over the course of a year he tossed out two iPhone prototypes, for example, before approving the third ....... To his understanding of technology he brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, ”the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there.” ...... He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand. ........ Decades later he flew around the world in his own corporate jet, but he maintained emotional ties to the period in which he grew up. He often felt like an outsider in the corporate world, he said. When discussing the Silicon Valley’s lasting contributions to humanity, he mentioned in the same breath the invention of the microchip and “The Whole Earth Catalog,” a 1960s counterculture publication. ........ In an era when engineers and hobbyists tended to describe their machines with model numbers, he chose the name of a fruit, supposedly because of his dietary habits at the time. ....... He was offering not just products but a digital lifestyle. ...... Great products, he said, were a triumph of taste, of “trying to expose yourself to the best things humans have done and then trying to bring those things into what you are doing.” ....... Jobs’s genius lay in his ability to simplify complex, highly engineered products, “to strip away the excess layers of business, design and innovation until only the simple, elegant reality remained.” ....... It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” ....... Mr. Jobs developed an early interest in electronics. He was mentored by a neighbor, an electronics hobbyist, who built Heathkit do-it-yourself electronics projects. He was brash from an early age. As an eighth grader, after discovering that a crucial part was missing from a frequency counter he was assembling, he telephoned William Hewlett, the co-founder of Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Hewlett spoke with the boy for 20 minutes, prepared a bag of parts for him to pick up and offered him a job as a summer intern. ......... a whistle that came in boxes of Cap’n Crunch cereal was tuned to a frequency that made it possible to make free long-distance calls simply by blowing the whistle next to a phone handset. ........ When Mr. Draper arrived, he entered the room saying simply, “It is I!” ...... They raised a total of $6,000 from the effort. ....... decided to leave college because it was consuming all of his parents’ savings ...... “I didn’t have a dorm room,” he said in his Stanford speech, “so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles for the 5-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.” ....... He returned to Silicon Valley in 1974 and took a job there as a technician at Atari, the video game manufacturer. Still searching for his calling, he left after several months and traveled to India with a college friend, Daniel Kottke, who would later become an early Apple employee. Mr. Jobs returned to Atari that fall. In 1975, he and Mr. Wozniak, then working as an engineer at H.P., began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, a hobbyist group that met at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in Menlo Park, Calif. Personal computing had been pioneered at research laboratories adjacent to Stanford, and it was spreading to the outside world. ............... “What I remember is how intense he looked” ... “He was everywhere, and he seemed to be trying to hear everything people had to say.” ...... Wozniak designed the original Apple I computer simply to show it off to his friends at the Homebrew. It was Mr. Jobs who had the inspiration that it could be a commercial product. ...... In early 1976, he and Mr. Wozniak, using their own money, began Apple with an initial investment of $1,300; they later gained the backing of a former Intel executive, A. C. Markkula, who lent them $250,000. Mr. Wozniak would be the technical half and Mr. Jobs the marketing half of the original Apple I Computer. ........... In April 1977, Mr. Jobs and Mr. Wozniak introduced Apple II at the West Coast Computer Faire in San Francisco. It created a sensation. Faced with a gaggle of small and large competitors in the emerging computer market, Apple, with its Apple II, had figured out a way to straddle the business and consumer markets by building a computer that could be customized for specific applications. ....... Sales skyrocketed, from $2 million in 1977 to $600 million in 1981, the year the company went public. By 1983 Apple was in the Fortune 500. No company had ever joined the list so quickly. ...... The Alto, controlled by a mouse pointing device, was one of the first computers to employ a graphical video display, which presented the user with a view of documents and programs, adopting the metaphor of an office desktop. ...... “I remember within 10 minutes of seeing the graphical user interface stuff, just knowing that every computer would work this way someday. It was so obvious once you saw it. It didn’t require tremendous intellect. It was so clear.” ....... In 1981 he joined a small group of Apple engineers pursuing a separate project, a lower-cost system code-named Macintosh. ...... “I don’t wear the right kind of pants to run this company,” he told a small gathering of Apple employees before he left, according to a member of the original Macintosh development team. He was barefoot as he spoke, and wearing blue jeans. ........ Jobs also established a personal philanthropic foundation after leaving Apple but soon had a change of heart, deciding instead to spend much of his fortune — $10 million — on acquiring Pixar, a struggling graphics supercomputing company owned by the filmmaker George Lucas. ....... In 2006, the Walt Disney Company agreed to purchase Pixar for $7.4 billion. The sale made Mr. Jobs Disney’s largest single shareholder, with about 7 percent of the company’s stock. ...... He had a number of well-publicized romantic relationships, including one with the folk singer Joan Baez, before marrying Laurene Powell. In 1996, his sister Mona Simpson, a novelist, threw a spotlight on her relationship with Mr. Jobs in the novel “A Regular Guy.” The two did not meet until they were adults. ....... his daughters Eve Jobs and Erin Sienna Jobs and a son, Reed ...... Eventually, Mr. Jobs refocused NeXT from the education to the business market and dropped the hardware part of the company, deciding to sell just an operating system. Although NeXT never became a significant computer industry player, it had a huge impact: a young programmer, Tim Berners-Lee, used a NeXT machine to develop the first version of the World Wide Web at the Swiss physics research center CERN in 1990. ...... In 1996, after unsuccessful efforts to develop next-generation operating systems, Apple, with Gilbert Amelio now in command, acquired NeXT for $430 million. The next year, Mr. Jobs returned to Apple as an adviser. He became chief executive again in 2000. ...... Shortly after returning, Mr. Jobs publicly ended Apple’s long feud with its archrival Microsoft, which agreed to continue developing its Office software for the Macintosh and invested $150 million in Apple. ..... The music arm grew rapidly, reaching almost 50 percent of the company’s revenue by June 2008. ........ In 2005, Mr. Jobs announced that he would end Apple’s business relationship with I.B.M. and Motorola and build Macintosh computers based on Intel microprocessors. ...... Afterward, he said he had suffered from a “common bug.” Privately, he said his cancer surgery had created digestive problems but insisted they were not life-threatening. ....... by the end of 2010 the company had sold almost 90 million units. ....... he was found not to have benefited financially from the backdating and no charges were brought. ...... his ability to blend product design and business market innovation by integrating consumer-oriented software, microelectronic components, industrial design and new business strategies in a way that has not been matched. ....... “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

When I Got Teary Eyed

For the most part I have tried to be philosophical, one Buddhist to another. He died earlier than he needed to, sure. But there was a sense of completion to his life's work. It is like he launched a dozen Apple size startups.

Ever since I got the news I have felt this tremendous hunger to learn more details about his life, and I have scoured the web for the same, sort of knowing it would be hard for anyone to surprise me with new details.

Readings have felt like refreshing memories, not revelations. I have read up on the guy over the years.

And then this afternoon it happened. Someone posted pictures of the Apple store at Central Park's southeast corner on Facebook, and my eyes went wet. I saw the glaze, and felt the warmth from the wet. But then I quickly recomposed myself.

Steve Wozniak On Steve Jobs