Hack Of A Job

Solution: Don't use public wi-fi. Especially when you have half a million followers on Twitter. Use only secure wi-fi. Better still, carry your own. Carry one of those phones.

Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account was similarly hacked at TED. TED! Think about that. Some millionaire hacker must have did that.

Looks Like FoodSpotting Rocked Austin
Ashton Kutcher's Twitter account hacked | ZDNet

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (7)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Looks Like FoodSpotting Rocked Austin

I am most definitely going to Austin next year. It's a done deal. A startup I have been rooting for - FoodSpotting - looks like had a field day Sunday. 4,000 showing up for one event: it is called the street smart way of becoming the number one event at the Kumbh Mela of tech. Were they the number one event? I don't know. But 4,000 is a large number, no matter how you measure it.

There were so many launches and relaunches this year at SXSW, this magic number - 4,000 people - alone gives FoodSpotting an edge. They get to go home and claim this year - SXSW 2011 - was FoodSpotting's year. If those 4,000 people downloaded the app as they munched, this is going to be the year the service crosses the 2-3 million download mark. Three million would be half way to FourSquare. Two million would be on par with Instagram.

Offline Mode

I have been offline several days in a row now. Glad to be back online. Thank God for scheduled posting, I have still managed to blog daily.

I stayed away from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Quora, AVC, Hacker News, TechMeme, Gmail, Google News, the whole nine yards. It was an experience. I missed the internet bad. But I also learned it is really important to be with people when you are with them, like really be with them. I used to be really good with it, and I am still not someone who is permanently glued to the smartphone when out and about - I take the time to smell the roses - but I still was not doing as well as I wanted to do.

I have some work cut out for me.

Time spent offline made me want to try out a phase of staying away from the usual suspect sites for a while to focus on only blogging about my startup idea. Time spent offline made me want to churn out a 100 page autobiography to feed to Amazon Kindle self publishing. Do you think people will buy? I am tempted to give it a try. I think I have a story to tell.

I am glad to be online. But staying offline several days in a row was a necessary exercise.

(Blogging live from the Apple store on 59th Street)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (6)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (5)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (4)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (3)

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (1)

Speaking Invitation

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeA few days back I kinda complained about not having been invited to sit on a panel at SXSW. Well, looks like I have a speaking invitation somewhere else. I was only joking, people.

Like Mark Pincus said once, when you become successful and visible as an entrepreneur, you end up with all sorts of speaking requests, panel requests, media interview requests. Often times you have to choose between making those appearances and getting actual work done.

Well, I don't have that problem yet, just like I don't have an inbox problem either. I just have been complaining on Fred Wilson's behalf.

Notice how this email has been composed like I have a personal assistant who reads my emails for me. I don't have one of those. You can talk to me directly, that's fine.

Idea to Initial Execution

Image via Wikipedia"If you're investing in a startup at a $10 million valuation, you're not saying it's actually worth $10 million … You're saying it has a 1% chance of being worth a billion."
- Paul Graham

March 25: Stern: Entrepreneurs Exchange Summit

TechCrunch: If Execution Is What Matters, Where Does That Leave Ideas?: the process of getting a great product out there is a vital part of what constitutes innovation in the first place.

The saying that it is not the idea, it is the execution is cliche in the industry. I am going to argue to the contrary. Ideas matter. Big, unsexy companies execute all the time. When a Marco leave a Tumblr to launch an Instapaper, that is not to say he got dissatisfied with Tumblr's execution, and decided he could do a better job at it, and so he left. It was not about the execution. Tumblr's execution is the most sophisticated it has ever been. He left for the idea.