Entrepreneurship Blog

Feeling Great About Moutain Biking

2008-04-23T00:40:00.000-07:00

On Friday night, I picked up a new Fuel EX9 mountain bike from Trek and I've managed to get at least a quick ride in 3 of the last 4 days since. I used to road bike all the time, but over the last year, I haven't been disciplined about making time to exercise regularly and I've really gotten out of shape.

Right now I'm feeling so good from putting my legs to work that I can't understand how I ever got out of my riding groove. Unfortunately, I'm heading to Linuxfest Northwest tonight, so I won't be able to ride again until Monday but I'm already itching to get back on the bike! ...now I just need to figure out how get through a ride without falling off the bike...

Dophins Virtually Guarantee Unsuccessful Draft

2008-04-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

In advance of this weekend's NFL Draft, the Miami Dolphins announced today that they had signed Michigan tackle Jake Long and will select him with the number one pick. Offensive and defensive line are the most important (and under appreciated) parts of any football team, so I like the pick in that sense. However, the reported $57.5M contract with $30M in guaranteed money makes Long the highest paid lineman in the league.

I'm excited about Jake Long, but the odds are really low that he'll become the best lineman in the league, so why make him the highest paid? Compared to the opportunity cost of signing veteran players with far less risk on the free agent market it just doesn't make any sense to risk a Robert Gallery or Tony Mandrich type bust when the salary cap makes dollars scarce in the NFL.

The #1 pick in the draft has negative value. The only time top draft picks have value is when the bigger fool theory kicks in and another team is willing to trade for it.

Always Trade the #1 Pick in the NFL Draft

2008-03-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Why give $50-60M to an unproven player? Thats All-Pro money. I'd trade the #1 pick every time.

1977 - Ricky Bell - Bust
1978 - Earl Campbell - Stud
1979 - Tom Cousineau - Good not great
1980 - Billy Sims - Injury
1981 - George Rogers - Injury
1982 - Kenneth Sims - Bust
1983 - John Elway - Stud
1984 - Irving Fryar - Good not great
1985 - Bruce Smith - Stud
1986 - Bo Jackson - Injury
1987 - Vinny Testaverde - Bust
1988 - Aundray Bruce - Bust
1989 - Troy Aikman - Stud
1990 - Jeff George - Bust
1991 - Russell Maryland - Good not great
1992 - Steve Emtman - Injury
1993 - Drew Bledsoe - Good not great
1994 - Dan Wilkinson - Bust
1995 - Ki-Jana Carter - Injury
1996 - Keyshawn Johnson - Stud
1997 - Orlando Pace - Stud
1998 - $48M - Peyton Manning - Stud
1999 - $44M - Tim Couch - Bust
2000 - $45M - Courtney Brown - Bust
2001 - $62M - Michael Vick - Bust
2002 - $60M - David Carr - Bust
2003 - ???? - Carson Palmer - Stud
2004 - $54M - Eli Manning - ???
2005 - $49.5M - Alex Smith - Bust
2006 - $54M - Mario Williams - Stud
2007 - $61M - JaMarcus Russell - ???

Interview on the CBS/KPIX News

2008-03-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier this month I was interviewed on the morning news at CBS/KPIX Channel 5 about the Installfest for Schools, which was a great success. We recycled 350 computers with Ubuntu that will be donated to Northern California schools. The interview took place the morning of the event on March 1st. I was a little bit nervous, but it was a lot of fun. One really strange thing about being in studio is how few people there were... all of the cameras are robotic and the place feels really empty and ridiculous... If you didn't know they were broadcasting live on T.V. you ask yourself "why are these two people sitting behind the desk talking to an empty room?" Its weird.

Not a Republican, but Impressed by McCain

2008-03-09T23:44:00.000-07:00

I was impressed with John McCain on 60 Minutes earlier this evening. I really like McCain's willingness to take an unpopular position on Iraq. I don't really know what to do about Iraq, but Hillary Clinton's "plan to bring our troops home starting with the first 60 days of her Administration," strikes me as populist policy making at it worst. Look, I didn't support going to war with Iraq and I don't like the human lives that have been lost or billions that have been wasted on the war. But we can't undo the war, so the question is what is the best course of action now? We have to balance the following requirements:

Responsibility for starting the war and at least some level of debt to the Iraqi people for the upheaval that war has caused them
Protecting American troop's lives
Keeping the Middle East stable enough not to collapse into a regional war
Preventing Iraq from becoming an terrorist state funded by oil revenue
Keeping oil flowing freely
Stopping the bleeding of military spending

Given how much of a mess Iraq is today, I really can't see how starting to pull troops out in March of 2009 is going to accomplish any more than 2 of these 6 objectives. I'm tired of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama manufacturing positions based on what they think people want to hear rather than what they believe in. How does pulling troops out of Iraq help promote stability in the Middle East? How does a chaotic Iraq, potentially governed by Al Queda, reduce terrorism? Don't get me wrong, the war in Iraq has probably done more to increase anti-American terrorism than anything else in the last 50 years. But whats done is done. The questions is "how can we improve the situation from the position we are already in today."

Democracy is about giving the people what they want. But democratic leaders with integrity will find a way to communicate why they are making unpopular decisions and I don't see any signs of Obama or Hillary doing this.

I also like McCain's commitment to campaign finance reform. Ultimately, campaign finance reform is the single most important political issue. Campaign finance distorts the political process towards special interests like wealthy and/or organized groups like oil companies, defense contractors, unions and senior citizens. The United States loses when any special interest (including unions and senior citizens) distorts the political process.

Lastly, I like McCain's willingness to address the Republican party's terrible record on government spending under the Bush administration. This is another example of McCain's willingness to stand up for what he believes in despite potential political consequences.

Reasons against voting for McCain are:

I strongly dislike the Republican Party
Barack Obama's message is inspiring some people, which is a good thing even though I personally find it to be quite shallow
Electing Barack Obama would send a great message Internationally and domestically about how tolerant the United States really is and what kind of opportunity exists for all citizens
Electing a Democrat (i.e. regime change) would send a message about how the Bush Administration's actions are not acceptable
McCain's environmental stance does not seem strong enough

I'm not sure where I will end up, but I am leaning towards McCain for now. I am formulating my vote on a handful of issues essentially in this order:

Conservative economics (low spending & low taxes)
Protecting the environment and making tough choices about climate change
[UPDATE:]Liberal foreign policy ...not the same as liberal in the domestic sense follow the link for more info (can't believe I forgot this in the original post!)
Liberal social policies (free personal choices, tolerant immigration policy, preserving separation of church & state)
Perceived personal integrity... but this is a very slippery slope so I don't put much stock in it

Is Amazon Kindle Really a Successful Product?

2008-02-16T18:16:00.001-08:00

Is Amazon Kindle really a successful product? Given all of the prime real estate that Amazon has given it on their homepage, I'm not sure that Kindles sales are all that impressive. Amazon.com is currently the 33rd most popular website according to Alexa, and Kindle has been parked on the home page for 3 months. Moreover, they've given Kindle its own sections under the "Electronics & Computers," "Books" and "Digital Downloads" tabs and it seems like they merchandise it on many book web pages as well.

What product wouldn't sell well with this kind of placement?

Open Source Installfest for Schools

2008-02-14T22:09:00.000-08:00

Untangle and the ACCRC are organizing an installfest to donate hundreds of open source computers to Bay Area schools on recycled hardware.

http://www.untangle.com/installfest

Why its Cool:

Helps spread F/OSS (Ubuntu, Firefox, OpenOffice & more)
Helps bridges the Digital Divide with underprivileged users
Keeps toxic computer equipment out of landfills
Is a cool community effort

How You Can Help:

Signup and join the installfest!
Help get the word out by blogging about it
Donate an old computer at one of the 4 locations: Berkeley, San Francisco, San Mateo & Marin County

Thank Goodness for the Giants

2008-02-03T22:11:00.001-08:00

Man I'm sick of people talking about the Patriots as both a dynasty and the greatest team ever. Given the beating the Giants dished out to them today in Superbowl, hopefully thats over now. It was an exciting game and the score was close, but the Giants clearly outplayed the Patriots. And Tom Brady as one of the best QBs ever? What a joke.

3 Superbowl wins by 3 points each, the tuck rule against the Raiders, the confirmed cheating this year, the allegations of cheating in prior Superbowls, increased parity in the league and a heck of a lot of breaks going their way... The Patriots just haven't ever been dominant the way that 49ers, Cowboys, Steelers and other dynasties were. Even this year, they really got lucky to beat the Colts, Eagles, Chargers, Ravens and Giants. Sure great teams pull-out tough wins, but when the breaks always go one team's way, its time to start moderating their greatness with a little bit of fortune.

Both Brady and the Patriots are good, in fact they are very good, but they're not great. And definitely not all time great.

Thank you New York Giants.

You Can Call Me Al

2008-01-28T01:44:00.001-08:00

Apple Announces Service From SFO to JFK

2008-01-15T02:53:00.000-08:00

I predict that Steve Jobs will announce a new Apple airline venture in his keynote at Macworld today.

I love Kirkwood

2008-01-13T21:08:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a weekend skiing with Adam and Powell. I hadn't been in a couple years so I was pretty rusty and my trip ended a bit prematurely with hard fall, but I had a great time nonetheless. I'm hoping to head back up again in a couple of weeks.

I liked Juno

2008-01-04T23:38:00.000-08:00

Juno was a cute movie. I dislike ~70% of the movies I watch, but I like Juno. At first I found the characters' dialog to be a bit too polished to feel real, but as the movie progressed it became really easy to identify with the Juno. Anyway, I enjoyed it.

PageRank wrecked the web

2008-01-02T21:06:00.000-08:00

"PageRank wrecked the web" (via TechCrunch)

Now thats a quote I can get behind... Go Blekko! I'd be rooting for my friends at Blekko anyway, but taking on Google with statements like this is great stuff! With all the recent nonesense about Google employees becoming angel investors and vc investment "judges," its great to see someone doing something other than fall all over themselves to kiss Google's butt.

Sun Microsytems: Most Delusional Company Ever?

2007-12-24T22:32:00.000-08:00

Sun has got to be one of the worst run and most delusional companies on the planet. This banner ad has been cropping up all over the blogsphere, no doubt in some attempt to influence the influencers.

So Sun is now supposed to be relevant because they've finally hit a price point that makes sense for anyone other than NASA to purchase their servers. Wow, $2,180 for a quad-core box!!! A powerful focused message at a targeted audience in a banner ad. How would I sum up this banner campaign in one word?

....GREAT!

After seeing that small businesses can buy quad-core servers from Dell for $1,098, how would I sum up this banner campaign in two words.

....NOT GREAT!

Somebody needs to wake Sun Microsystems up. The company has been asleep at the wheel for nearly a decade. How can you run a campaign about new value price points, when you're twice the cost of you're biggest competitor? You'd think with marketing budgets big enough to buy this many banners, they at least have an intern to check Dell's prices.

Pathetic.

Any Excuse to Link to Your Buddy

2007-12-17T01:20:00.001-08:00

Must admit, I'm a bit tired of the semi-conflict-of-interest stuff going on in the blogsphere. Checkout TechCrunch attempting to stir controversy out of nothing between a friend of Mike Arrington's and one of the startups that he has invested in. Is it really a story that Loren Feldman was less than polite or that Loic Le Meur responded with this?

"Thank you Loren Feldman of 1938 Media for treating us as idiots like this, reality check is always good. You know what ? We are idiots that enjoy talking to each other and that really is what I like. We are happy idiots who like to hang out together. Let the happy idiots in peace !"

It feels like Arrington is trying to manufacture something here to drive traffic to two sites he has personal ties to because I don't get that Le Meur "didn't take it very well" or was "frustrated" from his response above at all. In fact, in Le Meur's update to his post, he says he had fun watching Feldman's video.

For me, it is not okay to manufacture a story and then justify it with a disclosure midway through the article. For bigger blogs like TechCrunch I expect nearly the same editorial standards as mainstream print media. I feel like Michael Arrington pushes this boundary a lot. IMHO, the professional thing for him to do would be to not invest in consumer oriented websites.

As someone who enjoys keeping up on startup news, I probably won't boycott TechCrunch all together, but when I see that the similar stories getting coverage on TechCrunch & it competitors, I'll direct my pageviews elsewhere.

Great Amazon Kindle Conversation

2007-12-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

Just a heads up that there was a great Amazon Kindle conversation sparked by Tim O'Reilly on the Radar blog. The original post is quite interesting and so are the comments from readers, most of which Tim responded to.

Self Reflection: Sportswriters & the BCS

2007-12-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Sportswriters have been whining for years about the BCS's selection process for determining which college football teams play for the national championship. For me this is a classic example of not reflecting on how one's own behavior impacts outcomes... particularly reflection regarding self-improvement. I find this very annoying so I'm venting with this blog post.

Several years ago, I read the following statement on the chalk board in the bathroom of the Crossroads Cafe in San Francisco:

"You Must Be the Change You Wish to See in the World."

I think the media itself is the problem with the BCS. The problem is the voting mentality of the participants in the various polls. How is that an average team like Kansas ever cracks the top 10 with out having any quality wins on their schedule? The Big 12 is awful this year and Kansas didn't play Oklahoma or Texas and lost to Missouri. Even if they had beaten Missouri, they don't deserve to play in the national title game. Going undefeated simply is not enough to play in the title game. And the arguments about "you can only beat who you play" or locking out non-BCS schools are complete B.S. If you want to be have a shot at the national championship you have to schedule solid non-conference opponents. Kansas's non-conference schedule was pathetic:

Central Michigan
Southeastern Louisiana
Florida International
Toledo

...and they only have 2 victories against opponents with winning records:

Central Michigan (8 - 5)
Texas A&M (7 - 5)

So the problem with the BCS is not their formula, but rather with voters who mindlessly shuffle teams up the rankings based on record alone. The BCS system is heavily weighted towards the sportswriters polls, so if these guys just voted for who they thought was the best team in the country rather than who has the best record in the country, the system would work. Why is it that Missouri (then #1) was an underdog against Oklahoma (then #9)? Clearly, sportswriters were ranking a team #1 that they didn't believe would beat #9... which makes no sense at all. (No, betting lines and rankings aren't the same thing, but they usually tightly linked) And back to bashing Kansas... They're currently ranked #8, but how many top 25 teams would they really be competitive with? In my opinion they would be underdogs against every top 25 team except Hawaii, BYU, Cincinnati, South Florida & Boise State. If Kansas is the 8th best team in the country, shouldn't they be the favorite against all 17 teams behind them in the top 25?

So bottom line to sportswriters... stop whining for a playoff system and change your silly voting practices.

P.S. Here is my personal top 10:

LSU
USC
Ohio State
Florida
Georgia
Virginia Tech
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Illinois
Arizona State

Facebook's Impact on Birthdays

2007-11-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

I've been experiencing the true power of Facebook today... grillions of happy birthday messages.

Amazon Kindle Magnifies the The Long Tail

2007-11-26T23:43:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons that Chris Anderson suggests for Amazon's success was that it's online sales model tapped into the long tail of book demand because it separated the limitations of shelf space from inventory and reduced transaction costs (i.e. sales processes).

In a retail setting floor space is expensive and inventory is inherently limited because shoppers will only buy books that are on display. Furthermore, a customer has to physically walk into a store to make a purchase and up-selling opportunities are narrowly limited to shelf takers and employee recommendations, which touch relatively few customers.

In contrast, Amazon.com has nearly infinite shelf space and dramatically lower cost of inventory because their books are stored in warehouses rather than expensive retail locations. The transaction costs of browsing the web are also much lower than getting up off the couch to walk into a store. Lastly, up-selling mechanisms touch many customers through surprisingly popular recommendation algorithms.

Yet, Kindle takes this to an even further extreme by removing physical media from the process, which virtually eliminates all inventory storage costs and dramatically reduces transaction costs associated with delivery & wait times, which then increases power of impulse buying and the effectiveness of up-selling.

	Book Store	Amazon.com	Kindle
Cost of Inventory	Printing + Retail	Printing + Warehouse	Electronic
Cost of Transaction	In Person	Web + Shipping	Web

Given this perspective, I think Amazon is making a mistake by keeping the price of Kindle high and the format proprietary. An inexpensive and open electronic book reader would reach an wider audience and unlock more of the long tail, which Amazon is positioned to be the primary beneficiary of. Others, like Jason Epstein, offer some insight into why the costs of Kindle might be so high, but I always contend that pricing should be based on value, not cost and I suspect that his cost assumptions might a little bit high.

Why am I Wearing a Tie?

2007-11-26T23:27:00.000-08:00

It just dawned on me that I should probably get around to changing my profile picture. In fact, a couple of friends have been bugging me to do this for a while but thats more because they think its a crappy picture. I kind of like wearing a tie but virtually never wear one to work. I would almost go so far as to say that ties are actually unwelcome at most startups in Silicon Valley and, moreover, its just not representative of who I am or how I normally present myself.

Its a bit ironic to me that the symbol of success on the East Coast is so rare out here that I'd be willing to bet the there are far more people wearing suits & ties to work in a retail service positions (hotels, Nordstrom, car dealers, etc.) than corporations where the culture expects it.

I do like the weird quality of the photo, but it probably isn't the best way to present myself to potential readers that I've never met either. Odds are I will either change the photo sometime this week, or forget about it entirely.

Google: Do All AdWords Customers Hate them?

2007-11-19T23:29:00.000-08:00

I can say that I truly detest Google AdWords. Google's search has nearly 3X the margin of Yahoo!, yet they can't seem to get support right. If their product worked well, that would be one thing, but for me, AdWords and Analytics have been pretty flaky.

First they do everything they can to hide the phone number (866-2GOOGLE) and then their army of college intern support reps do an absolutely terrible job of following up. I've literally had conversations that go like this with them:

Me: So you're going to get back in touch about XYZ right?
Google: Yes, definitely.
Me: Well, I hate to tell you this but Google reps never follow up when they say they are going to
Google: Wow, I'm really sorry to hear that. I'll definitely follow up on this issue.
Me: Great, thanks for taking care of this issue for me.

And the results... probably a 10% follow up rate on average. Terrible. Google should be ashamed of themselves.

The other thing that drives me nuts about Google is their ridiculous decision-making method for determining who gets a dedicated account rep. And the irony for me is that after several months of asking for an account rep, they finally gave me one... but thus far my customer support experience has actually worse!

One Laptop Per Child... Give 1, Get 1 Starts Nov 12th

2007-10-07T22:51:00.000-07:00

One Laptop per Child (OLPC) is starting their "Give 1, Get 1" promotion on November 12th. $400 gets you 2 of their laptops, 1 for you and 1 that gets donated as part of their project.

For anyone not familiar with OLPC, they are trying to build Linux based laptops for children in lesser developed nations. Their goal is to build a rugged laptop that is mesh networked and powered by a hand crank for $100. They've also been working on a streamlined version of Linux to reduce the hardware requirements. IMHO its quite an interesting social and technological experiment.

Wilson Sonsini Entrepreneurs College

2007-09-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

Silicon Valley's most famous law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, is hosting a free 14 week series of seminars for entrepreneurs to learn about raising capital and running an early-stage startup. One unique & cool thing about what WSGR is doing, is that they are using many of their branch offices (Austin, New York, Washington D.C., San Diego, San Francisco, & Seattle) to syndicate the content, which is great for folks that don't live in Silicon Valley. The first event is on Valuation and takes place on October 2nd and you can register here.

Session 1: Valuation

Breakfast & Networking: 8:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m. PDT
Program: 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. PDT

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
950 Page Mill Road, Terrace 2D
Palo Alto, CA 94304

Fall 2007 Program
Most sessions will take place from 9:00 a.m. – 10:30 a.m. and will include a breakfast program with additional time for networking. The December 19 program will start at 4:30 p.m., followed by a networking reception. All programs will be held at the firm's offices at 950 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto and videoconferenced to our offices nationwide. The program series will be repeated in Spring 2008.

October 2, 2007	Valuation
October 17, 2007	Business Plans & Fundraising
October 24, 2007	Biotech Session
October 31, 2007	Forming and Organizing the Start-Up & Founders Stock
November 7, 2007	Clean Tech Session
November 14, 2007	Intellectual Property
November 28, 2007	Compensation & Equity Incentives
December 12, 2007	Term Sheets
December 19, 2007	Exits & Liquidity

$350M Congrats to Zimbra!

2007-09-17T22:46:00.001-07:00

Zimbra was acquired by Yahoo! earlier this evening for $350M in cash. Congrats to the team at Zimbra for executing so well. This is yet another data point confirming that open source software is a mega trend sweeping IT. Its an exciting time to be at a company like Untangle that has embraced open source philosophies so wholeheartedly. Who knew free software could be worth so much money?

Am I a Cat Man?

2007-09-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, a friend posed a question: "Andrew, are you a cat man?" While I have always liked cats, my answer was of course no. However, Mae Ling has uncovered startling new evidence to the contrary which suggests that I may in fact be a cat man.