As many of you know, in the past I’ve done a series of posts deconstructing the S-1s of VC-backed internet startups going public. A few years ago this was sort of a novelty… not that many startups were going public and not that many bloggers or mainstream journalists took the time or had familiarity with […]

I believe we’re going to look back in 2-5 years and realize that we’ve been in a once a decade boom for internet & software startups. It doesn’t feel much like a boom actually.  The macroeconomy has been stuck in a tepid recovery in the US, a period of decelerating growth in emerging markets, and […]

We all woke up to the news that Microsoft is buying Nokia for ~$7B (ok, not the carrier infrastructure biz but the main part of Nokia that anybody cares about).  This isn’t totally out of left field since they’ve had a close partnership for a year, but I tweeted my reaction:  “Microsoft buying Nokia core […]

I was having breakfast this morning from someone I know from the LP world.  We were talking about what’s “working” in the broader VC ecosystem and this person expressed their enthusiasm that today there are a range of different models that are producing attractive returns for LPs. Historically there was just one model… VCs had […]

I’ve been doing some thinking about the future of cars and the impact of the internet.  A large part of this is just some idle thoughts, a small part is driven by my love of cars, and a small part is thinking about what potential opportunities for innovation & investment might stem from this.  I […]

When we meet with entrepreneurs and ask about their competitive advantage or special sauce, one of the common responses is first mover advantage.  “We’re the first company to do X in an rapidly growing market” or similar. I’ve always felt being the first mover is a comparatively weak advantage and have been thinking about this […]

It occurred to me that we usually refer to entrepreneurs associated with a startup as being “behind” the company or phenomenon.  As in Mark Zuckerberg, the Harvard drop-out behind Facebook or so-and-so, the folks behind startup X.  Upon further reflection it seems like this phraseology has things backwards… we ought to be talking about the […]

Yesterday was Apple’s shareholder meeting and as many of you know, there’s obviously been healthy debate about what they should do with the ~$137 billion in cash they’re sitting on.  I had read somewhere that Apple’s cash pile was equivalent to Hungary’s GDP so I tweeted out the suggestion that perhaps an activist shareholder should […]

I’ve been enjoying my iPad Mini for a couple months month now.  I thought seriously about getting a Nexus 7 (in fact gave one to my sister as a gift recently), but because I’m frequently on the go with intermittent WiFi I got the Mini which is still one of the few LTE-enabled 7 inch […]

I’ve been using Google’s Chrome browser on my iPad Mini for about a month now.  There are several things I prefer over Apple’s Safari, including the bookmark and search history sync with my other Chrome usage (on laptop) and some small UI touches.  But for now there’s no way to make an OS-level switch to […]