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Interviews: Ask Larry Augustin What You Will
Former chairman of VA Software and venture capitalist, Larry Augustin, co-founded VA Research in 1993 and was one of the driving forces behind the creation of Sourceforge. VA bought Andover.net in 2000, acquiring a number of media sites, including Slashdot. He serves on the board of several companies and is currently the CEO of SugarCRM. Larry has agreed to take some time and answer your questions about the world of venture capital, open source software, and surviving the dotcom bubble. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post
Do you agree with the Slashdot Beta program ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Hey, Larry -- you don't know me (shocker), but I've been a fan since back in the day -- indeed, VA's IPO helped buy me my first LCD monitor. (Go, SGI 1600SW.) Anyway, Linux, open source, the web, and technology itself has certainly seen lots of change since the "olden" days of the mid-90's; which parts do you reflect on most fondly, which parts have surprised you the most, and, of course, the proverbial: "If you could do it over again, what would you do differently?" (I realize that technically, that's three questions, but I think it's really three questions in search of one answer.)
Currently, advertising pays for the web as we know it. From my perspective as a non-marketer, it is very much ineffective and yet a lot of money is changing hands over it. We live in an age where someone can make $50,000\day on a free mobile game that display ads that most people do not even tap on, and avoid directing their attention to. The web doesn't seem much different, and that strikes me as unsustainable. Do you foresee a future bubble burst based on an industry-wide, sudden realization that current advertising models do not work anywhere near as well as the powers that be currently believe the do? What would be the consequences of an advertising bubble burst and what might support the web afterwards?
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
WTF did Larry do to "ruin" Slashdot? I'm pretty sure Rob loved working for Larry. Or with your UID of four bajillion, do you remember stuff I seem to have forgotten?
Hello Larry, Since you are an EE and started out hacking systems together, I assume you loved working with technology and the open source down at the nuts and bolts level. Now you are a suit, a very successful business man running companies that serve business (CRM!). What's the appeal of sitting in Board meetings, wheeling and dealing on the phone or in teleconferences and all that? It seems to me, if you still had a passion for tech, you would have taken your riches and either started a new company on something cool. Or just retire and use your free time to play with tech.
I & my company are dedicated to open standards, open source software & open source hardware. We also need to make a living, which has been very difficult for too many years now. Where would you recommend I look for information with which I can educate myself on monetizing technology development while remaining true to my cypherpunk & libertarian philosophy? Regardless of what some (who presumably have never had to make payroll) may say, not all information wants to be free, as it will never be created if its creators know their reward for creating it will be continuing poverty. We also recognize that pure money, useful information & free energy (in the statistical mechanics sense) are equivalent, so it ought to be possible to convert some of the useful information we generate into money...
Larry, I just want to express my appreciation for the way you handled the IPO. I've never made much money from doing software. Your gift of VA shares to many open source developers paid off my student loans, got me out of debt, and there was enough left over to buy a bunch of O'Reilly books. Very classy. Hope you've done well in all your endeavors over the past years since then.
Robots. Lots of robots.