It might be better for the people in the middle of the spectrum, but it would almost certainly be worse for the one or two percent on either end. This is actually bad for the guys in the middle though in the long run. Think about it. Which corporation has the highest R&D budget in the world? GM. What have they invented in the past 25 years? Not so much. Who is more likely to invent the next paradigm changing technology, GM or two guys in a garage? Almost all technological and idealogical paradigm shifts come from minorities, and a completely transparent society would crush small ideas before they have a chance to evolve far enough along to be useful to society as a whole. You need the freedom to mull over ideas in your head before releasing them to the world, lest they be judged out of context by people with short attention spans. Just because someone has the tools to completely grok you doesn't mean they are going to spend more than thirty seconds now and then seeing what you're up to.
Bonus goodie points to the person who actually names the logical fallacy behind "if you have nothing to hide" etc.
Is this a false dichotomy? Not sure if that is the right one, but the basic issue is assuming the only reason you would want privacy is because you're hiding something.
I first learned about the Columbine Shooting when checking Slashdot. I first learned about the Columbia explosion by checking Slashdot. Now the first Mac virus. Slashdot brings me news of another life altering national tragedy.
Not only is InfoCard open source and standards based, but you are invited to participate in the design process. Just go to Kim Cameron's blog, he is the chief architect of identity at Microsoft.
I think I'm going to be a switcher from Firefox. The only problem is that I am having trouble finding some of the extensions I need. Camitools is a good start, but frankly I consider mouse gestures to be essential.
1) Don't use VC's as a Stalking Horse. It's considered poor form.
2) If you need someone else to tell you whether your business will be able to make money or not then you probably don't understand what you are doing well enough to actually succeed.
I'll second your advice on Kawasaki. His book Art of the Start is definitely a must read. While you may be right that most VCs are assholes, you are wrong in saying they aren't risk takers. Investing in startups is probably the most risky investing job there is. They say you aren't a real VC until you have lost at least 20 million dollars of your own money.
So having just written a business plan, it should roughly follow the format:
1. Executive Summary (your elevator pitch, no more than 3 paragraphs)
2. Investor Relations (What you want from other people)
3. Description of Business (about 1 page)
4. Sustainable Competitve Advantage (The only thing anyone will read other than the executive summary)
5. Description of Competition (a full page is about right)
6. A list of competitors with a the strengths and weaknesses of each in about a paragraph per.
7. A timeline for what you want to do and when
8. SWOT chart (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
9. Financials (make up some numbers and use them to make excel graphs)
The thing that gets most people is the financials. Obviously there is no way to know so you just have to make something up that seems reasonable. This isn't cheating or being unethical, it's the only way to do it and it is expected of you. Some people feel bad about this anyway. Don't.
Also, here is my Squidoo Lens on the subject if it helps. It is mostly just a recommended reading list. That being said, there really are fifteen or twenty Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 200 dollar books. Everyone agrees on this, but of course they will all give you a slightly different list of what these books are.
That being said, you won't get any money from a VC until you have partners and a board of directors. The first step is to go around and talk to as many people as are willing to listen. Once you have told fifty or so people your idea and gotten all the feedback you can handle (mostly people telling you how stupid you are), then circle back and ask those people to advise you, be on your board, or invest. Most of them will offer without you having to ask if you are talking to the right people, i.e. people who have experience as serial entrepreneurs. Also before you can get VC funding you will probably need to show traction. The correct order of doing things is 1) Sell the product 2) Design the product 3) build the product. It's counterintuitive, but so is the idea of dropping out of college to make more money.:-)
Ahh, yes I believe you are right for long term. However, I think it is more likely that cellphone functionality will be incorporated into another device rather than all other functionality being incorporated into cellphones.
Actually the whole patent office is going to be overhauled in two or three years according to the patent attorney I was with in Silicon Valley last week.
I'm just saying that it is very difficult to develop mobile computing software on cellphones, both because of the diversity of hardware/software platforms (Nokia, LG, Palm, Palm OS, Windows CE) and also because of the carriers like Verizon, Cingular, etc.
There isn't one single program capable of running on every single cellphone today. Not one. Even if you could get past the different screen sizes, processors, and operating systems (which is almost if not entirely impossible) then you run up against the carriers who turn of Bluetooth and other services to prevent you from buying third party ringtones. I have seen the future of mobile computing, and it is not on cellphones.
Am I the only one who thinks it's scary that a zero day exploit with the potential to take society back to the stone age sold for less than the cost of a nice flat panel TV? Assuming the laws of supply and demand hold on the black market, it means that opportunities to destroy 90% of the word's IT infrastructure are common as dirt.
In a recent talk with someone working at Warner Bros, she brought up an idea they want to try where all file sharing is legalized by paying $4-5 a month through an ISP
Isn't this basically just stealing from people who don't illegally download music off the Internet? Because basically you have to pay whether you download songs or not. I don't download copyrighted music anymore, but if Warner keeps advocating stealing from me I just might start stealing from them again in retaliation.
The commute is too far. And there isn't any money to be made off this search thing. -Guy Kawasaki, when asked to interview for CEO of Yahoo! (Guy wrote Rules for Revolutionaries)
Slashdot Mirror
Ahh, the neologist bashing onomatopeias.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
It might be better for the people in the middle of the spectrum, but it would almost certainly be worse for the one or two percent on either end. This is actually bad for the guys in the middle though in the long run. Think about it. Which corporation has the highest R&D budget in the world? GM. What have they invented in the past 25 years? Not so much. Who is more likely to invent the next paradigm changing technology, GM or two guys in a garage? Almost all technological and idealogical paradigm shifts come from minorities, and a completely transparent society would crush small ideas before they have a chance to evolve far enough along to be useful to society as a whole. You need the freedom to mull over ideas in your head before releasing them to the world, lest they be judged out of context by people with short attention spans. Just because someone has the tools to completely grok you doesn't mean they are going to spend more than thirty seconds now and then seeing what you're up to.
Bonus goodie points to the person who actually names the logical fallacy behind "if you have nothing to hide" etc.
Is this a false dichotomy? Not sure if that is the right one, but the basic issue is assuming the only reason you would want privacy is because you're hiding something.
I first learned about the Columbine Shooting when checking Slashdot. I first learned about the Columbia explosion by checking Slashdot. Now the first Mac virus. Slashdot brings me news of another life altering national tragedy.
Not only is InfoCard open source and standards based, but you are invited to participate in the design process. Just go to Kim Cameron's blog, he is the chief architect of identity at Microsoft.
Where have a heard this before?
Refresh...Refresh...Refresh...Refresh...Valentine' s what?
I think I'm going to be a switcher from Firefox. The only problem is that I am having trouble finding some of the extensions I need. Camitools is a good start, but frankly I consider mouse gestures to be essential.
Last time I checked home plate wasn't covered by a sweater. Way to fark the girl's belly button though.
Two things:
1) Don't use VC's as a Stalking Horse. It's considered poor form.
2) If you need someone else to tell you whether your business will be able to make money or not then you probably don't understand what you are doing well enough to actually succeed.
True for general partners but not limited partners. Both can be considered to be VCs IIRC.
I'll second your advice on Kawasaki. His book Art of the Start is definitely a must read. While you may be right that most VCs are assholes, you are wrong in saying they aren't risk takers. Investing in startups is probably the most risky investing job there is. They say you aren't a real VC until you have lost at least 20 million dollars of your own money.
1. Executive Summary (your elevator pitch, no more than 3 paragraphs)
2. Investor Relations (What you want from other people)
3. Description of Business (about 1 page)
4. Sustainable Competitve Advantage (The only thing anyone will read other than the executive summary)
5. Description of Competition (a full page is about right)
6. A list of competitors with a the strengths and weaknesses of each in about a paragraph per.
7. A timeline for what you want to do and when
8. SWOT chart (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats)
9. Financials (make up some numbers and use them to make excel graphs)
The thing that gets most people is the financials. Obviously there is no way to know so you just have to make something up that seems reasonable. This isn't cheating or being unethical, it's the only way to do it and it is expected of you. Some people feel bad about this anyway. Don't.
Also, here is my Squidoo Lens on the subject if it helps. It is mostly just a recommended reading list. That being said, there really are fifteen or twenty Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect 200 dollar books. Everyone agrees on this, but of course they will all give you a slightly different list of what these books are.
That being said, you won't get any money from a VC until you have partners and a board of directors. The first step is to go around and talk to as many people as are willing to listen. Once you have told fifty or so people your idea and gotten all the feedback you can handle (mostly people telling you how stupid you are), then circle back and ask those people to advise you, be on your board, or invest. Most of them will offer without you having to ask if you are talking to the right people, i.e. people who have experience as serial entrepreneurs. Also before you can get VC funding you will probably need to show traction. The correct order of doing things is 1) Sell the product 2) Design the product 3) build the product. It's counterintuitive, but so is the idea of dropping out of college to make more money. :-)
Ahh, yes I believe you are right for long term. However, I think it is more likely that cellphone functionality will be incorporated into another device rather than all other functionality being incorporated into cellphones.
Actually the whole patent office is going to be overhauled in two or three years according to the patent attorney I was with in Silicon Valley last week.
It will go well with their standardized living-in-mom's-basements and not getting laid.
I'm just saying that it is very difficult to develop mobile computing software on cellphones, both because of the diversity of hardware/software platforms (Nokia, LG, Palm, Palm OS, Windows CE) and also because of the carriers like Verizon, Cingular, etc.
There isn't one single program capable of running on every single cellphone today. Not one. Even if you could get past the different screen sizes, processors, and operating systems (which is almost if not entirely impossible) then you run up against the carriers who turn of Bluetooth and other services to prevent you from buying third party ringtones. I have seen the future of mobile computing, and it is not on cellphones.
Where do you want Wikipedia to be after five more years of editing? Where do you want the world to be after five more years of Wikipedia?
Am I the only one who thinks it's scary that a zero day exploit with the potential to take society back to the stone age sold for less than the cost of a nice flat panel TV? Assuming the laws of supply and demand hold on the black market, it means that opportunities to destroy 90% of the word's IT infrastructure are common as dirt.
As a former lightweight rower I can vouch for this. Rowing a balls out 2K is hard. Doing it the day after sweating off 10 pounds is just sadistic.
Heh. I payed 97 dollars for a paperbook textbook with advertising in it. I didn't return the textbook, I just dropped out.
Isn't this basically just stealing from people who don't illegally download music off the Internet? Because basically you have to pay whether you download songs or not. I don't download copyrighted music anymore, but if Warner keeps advocating stealing from me I just might start stealing from them again in retaliation.
Shouldn't the headline read Publishers Admit Wikipedia is More Accurate Than Books?
The commute is too far. And there isn't any money to be made off this search thing. -Guy Kawasaki, when asked to interview for CEO of Yahoo! (Guy wrote Rules for Revolutionaries)