We are planning a great reunion for 25th anniversary for the AGBU Internship program from July 20-21st. Please save the date. More details to come soon, but make sure you are in NYC at that time. All former interns, friends of the program, mentors of the program and supervisors who have hosted interns are invited.
My friend Aram Tertzakian’s production company XYZ Films has a new film coming out in theaters this weekend, and I’d love if you could see it this weekend and spread the word to your friends. XYZ Films is a small start up in LA - they produced it and sold it internationally, and it’s a really really big one for them.
The film is called THE RAID: REDEMPTION, and it’s a pretty killer action film with a heavy martial arts component. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing it in LA, NY, DC, CHI, & SF this weekend, and will go wider the following weekend if it does well this weekend.
Here’s the Rotten Tomatoes page, and the trailer:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_raid_redemption/
http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/sony/theraidredemption/
Here’s where you go to see theaters and buy tickets:
http://www.sonyclassics.com/theraid/dates.html
Our team at work is constantly giving me a hard time for “inbox=0”. Every day before I go home from work, I try to get both my inboxes (work and personal) to zero. I initially started doing this every Saturday morning and extended to do this daily. When referring to “inbox=0”, every email has been archived, responded to or deleted. Obviously, its not always possible to get there, but I have found I have become much more effective and reliable by working towards cleaning out my inbox every day. People know I am reliable, it forces me to not put things off and almosts serves like a task manager clean up.
So what do I do if something is in my inbox and I need to respond later on, for instance the following week? I put a calendar reminder on when I need to respond by and when it shows up, it forces me to respond. Also, sticky tabs work great. If you are in a client facing/deal orientated role, you should give this a try. It forces you to not overlook anything and increases your churn on getting things done. It may be an extreme version of OCD, but it has worked great for me.
If you like an open internet, the jobs it creates and its contribution to GDP, you should be opposed to SOPA…….the alternative is a China-esque controlled internet. Here is a little overview that Google has put together on the following: what is SOPA/PIPA? How does it affect you? How do I do something about it?
This is a potentially a very damaging initiative that on the surface may appear to try to stop piracy of Justin Bieber cd sales, but in reality is a lot more. They want to control what we can see, how we access it and who decides the appropriate channels. Its not only a hit to your entertainment but destroys the free information market that makes the web so powerful.
Let's Do It (Let's Fall In Love) by Conal Fowkes
Over the holiday break, I had the opportunity to check out the movie Midnight in Paris. I didn’t love it as much as everyone else did, but I thought the soundtrack was absolutely fantastic. Lots of great songs from the 20s remade. Conal Fowkes in particular stands out on the soundtrack-this song was my favorite. The album has a touch of romance with some fun quirkiness. Great relaxing dinner time music and worth a download if you like a jazz/big band feel. I feel like this should appeal to anyone regardless your musical taste.
I had the good fortune to begin the new year with old friends from Stanford in Scottsdale, Arizona. Our team made the Fiesta Bowl, which made for a great opportunity to have a reunion of sorts.
This post is a huge THANK YOU to Joe Liemandt, the founder of Trilogy Software, who is rumored to have thrown the best tailgate I have ever been to in my life. This epic tailgate in a covered space featured complimentary food, drinks and performances by LMFAO, Ke$ha and Brett Michaels from Poison performing for all of us immediately before the game. So a big thank you to Joe (although I dont know him personally, but know him through a 2nd degree connection). You made the day for many, as we got together and celebrated an amazing weekend. Here is a fun video from the LMFAO performance (turn the volume down because of the static; I took the video with my phone).
There’s a lot of things that happened that I’m sure I could have done better when I was at a Apple the first time and a lot of things that happened after I left that I thought were wrong turns, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter and you kind of got to let go of that stuff and we are where we are. So we tend to look forward.
And, you know, one of the things I did when I got back to Apple 10 years ago was I gave the museum to Stanford and all the papers and all the old machines and kind of cleared out the cobwebs and said, let’s stop looking backwards here. It’s all about what happens tomorrow. Because you can’t look back and say, well, gosh, you know, I wish I hadn’t have gotten fired, I wish I was there, I wish this, I wish that. It doesn’t matter. And so let’s go invent tomorrow rather than worrying about what happened yesterday.
New York City is in a unique situation right now. It’s changing. Several industries are core to New York: media, financial services, advertising, fashion, sports and social driven business (i.e. restaurants, nightlife), to name a few. Technology is influencing all these industries and altering the way we think about and interact with them. I moved to New York two and a half years ago when the technology industry here was still relatively small, but I could see the entrepreneurial spirit inherent to building high growth technology companies starting to gain momentum. NYC industries were ripe for disruption and improvement through technology. Fast forward to 2011. Some of the most promising technology companies in fashion (Gilt groupe), financial services (Kickstarter), social (foursquare) and advertising (Buddy Media) are coming out of New York. Google bought a 2.9M square foot building in the old Port Authority building, which also happens to house several prominent start-ups and venture capital firms. Mayor Bloomberg has taken it upon his office to incentivize technology innovation in the city through multiple programs. The technology community in New York is growing quickly and I’m thankful and proud to be a part of it. When I heard that Stanford is submitting a proposal for a new engineering and sciences campus on Roosevelt Island, I was thrilled. Stanford embodies the entrepreneurial energy that is responsible for creating Silicon Valley and its biggest companies. New York needs this energy and the potential of these incredible technology resources. On the other hand, it’s important for Stanford to be a part of the innovation that is happening here in New York. Yesterday’s semiconductor, enterprise software and hardware businesses are tomorrow’s software businesses that will transform industries like media, finance and advertising. These companies cannot exist anywhere but New York. They need technology to realize their full potential. It’s an important and mutually beneficial relationship that needs to happen now as the technology market evolves in fundamental ways that will impact the next ten to twenty years and beyond. The United States’ ability to influence these industries through technology innovation is even more critical in this era of globalization. New York needs Stanford and Stanford needs New York. I implore all Stanford alums, students and friends who have any association with NYC to spread the word. Ever since I was 18, I’ve been a proud member of the Stanford community. Its influence has profoundly affected me for two reasons: 1) exposure to amazing friends and mentors and their energy to think differently while trying to change the world 2) a vibrant startup community full of people passionate about business and engineering, two disciplines that are increasingly becoming blurred. If Stanford is successful in its bid to establish roots in NYC, the Big Apple will experience both of these for itself, making the best city in the world that much better and well positioned for the opportunity that lies ahead.
With the economy and markets in flux and the threat of a double dip looming, the tech world seems immune if not stronger than its ever been since 1999. Everyone is talking bubble. This weekend, I had brunch with a group of classmates from business school and nearly everyone at the table insisted that their was a tech bubble. After walking away from that brunch, I feel 5 key points prove that this is not a bubble and why technology is different now then it has ever been.
1) High Growth Technology Businesses are Becoming Everything-Fashion, Sports, Media, Food, Supply Chain, Art, Payments, Coupons, etc. The scope of what technology influences is larger than ever before. Building a business using technology is easier than ever. At the brunch, I mentioned that Google is just as much a media company as a technology company. I got several confused looks…..ummm, Google sells media ads that big media companies like Viacom, Time Warner and Newscorp do. Same business model, different type of content. Ebay was your garage sale but with infinite garages. Zynga is your video game company. Etsy is your art dealer. Gilt Groupe is your designer boutique. Twitter is your news wire. AirBnb is your travel agent. Palantir is your consultant/analyst analyzing your operations. Square is your point of sale system. Access everywhere through mobile, 4g, tablets enables this. My prediction for the next big platform business….someone who figures out how to disrupt the financial services industry.
2) Cash Balances of Big Tech Companies- Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and others (Cisco, IBM, Oracle) are all sitting on tens of billions of dollars of cash on their balance sheets (nearly $300B in aggregate). From 2000 to 2010 these companies all accumulated cash in an unprecedented rate. In 1999, technology companies did not have this much cash on their balance sheet. In fact, I dont know that their has ever been such a concentrated cash balance in one industry. What this means is more acquisitions of start-ups and further reinforcement of the ecosystem to innovate. People are going to be continued to be incentivized to build technology businesses and invest in these businesses. The cash on the balance sheet is immune to volatility in the markets. Sure if the relative market cap falls over time, companies will be a little less aggressive acquiring, but they will continue to seek growth. Tech companies generally dont acquire for cash flow, but acquire for innovative products and spectacular teams that can help them move into new markets.
3) Expansion into New Markets-A few weeks ago their were reports of fake Apple stores opening up in China in hopes to get Apple products to its massive population. Eastern Europe has some of the most underrated computer science talent in the world. Large parts of Africa and Southeast Asia still have not been touched with technology. Governments in the Middle east are being overturned by the openness of communication on social media through Twitter and Facebook. There are a lot of untouched markets.
4) The Public Companies are Real-The businesses going public such as Linkedin, Pandora, Zipcar and Opentable are real businesses with real cash flows. Although they may trade on high revenue multiples, these are all businesses that will be around 10 years from now. In 1999, businesses were going public purely on speculation of what they would be. The reason the Groupon IPO is delayed is because investors are carefully scrutinizing it as a real business and what its valuation will be based on that risk.
5) Angel Investors Dont Make a Bubble-There are a lot of arguments against too much angel money in the system. Much of the angel money that is funding the bad ideas does not come from the institutional dollars that help build big businesses. The game changing businesses are built with multiple rounds of financing from established venture investors. This market is not over saturated. Maybe there are too many angels, but that just means the barrier of entry has just moved a little further up the chain giving more people a shot to learn and try. An entrepreneur who has tried and failed is going to try and try again arguably making him or her a better entrepreneur and more likley to build that big business. Sure valuations on private investments may have gone up, but what ultimately dictates the success of an industry is the amount of innovation and the business models coming out of it. Lots of small checks and fewer large checks is great for technology.
Its an exciting time to be in tech. Embrace it and enjoy the ride!
I am proud to be on the launch team for Google Wallet. We have been working very hard for a long time to get this amazing new product off the ground. Here is our official press release.
