“Consumer Internet entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players,” a venture capitalist told me recently while discussing the prospects for a thirty-something founder, “They peak at 25, by 30 they’re usually done.”
Why? Because young entrepreneurs are more creative and imaginative, and are willing put 100% of their lives into their startups, he said. “It’s not a guess, this is a data driven observation,” says the VC.
He had a number of caveats. First, this only applies to consumer Internet entrepreneurs. Enterprise and hardware startups tend to do better with older founders, where experience (and direct sales experience) matter a lot. And there are plenty of founders that, like Michael Jordan, can peak way beyond 25 (and the peak basketball age is really probably at least a 27). “Those tend to be the repeat success founders,” he said, “the rules don’t apply to them.” → Read More
The GMT version of the updated Oris BC3 comes as a limited edition done for the Oris Big Crown Sky Racing team. Why does “Big Crown” need to be in that term? I know that Big Crown is a line if watches from Oris, but does that mean there are other Oris Sky Racing teams? Anyhow – that BC3 Air Racing Limited Edition watch comes in the same 42mm wide case as the BC3, but here in titanium. It also has a special red ring about the crown to go with the GMT hand. → Read More
Ever heard of Dropship? It’s an open-source project that “enables arbitrary, anonymous transfers of files between Dropbox accounts.” Dropbox hopes you haven’t; they tried to squelch it this week, and even accidentally reported that it was subject to a DMCA takedown notice, with predictably futile results. I’m mostly sympathetic: I’m a huge fan of their service, Dropship was a clear violation of their terms, and for obvious reasons they don’t want to turn into an anonymous peer-to-peer file-sharing service. Unfortunately, they accidentally built a system which enabled just that.
How about Sony’s PlayStation Network? Of course you have. It was so thoroughly hacked this week that Sony had to shut it down indefinitely. Did you also know that Sony’s PS3 firmware is effectively wide open, because they made a hilariously stupid security mistake? Did you know that that’s probably how PSN got hacked, and that it raised the spectre of the hacker(s) taking over every connected PlayStation 3 in the world and turning them into by far the biggest botnet in history? That probably wasn’t what Sony had in mind, but they accidentally built a system which enabled just that. → Read More
The Gillmor Gang — Kevin Marks, Danny Sullivan, JP Rangaswami, John Taschek, and Steve Gillmor — christened the new Gang studio with a surprise welcome to Kevin Marks. It turns out he’s joining salesforce.com on Monday, following JP (six months), JT (7 years), and me, who is celebrating my one year anniversary. Kevin has been a forceful champion of open standards at Apple, Technorati, Google, BT (Ribbit), the Gillmor Gang, and now salesforce.com. Before, and once the festivities were out of the way, we got back to Gang business, namely the continued aftermath of the phone location recording crisis.
With free lunch debunked, we tackled the Amazon outage and its impact on the Cloud. You can decide for yourselves, but the consensus is that such challenges will be remembered fondly as a validation of the moment, as with the Gmail outage of several years ago, when the Cloud passed from inflection point to basic services. The velocity of business in the iPad age, where CEOs can see deeply into their companies in realtime, demands a level of interactive services and an iterative feedback loop not possible with the previous generation of software. And that lead to a debate about iPhone video calls and what Danny is looking for in a flying car. → Read More
The talent wars that were common back in the late 90′s appear to have returned whether it’s using LOLCats or cheeseburgers to recruit talent. While I love the creativity, when it comes down to making a decision to join a new company, the lumbering tech giants (Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Zynga, Facebook) which startups compete against for talent have one giant ace up their sleeve — great healthcare benefits.
When I left Microsoft 8 years ago, my wife expressed only one concern — losing health benefits. At the time, I told her that it’s just a matter of paying those costs directly. The reality has been that it’s been a significant hassle and cost that we’d rather not deal with. The excitement of working with startups has outweighed that hassle, but even to this day it remains a burr in the saddle. Periodically, I will get an offer to join some company and her first question is “how are their health benefits?” Startups have repeatedly shown an ability to outmaneuver the behemoths we compete with but this is one area where the behemoths still have an edge. It’s time to turn the tables with what I call Do-it-Yourself (DIY) Healthcare Reform. → Read More
The business model of incentivized app downloads was recently dealt a death sentence by Apple. Apple said incentivized app downloads were driving inaccurate rankings in the App Store, almost certainly because essentially paying consumers to download apps was a way of gaming a ranking system that used downloads as a key metric. To be fair, there were many quality apps taking advantage of the loophole in the ranking system, but that era has ended. And so have the days of companies making money hand over fist in the incentivized downloads business, better known in the industry as Cost Per Install or CPI.
So how exactly did it work? Say you’re playing a game that offers you virtual currency; the game might ask you to download an advertised application in exchange for virtual credits within that game. You install the app and get your in-game currency. The app gets a new install and pays for that. This quickly generates bursts of installs, immediately boosting an app’s ranking in the app store. → Read More
Drone Ships To Run On Sediment Sucked From The Sea Floor Now You Can Fabricate Your Own Strandbeest Weekend Giveaway: A Mixtape Watch For You And Yours Wine Sling For Your Bike Makes Riding While Romancing A Snap Is Creationary A Lego Boardgame? Yes. Yes It Is. → Read More
I’ve been in Las Vegas for most of the month and so have been out of the loop on some of the major stories rocking the world of technology and media. Stories like the startling news that, having made a sack-load of money from the sale of TechCrunch to AOL, Mike is going to begin investing in start-ups again.
Like most jealous little fucks with a Wordpress login uncompromising guardians of media impartiality, I was shocked – shocked – at the news, but unlike most of those guardians, I was reassured by the honesty of his disclosure. I also laughed at HuffPost’s official statement that – well – Mike is special and that everyone should stop whining. → Read More
WARNING: mixed sports metaphors ahead.
How many do-overs does a startup get before users give up on it for good? As far as I can remember, the answer is zero. I can’t think of an example where a startup launched into the wild, flailed badly, and recovered (without completely abandoning the first product). There are lots of examples of flailing and relaunching (see Cuil, see Joost), but I can’t think of anyone that managed to pull out a win.
By my count Color, the $41 million startup that promises to “transform the way people communicate with each other,” has already struck out.
The first strike was a launch that left users confused, sharing photos with themselves and trying to figure out a user interface that seemed purposely designed to frustrate. We gave them another chance.
Strike two: pulling the Android version of the app from the market. → Read More
Twitter recently upped its rates on Twitter Promoted Trends from $60K-$70K to between $100K-$120K which means the demand for the unique form of advertising is certainly there. But what are brands getting in return? As we’ve seen before with Skittles, Charlie Sheen, and even the #Dickbar, attempting to float a brand message over user generated Twitter content isn’t always a success. → Read More
Last week President Obama spoke at Facebook, emphasizing during the townhall that the US needs to be bullish on Science and Math education if we are to pull out of the recession, “We want to start making Science cool. I want people to feel about the next big energy breakthrough and the next big Internet breakthrough the same way they felt about the moonwalk,” he said.
Taking off on that idea, Nancy Conrad, the wife of late astronaut Pete Conrad, has founded the Conrad Foundation in the memory of her husband. Pete Conrad was expelled from one school in the 11th grade because he had dislexia and then went on to graduate from Princeton and walk on the moon because he was taken under the wing of an educator who saw promise in the young man. → Read More
It’s Friday Friday Friday and you need to get ready for some fun, fun, fun! What better way to prove you’re not a stuffy old accountant’s assistant (even if you you are, no judgment) than with a watch shaped like a cassette tape. This EOS Mixtape watch comes courtesy of Junglecents and they’ve offered five for you lucky ducks. → Read More
The PSN debacle is continually evolving as the extent of the damage is made clear, though it should be noted that we’re still in the early stages and a lot of what’s out there is guesswork and hearsay. The good news is that the FBI is on the case, and a number of more local authorities are taking action as well. The bad news is that the hackers may in fact have the credit card numbers and, despite Sony’s claims, the CV2 codes as well. → Read More
We’ve always liked the Parrot AR Drone quadrocopter, and of course the four-rotor layout is gaining popularity among robocists everywhere — but this is something totally new. Weighing in at just 20 grams (that’s only slightly more than DARPA’s hummingbot), it’s basically just a PCB with rotors on it — and with the telemetry being handled off-device, it’s essentially a thin-client UAV. → Read More
Here’s an unexpected development. Dr. Amar Bose (founder of… you know, Bose) has made quite a gift to his alma mater, MIT — in fact, he’s essentially given away the company. The gift comprises a majority of the shares of the company, albeit in non-voting form, so MIT won’t be running the company. Instead, they’ll be raking in the dividends, likely to fund a few chairs, scholarships, and other recurring costs. Whatever you think about Bose’s sound, I think you have to agree this is a pretty cool move. → Read More
At first blush a game called “Creationary” may sound a bit anti-science but it is, in fact, just Pictionary with Legos. It costs $34 and is for ages 7-12 and apparently you can build your own die and then pick cards to tell each player what to build. You can make vehicles, buildings, or items from nature (there’s also a nebulous “things” category) and it’s for 3 to 8 players. → Read More
This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued Energy Star ratings for large vat commercial fryers. These appliances are used by high-volume dining establishments — like fast food chains, institutional cafeterias and full-service restaurants— to make french fries, hush puppies and anything else Paula Deen would promote, in bulk.
Encouraging the industry to upgrade to more energy-efficient fryers could help reduce the overall environmental (if not health) impact of kitchens in the U.S. catering to the collective appetite for fried foods, an appetite that seems pervasive, and permanent here. One Texan cook, Mark Zable, has even invented a method to make deep-fried beer.
According to a press statement and calculations by the EPA… → Read More
If you’ve put together your own PC before, chances are you’ve had to dip into the BIOS to change a few things around, switch the boot priority, things like that. But as essential as the BIOS tools are, the UI has always been a bit daunting. Keyboard navigation of an 80s-style ASCII interface isn’t something you expect in this modern age.
So Gigabyte has gone ahead and given their BIOS a shiny new touch-compatible layer, for those of you rocking all-in-ones or touchscreen monitors. Practical? Not really. But hey, why not? → Read More
This is a cool idea, though it requires a little luck to work. The gist is that you upload a picture to the site, it examines the EXIF data and looks for the serial number, then checks the web for photos with an identical SN. If your camera is lost or stolen, there’s a chance it could pick up pictures taken by the new owner, if they haven’t scrubbed the metadata. Give it a shot. It didn’t work for me, but the photo I used has been through several editing apps. [via BoingBoing] → Read More
