Sarah Lacy writes for PandoDaily, a news site which she founded.
She is also an award winning journalist and author of two critically acclaimed books, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0” (Gotham Books, May 2008) and “Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky: How the Top 1% of Entrepreneurs Profit from Global Chaos (Wiley, February 2011).
Lacy has been a reporter in Silicon Valley for nearly fifteen years, covering everything from the tiniest startups to the largest public companies. She was formerly a staff writer and columnist for BusinessWeek, the founding co-host of Yahoo Finance’s Tech Ticker, and a senior editor at TechCrunch. She lives in San Francisco.
Baidu is one of the most known of the Chinese Internet giants. Some of the buzz is admiration for Robin Li, one of the pioneers of the Chinese Web scene who built a global giant that succeeded in a political environment where Google cried “uncle.” Others have painted Baidu as the mirror image of Google’s lofty “do no evil” credo.
So on our recent trip to Beijing, we decided to take our cameras to the search giant’s massive headquarters– which spans more than one million square feet– to see if we could find any torture chambers. Big thanks to our gracious host and good sport, Baidu spokesperson Kaiser Kuo. → Read More
Let this post be a lesson to would-be entrepreneurs: Don’t turn down any party invitations. This advice is obvious if we’re talking about fancy dinners as the homes of moguls. But apparently the Valley is so rich with venture capital, it even applies to backyard BBQs at the homes of bloggers.
My husband and I have an annual August BBQ, and two years ago we found a term sheet sketched on a paper tablecloth. We never found out who that belonged to. But I just found out another deal happened at this past year’s party when LA entrepreneur JR Johnson met Tony Conrad of True Ventures. → Read More
The biggest barrier to starting a company isn’t ideas, funding or experience. It’s excuses. And you can understand why: Starting a company is scary. It’s little wonder that even the best entrepreneurs go through a period of doubt and excuses not to take the plunge.
So when I hear complaints from entrepreneurs in other areas of the US or in other countries about how they can’t start companies because there is no angel money, no mentors, no employees that will work for a startup, I always wonder how much of these gripes are truly insurmountable odds to new company formation and how much are the grousing of someone looking for someone else to blame.
In China, the complaint du jour is that the entrepreneurs are trying to push beyond just founding companies that are clones of Western Web brands, and it’s the VCs that won’t take the risk on truly new ideas. Over two days of backstage deliberation at Disrupt Beijing, I got to see first-hand how the mind of the Chinese VC works. And I have to say, Chinese entrepreneurs have a valid point. → Read More
Memo to Chinese startups: You made for a late night of deliberations. We typically pick five finalists. There were a few companies that were clear picks, captivating everyone– from the judges to the staff to people we talked to in the hallways. Then there was another group that each had passionate advocates on staff, making for some tough decisions.
Ultimately, the staff got down to six we liked and couldn’t agree on which one to eliminate. So in the spirit of rule breaking, we decided to pick six finalists. → Read More
We are kicking off the last day of TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing 2011 at 6pm PST. Thanks to Ustream, we’ve embedded the livestream of the event here.
Be sure to tune in and don’t forget to follow along by searching for the #disruptbj hashtag on Twitter!
The agenda for today is below. → Read More
After many sleepless months, our first ever international Disrupt conference will be starting at 9 am Beijing time/6 pm PST. Even if you didn’t make the trip over, you can still catch all the excitement on our livestream thanks to Tudou and Ustream.
In case you can’t watch the whole event, check out Alexia and my top picks for today in the video above.
We are kicking off the first day of TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing 2011 at 6pm PST. We’ve embedded the livestream of the event below. → Read More
Maybe you couldn’t join us in Beijing for our first international Disrupt conference, but all is not lost!
Step one: Order your favorite Chinese takeout.
Step two: Tune into the livestream from Beijing, brought to you through the Great Firewall courtesy of Ustream.
Step three: Tweet what you love and hate the same way you would sitting in the conference hall in the US. The hashtag is #disruptbj. (Seriously, stop giggling, twelve-year-olds and Michael Arrington.)
It’ll be almost the same as being here for thousands less. And you don’t even have to pull an all-nighter to get the highlights. All the Hackathon action starts at 8pm PST Saturday night and the conference begins at 6pm PST Sunday afternoon.
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The Disrupt Beijing Hackathon starts in a little more than 24 hours, and we’ve been working hard over the last few days to make it even more of a no-brainer for local Beijing developers to attend.
In addition to the chance to be the next GroupMe or win valuable prizes, we have decided to give all Hackathon attendees who complete a hack and present in the 24-hour period free tickets to the Disrupt conference Monday and Tuesday. That’s a $1,000-plus value for some hungry coders with a good idea and the desire to make it happen. You don’t have to have a team to participate. Just show up and we’ll help match you with others. → Read More
It has begun. Some eight hours ago, eight more members of the TechCrunch team landed in Beijing. Giddy and jetlagged, we are spending every minute between wheels down today and curtain up Monday morning working on the Hackathon, shooting videos, meeting with Chinese speakers and showing Western speakers a bit of this amazing country. Most important, we’re working with the startups competing in the Battlefield to hone their pitches for their six minutes of International glory early next week. → Read More
These are bittersweet days for Tony Fadell. The man who oversaw 18 generations of the iPod and the first three versions of the iPhone is finally launching his new company, Nest Labs, today. It has been eighteen months in the making and marks a new era for thermostats– and quite possibly other neglected categories of home electronics.
But he’s also recently lost his former boss and long time friend Steve Jobs. In this final segment of our sit-down interview with Fadell, he talks about the Steve Jobs he knew. He also talks about the future for Apple, and what he hopes Apple’s legacy will be for entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.
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Even if you read our story earlier tonight on iPod Godfather Tony Fadell’s new company Nest Labs and its new Learning Thermostat, you may still be wondering how anyone could make a thermostat an object of beauty. So we sat down with Fadell to get a video demo of the device that brought him out of retirement and has been eighteen months in the making.
True to the Apple aesthetic it’s one big dial you can spin and push to control a sophisticated array of features.
It’ll be the first thermostat marketed directly to consumers. Can they get excited enough to plunk down a couple hundred dollars? My husband and I are finally putting a new heating system in our drafty San Francisco Victorian. After this demo, I was sold. How about you? → Read More
For the last eighteen months, the tech world has been anxiously awaiting news of what iPod godfather Tony Fadell is up to. His staff has been sworn to secrecy since word got out he was leaving retirement to do something new. Despite reporters camping out in front of his office with cameras, the news somehow stayed a secret– no small feat in the ever-leaky land of Silicon Valley.
No doubt the anticipation raised expectations in fan boys’ minds that the next great entertainment or communication device was going to be unveiled by the former DJ who oversaw 18 versions of the iPod and the first three versions of the iPhone.
Fadell is well aware that those fan boys may be in for some confusion or some disappointment today. Because he’s announcing what finally got him to come out of retirement and start a new company: A desire to reinvent thermostats. → Read More
With all the recent TechCrunch drama– not to mention my own busy September giving birth– you might think our upcoming Disrupt Beijing conference had gotten pushed to the back-burner. You’d be wrong.
We’ve been busy ferreting out and booking more of the hottest names in the Chinese startup scene to augment our already announced keynotes by Tencent CEO Pony Ma, Chinese angel and entrepreneur Lei Jun, and a host of Western entrepreneurs who are traveling to China along with the TechCrunch staff.
One of our most anticipated keynotes is no stranger to Silicon Valley: Innovation Works founder and former head of Google China Kai-Fu Lee. Lee is one of those rare executives who has deep experience in the US with top companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google and deep connections in China as well. → Read More
We’re not done announcing our all-star lineup for Disrupt Beijing. In addition to top Chinese Internet names like Tencent co-founder and CEO Pony Ma, proven successes like YouTube’s Steve Chen and top up-and-coming Western names like Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka and Evernote’s Phil Libin, we’ve got even more startup experts lined up.
I’m thrilled to announce that Skype co-founder Niklas Zennstrom will be joining us in Bejing as well. → Read More
As we announced last week, we’ve been busy securing some of the most exciting names in China for our Disrupt Beijing conference this October including Tencent Founder and CEO Pony Ma and Chinese entrepreneur and angel investor Lei Jun. But it wouldn’t be a TechCrunch event without bringing a little of that Silicon Valley magic too.
In selecting people to bring to China we wanted a mix of some people who are new to the country and others who have a long experience doing business there; people who are existing successes and those who have a fast-growing, tiger-by-the-tail right now. We also wanted a few people who could speak to the culture and whimsy that makes the Valley so unique. → Read More
Hopefully, anyone who has attended our Disrupt San Francisco and Disrupt New York conferences knows why we charge $2,995 for tickets: Between the Hackathon, Startup Alley, the big names on stage and the Startup Battlefield, we essentially cram four conferences into one.
Our challenge in bringing Disrupt to Beijing was to find a way not to skimp on the conference, but produce an event that more than just expats with expense accounts could afford. As usual with our conferences, it’s all about the entrepreneurs and we want as many of them in attendance as possible.
So we’re happy to announce a special entrepreneur package for Disrupt Beijing that brings the price down from the already discounted $1,995.00 to $997.50. → Read More
Earlier this year at All Things D, Groupon CEO Andrew Mason said one of his regrets was not opening an office in Silicon Valley earlier. The implication was that he was talking about not taking advantage of the superior coding talent, but I took it another way.
Being in Silicon Valley is like playing for the Yankees. You get knocked around more than anywhere else, the glare of the media spotlight is more brutal and the expectations are higher than they’d be in any other city. You also get the coaching and, say, run support or bullpen arms that the most outrageously rich franchise in baseball history can afford. If you’ve got the chops, all of that undoubtably makes you a better player.
Don’t get me wrong: I hate the Yankees. But I can understand on a professional level, why so many players leave teams I love to go play there. → Read More
It seems Sarah wasn’t kidding about working right up until she gives birth. In this week’s positively-last-before-the-birth episode of Why Is This News?, Sarah and Paul are prompted by the ongoing reports of Dropbox’s mega funding to talk about valuations.
The typical outrage is over whether a company like Dropbox is “worth” $4 billion, but as we argue, that’s misses the point. Venture backed valuations are always a function of a company’s promise and how much demand there is to invest, not what a company is worth right now.
But there are reasons to worry about companies getting into valuation traps as the price tags get significantly over the $1 billion level. → Read More
Even before I worked at TechCrunch, Disrupt was one of the few industry conferences I looked forward to every year. There were two big reasons why: The enthusiasm and excitement of the startups who launch there, and the unparalleled lineup of the most exciting people in tech engaging in frank, honest conversations.
When we expanded the franchise to New York, it was natural to bring the most exciting Silicon Alley names on stage. That has included people like Fred Wilson and Dennis Crowley, but also the top names in media like Charlie Rose and Arianna Huffington. We even threw New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the mix.
In thinking through the lineup for Disrupt Beijing– our first ever International conference– I wanted to make sure we were bringing some of the most interesting personalities from the West to China. But more important was that we anchor the show with the most interesting names in the Chinese tech scene we could find. → Read More
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