Although I made a lot of mistakes with Advice Monkey, it still could have succeeded. The problem was, I didn’t learn from my mistakes. If I realized them when Advice Monkey was still around, I could have made the necessary changes to improve upon it.
You can even use it tactically. If I were running a startup, this would be the phrase I'd tape to the mirror. "Make something people want" is the destination, but "Be relentlessly resourceful" is how you get there.
FiveThirtyEight.com: Politics Done Right: What the Stock Market Thinks About the Economy
Topic: Business
1:27 pm EST, Mar 6, 2009
All of this gives us a rather different perspective on what the stock market is really telling us about the broader economy. The CEI is down about 10 percent since Election Day, is up about 10 percent since the last day of trading before Obama announced his "aggressive" stimulus, and is essentially unchanged since Obama's inauguration. The market is not becoming particularly more pessimistic about macroeconomic conditions (although it has certainly retained its previous pessimism) -- if this were true, we'd see cyclical stocks losing further value relative to more economically robust ones. But that largely isn't what we've been seen. Instead, the stock market is engaged in something of a pity party -- the prevailing emotions being fear and loathing. It is concerned about policies which might be burdensome to equityholders in large corporations while perhaps nevertheless being boons to economic recovery.
Representatives of Twitter liked the sound of $500 million but balked when Facebook said its stock was worth $8 billion to $9 billion. Twitter's team knew that Facebook was letting employees sell stock on the secondary market at company valuations ranging from $2 billion to $4 billion. "We said it's not worth it," the person says. "Don't treat us like children."
At that point, Facebook offered Twitter around $100 million in cash, with the rest of the deal in stock. Facebook said it would come up with the $100 million by selling more of its stock to outside investors.
Twitter agreed on one condition: that the Facebook stock it received be valued at the price company shares garnered on the open market. Facebook blinked and the deal talks ended. "They wanted to buy us but there was not much conviction," the person says. "They've been playing this charade," with the company's valuation. null
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn » Wifi Cat: The Backstory
Topic: Business
8:40 pm EST, Feb 26, 2009
The following is my account of the Wifi Cat ruse we pulled off last week at Startup Riot 2009 in Atlanta. This is from memory, so the timeline may be a bit off here or there - but it will give you the gist.
One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy. I was saying recently to a reporter that if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them. Then I thought: what would the other 9 be?
When I moved to Atlanta a few years back to start Jungle Disk, more than one person thought I was crazy for leaving California. However in addition to the personal reasons I had for moving, I really felt that Atlanta had all the raw ingredients needed to build a great Internet business. It has been amazing to see how much the startup community here has grown and come together in just the past few years. Through blogs, twitter, and local events like Open Coffee and Startup Riot local entrepreneurs have more opportunity than ever to network, share and work together.
Since Jungle Disk was acquired last year I’ve been looking for opportunties to give back to the community and help other local startups. One way that I’m planning on doing that is through Shotput Ventures, a startup accelerator fund modeled after Y Combinator.
Along with eight other local entreprenuers I’ll be helping guide a select group of web service companies from idea to launch in a three month program in Atlanta this summer. With my own success bootstrapping Jungle Disk, I know how far a great team with a small amount of capital can go in a short period of time with the right experience and resources available to them.
Applications for this summer’s program open up on March 6th. If you’ve got a great idea for a web company and a few friends to help I’d encourage you to apply. While the program will be held in Atlanta, teams from anywhere are welcome to apply.
Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett on Insurance Economics and 2004 Results
Topic: Business
9:44 pm EST, Feb 19, 2009
The Power of Float The source of our insurance funds is "float," which is money that doesn't belong to us but that we temporarily hold. Most of our float arises because (1) premiums are paid upfront though the service we provide - insurance protection - is delivered over a period that usually covers a year and; (2) loss events that occur today do not always result in our immediately paying claims, because it sometimes takes many years for losses to be reported (asbestos losses would be an example), negotiated and settled. The $20 million of float that came with our 1967 purchase (National Indemnity- NICO) has now increased - both by way of internal growth and acquisitions - to $46.1 billion.
Float is wonderful - if it doesn't come at a high price. Its cost is determined by underwriting results, meaning how the expenses and losses we will ultimately pay compare with the premiums we have received. When an underwriting profit is achieved - as has been the case at Berkshire in about half of the 38 years we have been in the insurance business - float is better than free. In such years, we are actually paid for holding other people's money. For most insurers, however, life has been far more difficult: In aggregate, the property-casualty industry almost invariably operates at an underwriting loss. When that loss is large, float becomes expensive, sometimes devastatingly so.
Insurers have generally earned poor returns for a simple reason: They sell a commodity-like product. Policy forms are standard, and the product is available from many suppliers, some of whom are mutual companies ("owned" by policyholders rather than stockholders) with profit goals that are limited.
To identify and invest, both time and capital, in unique opportunities presented by young companies navigating the chasm between Early Stage and Institutional funding
Early stage investment group I'd never heard of, in Atlanta.
