October 2011
1 post
A Movement For The Middle
I demand an alternative.
In one corner, I see the Tea Party representing the righteous indignation of hard core conservatives eager to see an America built on God, Guns, and Gold and in the other, I see the Occupy Wall Street movement representing a cliche patchwork of feel good sounding liberal causes coupled with the support of increasingly counterproductive Unions.
I demand something for...
August 2011
1 post
Where is my “right to win”?
I have been working with a client recently that frequently uses the question - “what is our right to win?” For example, when assessing strategic growth opportunities for their business, they evaluate standard drivers such as market size, growth rates, competition, and margin trends, and then thoughtfully, and with a refreshing level of self awareness for a major multinational company, turn the...
April 2011
1 post
Whack-A-Mole Week
This week was a classic, “whack-a-mole” week. One of those work weeks where there are a million and one things to do and that the faster you knock things off the list, the faster that new ones appear. In my old office I had hung a Mario Andretti quote, “if everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough”. I believe in it wholeheartedly. My only...
March 2011
3 posts
iamnader: Google's Castle: still breachable →
Could not agree more with Nader’s observation that “As powerful as Google is, it’s still a one-trick pony. Investors beware…”
iamnader:
Warren Buffet famously describes his favorite businesses as “economic castles protected by unbreachable ‘moats.’” The Apple ecosystem is a good example of this. Apple makes money a few different ways, but its primarily from hardware. While...
Curious Things - Week of 03/19
In an effort to jumpstart some more personal blogging, I thought I would try a weekly “curious things” post that highlights some random news and notes that I come across during the week that stimulate the “I should blog about that” reaction, but that I never seem to muster enough energy on for a real post. We’ll see how long I can keep this up!
BRIC nations are...
January 2011
2 posts
“There is no reason for anyone with any chops online to be remotely involved with...”
– -John Dvorak, PC Mag: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2375715,00.asp
Got to say that I’m beginning to agree with him. Over a fairly computerless holiday time and first week of the year (thanks to my laptop crashing), I did a bunch of thinking about how I spend my online time, what was...
A $100M+ cleantech deal that no one seemed to...
It is not often that Kleiner Perkins is able to participate in a $100M+ deal in the cleantech sector without sending the cleantech media and blogosphere into a virtual frenzy. But that is exactly what happened last week.
On January 5th, Kleiner and TCV announced a $135M investment into OSIsoft, a leading developer of data management solutions for industrial energy efficiency applications. While...
December 2010
5 posts
Mortgage Collapse Completely Skews The Census
I know that this headline is riveting and that perhaps only one, incredibly wonky political friend of mine will read beyond that title (if that is you, please like this link as proof you are a nerd).
The census is serious stuff. It happens once a decade and it drives the assignment of Congressional seats and political boundaries. State results are out and as today’s Politico headline...
Support Darfur Stoves
It’s holiday time and that means year-end giving campaigns from your favorite charities and political organizations. It’s a noisy time to make an appeal and economic times are tough (tax deductibles donations are not as helpful when you’ve got less income to deduct!) but all that aside, this one is quite personal.
Last week, I joined the Board of Advisors of Darfur Stoves. If...
Seoul and Tel Aviv
I spent the first week of December in Seoul. It was my first trip to Korea and I left inspired by the city, its energy, and its spirit. The country has emerged as a global innovation powerhouse and I was glad to have the chance to get a glimpse into what made it tick.
As someone incredibly curious about the conditions (social, political, and economic) that catalyze entrepreneurial cultures, I...
Rockstars →
I remember like it was yesterday grabbing breakfast with Jack and Nat at the old Bucks County Coffee shop on Locust (which seems to now be defunct and renamed Saxbys). PlaceVine had just won the Wharton Venture Award along with the companies that these guys were starting and I was eager to hear what they were up to - the Wharton undergrads were 1000x more credible as entrepreneurs than anyone in...
November 2010
8 posts
“So when I look at where we are right now, it reminds me so much of 1999 and...”
– http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/pacing-yourself.html
Not a quote you want to see from one of the most savvy early stage investors around
Cleantech Sales Cycles: Finding The Path Of Least...
(cross posted from http://blog.cleantech.com)
It is becoming a common refrain across many cleantech sectors to lament the slow speed of technology adoption by large, enterprise customers. Companies developing new hardware and software for the smart grid must contend with the buying cycles of large, regulated utilities. Those targeting innovation in the water sector face an uphill battle to get...
Information Anxiety and Opportunity
I wake up far too early many weekend mornings - sleeping in for me usually means around 6:30am - and try to use the time to catch-up on news/feed reading that I’ve missed during the week. My weekday mornings are usually spent focused on making sure I’m up on the daily cleantech industry news, but my weekend is when I catch up on my fill of larger technology venture world, politics,...
“It’s [Silicon Valley] a culture of risk-taking…Entrepreneurship is so...”
– http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/business/smallbusiness/11sbiz.html?_r=1
Boom Wrangling
I spent this past week in Los Angeles for a conference that we (Cleantech Group) produced on innovation in the water sector. As part of my moderating duties on the opening night of the conference, I had to give a quick introduction for a speaker focusing on the convergence of water and IT. I searched my brain for a quick personal anecdote to use in making the introduction and Po Bronson jumped...
October 2010
7 posts
Cleantech's Creative, Data Renaissance
Fred Wilson and Chris Dixon are two guys at the top of my reading list every morning. Both primarily inhabit the internet software and services world and so it gets me particularly excited when I see threads of their thinking that are relevant to the cleantech world. Fred wrote this week on the evolution of internet innovation towards creativity:
“The digital technology revolution was,...
"8-4...Us": Joining the Giant's Bandwagon
Luckily for me, San Francisco is a bandwagonning kind of town. It is afterall a city built in the 1850’s by the Gold Rush as settlers flocked West in search of striking it rich. Though I know a handful of born and bred San Franciscans, most people I know flocked here for the same sense of exploding opportunity in the late 90’s and have stayed through the ups and downs having...
Waiting For Superman →
I just got back from Waiting For Superman and the film is an absolute must-see. If you are looking for the root causes of where America has gone off the tracks, this is one of those “shock you into greater awareness” movies. The film explores the breakdown of the American education system through the lens of five struggling families and highlights the heroic work of charter school...
“But just doing your job in an average way — in this integrated and automated...”
– Tom Friedman, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/opinion/24friedman.htm
Read this editorial right after posting on economic development. Friedman, as always, nails it. It is going to be a monumental challenge for depressed regions to breed “artisans”, but I do believe that we all...
Cleantech, Economic Development, Hope Over Fear
This week I had the pleasure of presenting and participating in a truly inspiring dialogue around cleantech as a vehicle for regional economic development. The meeting brought together regional economic development executives, business leaders, investors, and government agencies all centered around a city in the Midwest (for client confidentiality, I will leave out specifics, but it is a...
“Washington might be improperly supporting its own industry.”
– From a senior Chinese official rejecting a U.S. trade complaint about Beijing’s clean energy policy. You can say that again. Washington certainly is improperly supporting our clean energy industry, just not in the way suggested by this Chinese official. We wouldn’t have to be engaged...