Startup Camp?

One of the coolest things about working at Socialtext is the openness leadership has with the company as a whole. One example of this in action is the company face to face meeting, where our CEO drove a conversation about venture capital, appropriate goals for a VC backed startup, the implications for stock and stock option ownership. As I watched the room during the discussion, it struck me that this sort of continuing education is valuable in developing future leadership in an entrepreneurial society.

Enter Ross Mayfield’s blog post I read (and he composed) while present in the company face to face about what he calls “Stockcamp”. Since stock ownership is a key driver in silly valley, an unconference for startup stockholders would be a great idea. Extending it to include future startup leaders would be neat also, as there would be some neat synergy in getting together entrepreneurs and people who would work for them in hallway chatter. Three distinct topic areas off the top of my head (and typical questions) are:

Stock and Stock Options

What are the tax implications of stock option ownership?
When is the best time to exercise vested options?
What kinds of stock grants are typical for positions like mine?
What are the implications for foreign workers vesting options?
What are additional grants?

Funding

What’s the difference between angels and venture capital?
What should you look for in an angel?
What should you look for in a VC?
What funding rounds do companies usually go through, and why?
How do I mitigate friction between different investors?
What’s a term sheet and what does one look like?
VCs fund people they’ve worked with before – how do I break in?
What motivates angel and VC behavior?

Operations

How do I structure the organization?
What are common mistakes entrepreneurs make?
What kinds of partners should I look for?
What kinds of people should I hire?
How do I attract the right kinds of people?
How do I find and negotiate the best office space lease terms?
How can I leverage community to build product awareness?

There’s a startup camp happening in March in the UK already focused on entrepreneurs only which is a great idea. I’d like to see it extended to include a wider audience here in silicon valley. Would you join a StartupCamp? Are there any key areas of interest I missed? Please join the conversation below..

The Funniest Party Guy in Australia

The last 45 seconds are absolutely classic..

My Biggest Influencers

Tagged my Mukund Mohan, here’s my little contribution to the meme floating around the internet begun by Paul Gillin. In writing down my list of biggest influencers, the only parameter I set for myself is that the list must consist of people I’ve actually met, even if briefly. This knocks out a few thought-influencers, such as the ancient Chinese warrior-philosopher Sun Tzu, whose seminal book has influenced my thinking more than any other I’ve read.

It was instructive putting this together and seeing the big recurring theme (I’m sure you’ll see it). I hope you enjoy reading this list as much as I enjoyed reading Mukund’s.

1. Mom, Dad, and Ling ling (my fiancee): I’d call my parents’ story humble yet amazing. Both fled a repressive communist regime and settled in New York City, without a dime to their names and without knowing a lick of English. They found each other, and forged ahead together to create a new life in a strange land. Imagine the USA collapsing and having to move to Finland with nothing but the shirt on your back and a high school friend’s couch to sleep on awaiting you and you’ll get a sense of how daunting their journey was. They found each other, and found a renewed sense of community among others similarly displaced. After 2-3 years, they moved beyond living paycheck to paycheck and eventually raised two sons and bought their dream home. Most importantly, they learned and passed along to me that no matter what life is like today, your future is yours to create.

Ling ling’s story is similar – blue collar roots in a small town in China. She could have chosen the “safe path” and remained in her hometown, surrounded by familiar faces, and lead a familiar life. She instead decided China was fast moving to join the rest of the world, and she would do the same – move to Beijing, go to business school and focus on international business, and work for an American company. It was a risky proposition, but she always felt compelled to follow her ambitions. No surprise despite the cultural gap, she and my parents understand each each quite well.

So how do they influence me? All three are a daily reminder that the best is yet to come. Always.

2. Peter Drucker: Drucker is the original futurist – a guy who got it right nearly always in a field where batting 20% is considered brilliant. Drucker was an unlikely candidate for guru status – born into a humble family of Hapsburg civil servant in the village of Kaasgraben, Austria. He fled Austria to pursure a better life in Germany. When history dealt him nazisim, he fled again to the U.S. where he became a prolific author.

I own a copy of nearly everything Peter Drucker has ever written, and was fortunate enough to speak with him for a few minutes after a lecture he delivered during my college days. I learned more in those few minutes than in the rest of that year in college. Drucker impressed upon me the value of community as the primary driver of career success and productivity as opposed to mythical “efficiency”. This is of course considered common knowledge in the current age of social networks. The thing is, Drucker was writing about this 1939. That’s not a typo. He was also a standout in an age where management thinkers wrote obsessively about profits. Drucker on the other hand wrote about profit as not the primary goal, but an essential condition as a going concern fueled by doing the right things (i.e. serving clients internal and external).

So how does Drucker influence me? In his own words: “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

3. Duncan Stewart: Duncan and his family are what I consider my “west coast family”. He gave me my first opportunity to move into my current career path, and believed in my ability to make it. He too moved to California to make his fortune after overcoming some difficulties earlier his youth. He’s one of the very best at knowing what makes people tick, and is someone whose “read” on any situation I have come to regard highly. He also has a knack for coming up with creative solutions. Some of my most memorable times both in the bay area and overseas have been spent with him and his family, and I can honestly say they played a key part in making California feel like “home”.

So how does Duncan influence me? He’s taught me to take the time to read people, and also to think creatively when faced with a seemingly intractable problem.

Honorable mentions (some I know more through writings, some personally): Amelia Baldwin, Guy Kawasaki, Mimi Stewart, Ross Mayfield, Jeremiah Owyang, Clark Wheatley, Ping Dai, Guiping Dai, Tim Ferris, Pedro Reyes, Javier Heredia, Paul Graham, and last but certainly not least, Mukund Mohan.

Who are your biggest influencers? Tagging Ling ling Dai, Javier Heredia, Jeremiah Owyang, and Damien Mulley to keep the meme going. Update: Tagging Niall Larkin and Ross Mayfield too.

Macworld 2008 Stevenote

.. that something is eau du fanboy.

As is customary, the annual Stevenote kicked off Macworld today in San Francisco today, minus the black shirt and jeans we usually see from Steve-o. He was looking rather dapper today as he introduced the new lineup of Apple goodies for 2008. Ryan at Engadget liveblogged the event nicely, and for my purposes I figured I’d react as one voice in the chorus that is Apple’s target market. Here’s a few thoughts on each of the rollouts, with a thumbs up or down reaction:

Office 2008 for Mac (verdict: thumbs up)

It was about time for an update, despite the rapidly improving zoho and google docs online office apps. I could go on about Office for Mac, but who cares? Let’s move on to the new macbooks and other stuff.

Time Capsule (verdict: thumbs down)

I’m calling it now – Time Capsule will be 2008’s Apple TV. I’m not the only one to reach this conclusion. The device itself is neat, but really it’s just a backup machine with wireless capabilities. The Airport Extreme already provides the wireless link needed to share a backup hard drive, so Time Capsule seems redundant to some extent if you’re already on the Steveo bandwagon. I don’t quite think the Windows home server and Apple Tv 2.0 are chasing after the same markets – the Windows server is more for the do-it-yourselfer, while the Time Capsule is the too-busy-to-do-it-myselfer.

While not a bad offering, I don’t see any widespread adoption potential and the $299 and $499 price points (for 500GB and 1TB respectively), just like with the Apple TV. Speaking of which..
Apple TV 2.0 + Movies (verdict: mixed)

The idea behind the nouveau Apple TV is to provide users with a device where you can browse movies, rent them, and watch them on your television without a computer. In other words, while iTunes provides an alternative to the music store, Apple TV 2.0 provides an alternative to Netflix and Blockbuster.

First the good – I love the Flickr capabilities, and love the ability to surf and listen to podcasts without the computer. I also love the lower pricepoint of $229. It seems Apple thought this out and I do see a market for the new Apple TV.
Sort of. The video rental stuff is all well and good but Comcast has been doing this for a while now. Netflix has a “view now” feature where you pay a flat fee and watch whatever you like. For normally cutting edge Apple, this is decidedly behind the curve. In other words, Netflix gives me more bang for the buck. The market I see for this is my mom. She’s not terribly computer saavy, but would probably get a kick out of seeing my new Flickr pics and phasing out the occasional trip to blockbuster. I don’t know if Apple TV 2.0 appeals to me, however. I’m already used to having an all-you-can-eat instant watch, thanks to Comcast and Netflix.

iPhone Developer Kit (SDK) (verdict: thumbs up)

Apple took alot of heat for shutting off outside developers from the iPhone internals. Deservedly so for such an asshat move. So thanks for listening Steve-o. If you’re wondering why you should care, consider ordering a Starbucks coffee on your iPhone while walking to the store, then picking it up once you arrive. the iPhone just became far more valuable both to software developers and to me as a user. Here’s a conceptual mockup from Phil Lu:

The possibilities are pretty exciting to say the least.

Macbook Air (verdict: Huh? I dont’ get it)

Finally, Steve-o introduces the Nike Macbook Air. Ok it looks beautiful; I love the thin footprint and the stylish design. I’m not sure sure I love what’s under the hood, though: 1.6Ghz Core 2 Duo ULV chip, 2GB RAM, 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and 80GB drive for $1800. For “only” $1300 more, you can get a 64GB SSD and 1.8Ghz processor. One you get past the siren’s song and do the math, you realize it’s a prety bad price-performance ratio. Also, what’s with the non-replaceable battery?

Here’s what I’m wondering: who is this targeted towards? I can see on-the-go executives, sales professionals (like myself), and artists opting for a Macbook pro at that price, providing a bigger screen and more storage for all those excel spreadsheets or musical compositions. Middle of the road buyers (students and budget consumers) really aren’t a good fit for the Air either. Maybe I’m way off here, but I just don’t see these things flying off the shelves, mostly because I don’t see laptops as a fashion accessory.

What was your take on the Macworld Stevenote? Feel free to let me know…

Update: Apparently 70% of those informally polled at Engadget here feel the same way abotu the Nike Macbook Air. Choice quote: “It all just seems like a step backward for the sake of slimness. Innovation doesn’t begin by taking away features…does it?”

Facebook, Meet Mainstream.

Recently, CBS News variety program 60 minutes interviewed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on January 13, 2008. Here’s the video.

Part 1

Part 2

Some quick thoughts on the news report:

- The piece was a bit fluffy, but overall well balanced and accessible to the mainstream. I’ll be passing it around to my non-weberati network.

- The key takeaway in regards to Facebook taking on Google is that Google is a great place to get facts, while Facebook is a great place to get advice.

- Kara Swisher’s opinion on Beacon is that it was a bad move. Not quite Kara. Beacon was a smart move strategically, but Facebook didn’t execute on it properly.

- Leslie Stahl touched on Microsoft’s private valuation of Facebook, but never asked “why”. She should have elaborated and/or asked the tough questions.

- Charlene Li (who was interviewed in the piece) put together a good post-mortem.

- Tom Hodgekinson at the UK Guardian put together an interesting contrarian piece to the pep rally around Facebook. Among other things, he makes the point that the real man behind Facebook is Peter Thiel.

Who’s your Datty?

So you joined the social networking craze, perhaps our of the dread sense of being left behind as your offspring blasts away on myspace or perhaps because you’ve read all about networking sites like Facebook and Linked in. And you’ve probably collected lots of emails. So how much of that is “your” data v. the social networks’ data? Can you save it to your computer?

Answer: depends on the terms of service. For instance should you be able to extract your friends’ contact info out of Facebook? Blogger Robert Scoble, who tried to use a small script supplied by Plaxo to export out friends’ emails (all 5,000 of them). That’s a no-no according to Facebook’s terms of service, and the banned him.

This morning, everyone with a blog or videocamera felt the need to chime in, and so I’ll list a short sampling of the wide-ranging opinions. Robert’s view is that he imported the data in, so he owns it. Facebook appears to see it as theft of content. Loren Feldman calls it insidious corporate espionage. John Furrier thinks Robert Scoble was used by Plaxo for free publicity. Michael Arrington smacks Plaxo. Nicholas Carr got it right in my view.

On one hand, Robert is absolutely right – Facebook doesn’t own my email address and other identifying info. But then again, does Robert own it? Nobody should except me, but practically speaking, Facebook can and will continue to do this. So why should you care if you’re not into silicon valley gossip? Here’s why:

1. If you have a kid on myspace, any demographic data they enter in is no longer under your control. Talk to them and make sure you know what they are sharing.

2. Likewise, understand that once you put something on the web, you’ve effectively given up control of it. That’s true for text, pictures, or music or anything else.

3. You now know we in silly valley make a mountain out of a hill of beans.