October 2008
25 posts
2 tags
Feeling Bullish
I’ve been to a few panels recently about how miserable the economy is going to be for the next “5-10” years. They have been 100% Doom and Gloom with a consensus on misery for raising money or having a start-up without 2-3 years of runway. (Lots of people say it is a great time to start a company… always with the presumption that you’ve ALREADY raised a 2-3 year...
4 tags
Quick complaint about the T-Mobile G1
I’ve had the T-Mobile G1 for a week now, and I’m planning on writing a more detailed review soon, but I’ll mention one thing that is bugging the HELL out of me:
Applications must be installed to the built-in memory. There is only about 64 megs of memory free when you bring the phone home, to be shared between downloaded apps and cache for running apps. Downloading applications...
Shiver Me Timbers!
My friend pointed me to a great comment on a post over at The Big Picture. The comment is about this image from the New York Times:
The most alarming stat to me is the inequality of income.
Even Blackbeard the pirate had a better ratio, the captain in pirate ships would take two shares to a crew member’s one. On a crew of 100, the captain would take two shares and the remaing 99 crew...
MarketOutsider Tells Investors Who's Up, Who's... →
Traffic as a trading analogy
While stuck in traffic this evening, I realized that traffic makes a good metaphor for the basic archetypes of stock traders.
The car that weaves in and out of traffic, always jumping into the lane that is moving the fastest is the day trader (scalper). They are in and out very actively trying to catch the most movement at any given time and never can stand to sit still.
The swing trader car is...
Yet he continues to ride subsidized busses...
Bus Rider: Wow, this bus is packed, you should buy more busses.
Bus Driver: Call your representative and encourage them to expand light-rail and transit.
BR: That'd mean more taxes.
BD: I suppose so.
BR: I got tired of them adding more taxes, so I simply stopped paying them a few years ago.
1 tag
Intracommunication
Startups will always have some advantages over larger, entrenched competitors. One of those advantages is intracommunication.
As companies grow and products differentiate, the ability to know what is going on with every product and to make all of their products seamlessly integrate is lost. Even if they kept the desire to keep perfect inter-operation, the communication and organization cost...
1927-1933 Chart of Pompous Prognosticators →
Perfection
Nothing is perfect. An unfortunate reality, perhaps, but something you can learn to embrace.
I’m in the market for a new phone soon, and I’m down to essentially three options.
iPhone 3G
T-Mobile G1
Nokia E71
The problem is none of these phones does everything I want in the way I want. No matter which I will choose, the others will do something I wish that the one I pick would...
Contingencies
Someone I have a very high opinion of when it comes to financial intelligence said today that a 5700 Dow is likely. I didn’t ask if he was being flippant or not, but if not, that is a pretty serious cut from where we are now. I’d have to assume that the american (and world) economy would come out looking pretty miserable.
What sort of contingency plan would you do if you were 30%...
4 tags
Stealth
I’ve been meeting a number of new startups recently that are in ‘stealth mode’. Sure, it sounds cool, and lots of the cool kids do it, but really… what’s the point?
As i’ve relayed before, ideas aren’t worth anything, it is all in the execution.
Hoping your opponent doesn’t know what you are doing isn’t a winning strategy. Assume your...
Publish and be wrong →
Ads
I almost never watch TV.
I especially almost never watch TV without recording it first and skipping the ads.
Whenever I’m watching and I catch the ads I’m dumbfounded, here are two that struck me tonight:
An ad where a child soccer team loses, the other team gets the trophy and celebrates while the losers sulk… until someone brings them all McDonalds! That’s right...
Lucky
We should all consider ourselves lucky. We are going through a period of history that will be unlike anything else most people ever experience in their life.
For those that have their eyes open, we are getting to learn so much; for example, just how much fear and panic and capitulation has to occur before a stock market crashes. We get to see it in even more detail than most, because we get to...
3 tags
Fear
Lots of fear out there about the stock market. It’s palpable, everywhere you go that’s what people are talking about.
Sure, there is plenty to be afraid of, but we all have plenty of things to be afraid of that are completely independant of the stock markets.
For example, in about 13 years I will have three daughters who will all be teenagers at the same time.
If you are worried...
3 tags
Simple Stock Advice
A friend of mine today said now’s the time to buy, pointing at GOOG.
Sure, Google is an awesome company and isn’t going anywhere, but why buy now?
I made this image to help illustrate my point to him:
Trying to guess the bottom (B) is pretty much impossible. You’re highly likely going to end up buying at A. Why try? If you waited until everything looked much better and...
Sad Guys on Trading Floors →
3 tags
Resource Limited
Being resource limited is something everyone can understand. Some are better off than others, but everyone is limited in some way or another.
The two big ones are time and money. Unfortunately being limited in money can easily contribute to a lack of the other. Every day it hurts to think about everything I want to be doing but can’t because I spend the majority of my time trying to...
On Bailouts
The recent $700B (plus) bailout plan that just got enacted is likely ruined or not enough to really be relevant.
Paulson’s plan was like a trepanation for the market. Cut a hole in the skull of the market and are going to try and let the demons come out. The plan is that the government will later be able to sell the demons for a gain and make some money for the taxpayers. We’ll...
“When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree, there is...”
– Adam Smith - Wealth of Nations
4 tags
Datapoints on Angel Investment in the Downturn
A recent theme has been a number of articles talking about how the economic downturn may or may not impact startup investments.
Tonight at an event, I asked a question to a panel of representatives from angel investment groups, my question was this: “Given the current economy, you mentioned you’ve had increased deal-flow, but have you seen membership decreases, or increased member...
Daughter 1: What rhymes with 'mat'?
Daughter 2: 'Cat!' What rhymes with 'silver'?
Daughter 1: ... um... Merle. In my world, it rhymes with Merle.