Posts filed under “Business”
University of Michigan – famous alumni notes
It always strikes me that the University of Michigan does a great job of promoting more distant famous alumni, but not always the more recent famous alumni. (I was an undergraduate there, so I’m interested in this.) Advertising / Google One thing that most people don’t know is that the two largest online advertising companies [...]
Startup accelerators in 2011
I’ve long been interested in the seed accelerator model, as started by Y Combinator. I wrote my master’s thesis on it, and wrote a follow-up post this spring. Recently, two things have happened that I wanted to write about. First, I restructured the spreadsheet where I maintained a list of all companies to come out [...]
Looking back – 1.5 years since “Copying Y Combinator”
It’s been nearly one and a half years since I originally wrote my paper on seed accelerators: “Copying Y Combinator: Why and How”, which focused on how other people or organizations could create their own programmes. I wanted to reflect on what has changed, and what hasn’t changed since, and what that means for the [...]
What I struggle with every day…
Seth Godin truly nailed it on the head today with a short blog post titled “In and out“. That’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make today. How much time and effort should be spent on intake, on inbound messages, on absorbing data… and how much time and effort should be invested in output, [...]
Meet the rockets that will be bigger than Apollo (SpaceX)
I’ve been a big fan of SpaceX for a long, long time. SpaceX has cracked the nut of becoming a viable, commercial heavy-lift aerospace company. They’ve redrawn the economics of the industry, and have a very bright future ahead of them. The last two recent successful launches of their Falcon 9 rocket have been spectacular! [...]
Visiting White Bear Yard in London; Timetric and Smarkets
White Bear Yard is a great little entrepreneurial home in North London, just off Clerkenwell Road in Camden. (It’s close to Farringdon and Chancery Lane Tube stations.) There are about 10 startups who have a home there, and they even have a Twitter account: @whitebearyard. I’m lucky enough to have friends in two of those [...]
Great management tip for new hires
I was at a dinner a while ago with a well-respected Director of sales at Google. We were discussing hiring, and he mentioned one of the things he does with all of his new direct reports. I thought it was really smart and wanted to pass it on. He requires all of his new hire [...]
The Rural Alberta Advantage (special thanks to Songkick)
A couple weeks ago I became a die-hard fan of an awesome Canadian band: The Rural Alberta Advantage. How did it happen? I heard that they were playing in London, thanks to Songkick, and it was simply a brilliant show. You should all buy their album NOW. The Rural Alberta Advantage I first heard of [...]