Bill Maher Wants Obama to Act Like a Real Black President? Racists from the Left and Right are Amusing

Maher is annoying, but this brings up another stereotype for me. A racist from the right who publicly says this kind of stuff is usually some guy with one black friend, boasts about him all the time, and still doesn't get it. A racist from the left who publicly says this kind of stuff is usually some guy with a few black friends but believes he has a hundred or is friends with every black in America, and still doesn't get it.

"Bill Maher Wants Obama to Act Like a Real Black President with Guns and Stuff" Gawker

Traveling in Beijing This Week. Limited Blogging and Social Media Output

I'm in Beijing this week, so there will be limited blogging from me. The Chinese government has blocked access to Blogger, Facebook, and Twitter from regular Internet access which is annoying. I can only access these sites through my iPhone, which can be tedious especially for blogging. So my overall social media output will be limited this week.

David Choi, Singer and YouTube Sensation

It's Friday. Chill links and lighter fair today. David is simply excellent. Huge YouTube sensation with over 260,000 subscribers and over 55 million views.

Landis Finally Admits and Outs Lance Armstrong, Not Surprised

Not surprised on both accounts. ESPN's article and video, "Landis admits doping, accuses Lance"

My old op-ed related to this here, "Don't Idolize Drug-Using Athletes: Steroids, growth hormones and other drugs threaten the integrity of sports"

"What is the Social or Psychological Factors Which Lead People to be Drawn Into Investing Huge Amounts of Time Into Casual Games?"

This question was presented to me over at Peerpong:

"What is the social or psychological factors which lead people to be drawn into investing huge amounts of time into casual games, IE FarmVille?"

My answer:
I personally divide online casual games into two camps. There are the traditional casual games such as poker, fortress, tetris, pool, memory, etc. The second camp is what I define as "lazy casual games" or lazy interactivity (borrowing from the interactive TV space). This is a new genre of casual games, such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars, that are almost as mindless as channel surfing late at night when you're almost asleep.

It's lazy interactivity because it takes very little movement (i.e. clicking the mouse without precision) to play these games. You can almost be in a daze to successfully play FarmVille or maybe you're multi-tasking on two projects, eating and talking to your spouse.

These "lazy casual games" entice people with enough simple rewards or a sense of accomplishment in exchange for the perceived effort put into it, so it's a low bar for these games to satisfy the typical game player. It's similar to the offline enticement of winning tickets at Dave & Buster's or a local carnival by whacking moles or shooting water into a balloon in exchange for stupid plastic toy prizes, candy from the 1960s (literally), or tin medals.

The interesting thing for me to see would be the churn rate. How long does the average person play FarmVille and other similar games? What is the lifespan of these casual games? Do they have staying power like a traditional casual game, such as Tetris? Do people come back after they stop playing or do they never play again after the first time they stop?

News & Links List

"What Is Yahoo Thinking? Buying Associated Content Opens Up A Whole Can Of Worms" TechCrunch

"Software Patent Absurdity" Brad Feld

"Why I became an Android fanboy" CNET

"Bill Gates Told Steve Jobs About the iPad in 2007" Gizmodo

"LifeLock CEO’s Identity Stolen 13 Times" WIRED's Threat Level

"Small Business Survival Guide 2010" Forbes Special Report

"Crowdsourcing and the challenge of payment" O'Reilly Radar

"Protect Your Privacy Opt Out of Facebook’s New Instant Personalization – Yes You Have to Opt Out" Librarian by Day

"Arizona Law Also Happens To Be Good Politics" Townhall.com, Debra J. Saunders

"Transcript: Holder on the Hot Seat Over Arizona Immigration Law" FoxNews.com

"Transforming Rio's Slums Through Community-Driven Art" Springwise

Buy "Somewhere Inside" by Laura and Lisa Ling and Support LiNK!

Laura and Lisa Ling's book, "Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home", is out and today they were on The Oprah Show (see video here).

What's great is that a portion of the book sales will be donated to LiNK (Liberty in North Korea). More from LiNK:

It has been just over a year since two American journalists were violently apprehended on the Chinese border while on assignment with Current TV for a documentary on North Koreans desperately fleeing their homeland. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were chased down by North Korean soldiers and charged with trespassing and “hostile acts” and sentenced to twelve years of hard labor in a prison camp.

When news of the arrest reached Laura’s sister, journalist and Oprah Winfrey Show correspondent Lisa Ling, she immediately began a campaign to get her sister released. Five months later, former President Bill Clinton was sent on a mission to North Korea - to bring the journalists home.


In her account, "Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity in North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home," Laura reveals for the first time what really happened on the river, her treatment by North Korean guards, and the deprivations and rounds of interrogations she endured, while Lisa writes about her unrelenting efforts to secure Laura and Euna's release by navigating the media and people at the highest levels of government.

The Lings will be donating portions of the proceeds to LiNK to help support our rescue missions and our shelters in China and Southeast Asia.


More information from Oprah's website here.

When Does It Make Sense To Bootstrap A Start-up?

No, you're not seeing double. Yes, this is a repost with a few tweaks from my prior one that was my answer over at PeerPong.

Anyway, you can check out this newer post over at InsideWork here.

News & Links List

"Visa officially announces their case that turns your iPhone into a credit card (and we’ve got pics!)" MobileCrunch

"Android Comes of Age at Google Developer Conference" WIRED's Gadget Lab

"Google and Intel in web TV launch" Financial Times

"Accel Keeps Its Wallet Open: Lookout Grabs $11 Million in Funding and Adds Execs" WSJ's BoomTown

"Facebook Enters into Five-Year 'Strategic Relationship' with Zynga" Industry Gamers

"Why Mark Zuckerberg needs to come clean about his views on privacy" VentureBeat

"The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand" Jason Calacanis

"Should an entrepreneur have an MBA?" VentureBeat

"You Might Want to Rethink that Email Pitch: Your VCs Have Declared Email Bankruptcy" ReadWriteWeb

"40 bloggers who really count" Times Online

"Stop Learning From Your Failures, It Creates a Culture of Fear" Fast Company

"Former Shell Oil Chief, Engineer: Supertankers Could Save the Gulf, So Why Won't BP Listen?" Fast Company

"Secretive speed traders in spotlight after crash" AP

"Miss Oklahoma Named First Runner-Up in Miss USA Pageant After Answering Immigration Question" FoxNews

"Thai mom: 'I want to die' for Red Shirt cause" CNN

"Five Lessons Bankers Must Relearn in the 21st Century" InsideWork, Geoff Finch

Meltup in America?

HatTip to Carl W. Meltup? Hyperinflation? Out of the recession? Dow up 70% from last year, but why is unemployment at 16.9%? 39.4 million Americans on food stamps, up 22.4% from a year ago.

I wonder what "facts" here are disputed.

Inventing a Portable Telephone

Good talk by Martin Cooper, inventor of mobile phone, over at BigThink:

"The developer of the first portable cellular telephone discovered that he wanted to be an engineer when he was just four years old. His homemade magnifying glass sparked a career that would revolutionize communications."

News & Links List

"Google's Wi-Fi Spying: What Were They Thinking?" PCWorld

"4 Lessons Learned From Google’s Nexus One Store Closure" GigaOm

"Next Version of Android to Offer Tethering and Mobile Hotspot Features" Fast Company

"Chrome OS Coming Along Quickly, But Not Ready Just Yet" TechCrunch

"Acer to launch Chrome OS devices in two weeks (exclusive)" VentureBeat

"Facebook Apologists Miss The Point: Facebook Isn't The Future" Stowe Boyd

"Gilt Groupe Hauls In Another $35M To Explore New Business Units" WSJ

"SAP to Buy Sybase for $5.8 Billion to Vie With Oracle" BusinessWeek

"Well, These New Zuckerberg IMs Won't Help Facebook's Privacy Problems" Business Insider

"You’re Welcome, You Bastards" TechCrunch, Michael Arrington
His response to Fortune and Simon & Schuster.

"Verizon, Google Developing iPad Rival" WSJ

"Swipely Nabs $7.5 Million in Series A Funding for Social Spending (And to Attack Blippy!)" WSJ's MediaMemo

"Kayak.com Cofounder Paul English Plans to Blanket Africa in Free Wireless Internet" Fast Company

"Buffalo billboard petitions president for 'a freakin' job'" Yahoo! News

"Winning, loyalty or immortality?" ESPN's Bill Simmons on LeBron

Will LeBron Leave Cleveland?

ESPN's Broussard says LeBron will go to Chicago? Are you kidding me?! Are you hearing this fellow Chicagoans? Rose and LeBron? Our hometown doesn't deserve another 6 titles :)

At what point does a company get too big to be fun? Does it ever?

My quick answer over at PeerPong:

For someone like me, it's probably over several hundred since I enjoy more of the early stages of company development. One take is when an executive has to work more on people problems than product problems, or as an employee you have to be aware of bull-eyes that were never on your back before.

For someone that likes structure, it's probably over 5,000. Maybe 10,000? Depending on when too many layers are added and you get too many people managing upward. One example is my wife who went to Google from Morgan Stanley. At that time, Google was about 3,000 people and big enough to have a mature corporate structure but small enough to be entrepreneurial throughout most of the company. She's been there 6 years and still loves it, but after her first 2-3 years it became a different animal.

News & Links List

"Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative" WIRED

"Are You Ready, Foursquare? Here Comes Facebook." WSJ's MediaMemo

"Android Multi-Touch Tablet Prototype Hands-on Review! [Web 2.0 Expo]" Zedomax

"Android Now Outselling iPhone" Mashable

"Growing On Google, People Asking “How Do I Delete My Facebook Account”" Search Engine Land

"What Happens When You Deactivate Your Facebook Account" ReadWriteWeb

"Booyah Hits 2 Million, Stealing Foursquare’s Thunder" TechCrunch

"No Google Nexus One for Sprint. So What?" GigaOm

"Smartphone Patent Battles: Dumb Move or Smart Strategy?" Knowledge@Wharton

"RowNine Aims To Create A Pandora For Flash Sales" TechCrunch

"Softbank Mobile: To Offer iPad In Japan Starting May 28" WSJ

"Taking On Microsoft, Google From India
A Bangalore startup aims to outperform tech's software giants." Forbes, Sramana Mitra

"A 'perfect storm' of disruption in consumer finance is coming" VentureBeat

"4Mbps broadband for all to cost $23 billion, won't use fiber" Ars Technica

"Is an MBA a Plus or a Minus in the Startup World?" TechCrunch, Vivek Wadhwa

"Black Hopefuls Pick This Year in G.O.P. Races" NYTimes

"One night at Jack's place" ESPN, Bill Simmons

"Betty White totally rocked ‘SNL,’ readers say
Show hosted by 88-year-old star was the funniest in years, many agree" Today Show

What's the Best Venture Capital Firm or Angel to Work with as a First-Time Entrepreneur?

My answer over at Peerpong and here are some others.

What's the Best Venture Capital Firm or Angel to Work with as a First-Time Entrepreneur?

Agree that you should focus on a specific partner and how he/she fits your personality, vision and intended company culture. Of course, sometimes you don't have that luxury. Here's my short list:

1. SV Angel (Ron Conway's angel fund)
2. Softtech VC (Jeff Clavier's angel fund)
3. Harrison Metal (Michael Dearing's "super" angel fund, $500K+)
4. Radar Partners (Kevin Compton, former KPCB partner)
5. Foundry Group (Brad Feld is a good mentor type)
6. First Round Capital

@Google & YouTube present A Conversation with Conan O'Brien

"Conan O'Brien may have been "legally prohibited from being funny on television," but thanks to TBS he'll be back on the air very soon. Conan and Andy Richter stop by Google's Mountain View, CA headquarters for a morning of hilarity. This event took place on May 5, 2010."

Why do you think startups fail?

A question posted at Quora...

Why do you think startups fail?
I have seen founders blame investors, investors blame CEOs, CEOs blaming the R&D people, R&D people say the product is fine, the market just doesn't get it, and marketing people blaming it all on the recession.

In your opinion, what are the major strategic reasons for startup failures?

My answer:

Strategic Reasons
1. The market simply isn't there. The startup could be way too early, too early, or just never was. I just hope you don't get in the last category because there will be all these drug accusations.

2. Poor allocation of resources and money. I've seen startups hire too many engineers, spend too much on marketing, or waste it on private helicopter rides to meetings (which mobile startup was that?) and other really idiotic expenditures.

3. Inability to change your business model midstream. Related to the first point, many successful startups have changed their business model midstream when they hit a roadblock. Is the CEO or management team able to be flexible in their thinking, or will the love of their product or personal stubbornness lead to their downfall?

4. Raised too much money. Sometimes too much money creates laziness or undisciplined management decisions. I've been here, so I just called it "management blindspots" or "big rounds are like crack for entrepreneurs" take your pick. Money burns quicker than most entrepreneurs think. It's not paper, it's paper soaked in gasoline.

5. Raised too little money. I've been here too. This is what I call funding to fail. You raise too little and you're always chasing the next bridge loan or funding rounds to take your company to the next half-step. Being greedy with your equity is good, but when it becomes a drag on product development or growth it becomes stupid. If and when you can raise a decent round, do it and don't assume investors will be there at your beckon call a few months down the road. Most people are beauty queens (or kings) only once.

Non-strategic Reasons
1. Lack of trust. Trust really is essential for a startup's success. If there is a lack of trust in the founding team from day one, it will be a slow poison that kills the company. A subpoint is the lack of chemistry. This soft issue of trust and chemistry has killed many startups.

When Does It Make Sense To Bootstrap A Startup?

My answer over at Peerpong to the above question:

When you're young, dumb, and... just kidding. It depends on the industry, who your team is, and how quickly you need to scale due to competition in the market.

Age is also a driving factor along with your family network. When a person is in their twenties and not married, bootstrapping is much easier since you probably have lower rent costs, no mortgage and can eat ramen noodles all day. Then it depends on how much savings you have, how much your family network could support you during this stage, and how much credit card debt you're willing to take. I've gone through this with my first startup, and it was fun but stressful. Especially when my dad had the poker talk with me: "Bernard, business is like poker, you have to know when to fold. So when are you quitting this startup thing?"

Well, older entrepreneurs can bootstrap too if their spouse works or is a Google millionaire, but usually a household with kids does not want to see money going out towards risk investments. Which is why you see even successful entrepreneurs, who cashed out $10M+, still go back to the investor well because their wives clamped down on their bank accounts :)

Of course, bootstrapping is very difficult if you're in cleantech or biotech versus social gaming or social media, so these scenarios aren't relevant in these sectors since typically cash needs are $20M to $50M+ for just the product development.

There is also a point to which bootstrap can only take you so far, so if you're starting to get some attention I would recommend run with it and fundraise because most startups are beauty queens (or kings) only once. I've seen many startups pass on funding when they were hot only to go back to the well that became dry or VCs had a new flavor of the month.

But if you're building a social game and are a kickass game developer with a solid creative partner, bootstrap and hope that it goes viral so that you can get a higher valuation.

In the end, I would recommend bootstrapping if you can to increase your valuation, but also be aware of the point when it begins to be a drag on your product development and growth.


UPDATE: Since this post has been getting good traffic and some link love, I'll add more detail and a link to my rapid response I posted at PeerPong.

The other part of the "poker talk" with my dad is described in an older post here, "How Do You Know When to Fold Your Startup?... Facing Failure is a Hard Road"

"Why Didn't Existing Companies like Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo Succeed at Social Networking?"

I've been trying out Quora and Peerpong lately, so I decided to post some of my answers here. It's rapid response, which I typically don't like to do, but I've sucked it up and decided such thinking is foolish since I'm not a professional journalist. Anyway, my answer to the above question:

I would say additional factors are the lack of design and marketing influences in Google's product development process. Google's engineering driven culture is the reason for its success, but also a factor in its failure in some areas. I'm not saying Google should be design driven like Apple, but a little balance is good. I also heard some product managers complain how influence tilts towards the engineers.

And once you're behind in the market, spending on advertising is a good avenue to catch up (i.e. Microsoft's Bing) but this goes against Google's mantra of zero marketing spend. Only recently has Google started to spend significant amounts of ad/marketing money to compete in the enterprise space, but it could have done this with Orkut while trying to upgrade and improve it.

The amazing fact that is sometimes forgotten is that Orkut is a top 50 site worldwide, number one is Brazil and India, and essentially the business/name card for everyone in Brazil. This is done with zero marketing. Sort of a shame that Google didn't place more emphasis on developing and marketing Orkut early on while MySpace and Facebook were just starting out.

"A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms"

HatTip to Dave L. Very cool.

PRIVY Harnesses Exclusive Social Network Expertise to Launch Privy 5 "Best of" City Guides

Privy.net, a company where I serve as an advisor, just launched their "Privy 5 Shanghai Guide". Privy functions as a private travel platform for jetset types to discreetly sync travel itineraries to see who's in town as well as exchange tried-and-true lifestyle information about what's best in a given city. This "inside information" is typically shared among friends and business associates formed the basis of the Privy 5 Shanghai Guide. More from their official press release...

Inaugural Guide To Introduce “Best of Shanghai” to help over 70 million World Expo Visitors Navigate the City

Privy, a private travel network focused on Asia, is harnessing the power and expertise of their exclusive social network to launch "Privy 5" Transpacific City Guides. And just in time for World Expo 2010, Privy introduces their inaugural guide: "Privy 5 Shanghai Guide," an online guide that includes over 30 "top five" lists highlighting the best the city has to offer. The complete guide can be accessed at: http://www.privy.net/shanghai/

The comprehensive guide highlights150 “must visit” places to eat, drink, stay, play, shop & relax during the World Expo in Shanghai. Shanghai is the first city in a series of Privy 5 Guides which will eventually include Beijing, Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York, Seoul and Tokyo. Shanghai, China's largest and most cosmopolitan city in China, boasts a myriad of restaurants, high-end stores, and extravagant clubs and lounges which can be daunting to navigate for first-time visitors.

Privy Founder/CEO Stephen Liu adds: "While there are many online city guides targeted at backpacker types, we felt there was a need for a savvier, true insider's guide to the city. In preparing the guide, we were also able to take advantage of the fact that many of our members are bi-cultural executives or Asia travel enthusiasts whom are either based in Shanghai or travel there frequently."

Culled from an exclusive network of executives and key influencers, the guide organizes the city into a series of "top five" lists, some of which include:

Privy 5 Romantic Restaurants
Privy 5 Places to get a Foot Massage
Privy 5 French Restaurants
Privy 5 Bars with a View
Privy 5 Shanghainese Cuisine
Privy 5 Places to See
Privy 5 Sichuan Food
Privy 5 Places to Sleep
Privy 5 Cantonese Cuisine
Privy 5 Hotel Bars
Privy 5 Places to Shop
Privy 5 Jazz Clubs


About Privy:
Privy is a private global network and travel resource for a select group of transpacific executives and key influencers. Privy functions as a social compass that enables like-minded people who travel frequently within and to Asia to share lifestyle reviews and coordinate roving itineraries in a discreet, trusted environment. To ensure the site remains intimate, relevant and exclusive -- membership to Privy is “by invitation only” from a trusted member with invitation privileges. Privy also provides a unique opportunity for luxury/hospitality brands to connect at the “point-of-sale” to a small but hyper-targeted affluent set of key influencers who are already sharing travel plans and lifestyle reviews. For more info, please go to: http://www.privy.net/

Major League Baseball 2K10 $1 Million Winner... Already?

I assume the CEO of 2K Sports is not a happy camper. There is already a $1 million winner for their perfect game challenge.  Unless they already experience sky-rocket sales for 'Major League Baseball 2K10', which it seems like they haven't from reading the news wires.

One amusing part of this story is that the winner, Wade McGilberry, took an hour and a half to do it. $1 million for an hour and a half of work. And this was the first time he played this game.

I think the studio head for this game might be in trouble. Or maybe all the employees and game testers at 2K Sports just sucked at their own game, so they couldn't tell if they made it difficult enough to at least

The New Face Of Venture Capital, Part 1

A good presentation by Kevin Lawton:

"Why venture capital is producing sub-par returns, and how it needs to operate going forward to be competitive."

The New Face Of Venture Capital, Part 1

View more presentations from trendcaller.

Google's New Look

Marissa Mayer blogs about Google's facelift, "A spring metamorphosis — Google’s new look"

So it's Universal Search, the Search Options panel and Google Squared that have been fully incorporated into Google's new look, which is great for users and bad for Bing.

News & Links List

"Facebook’s Paul Buchheit justifies increasing openness, less privacy" VentureBeat

"Sean Parker: Facebook Should Not Have Won, MySpace Blew It" Fast Company


"Something Is Brewing At BumpTop, Possible Google Acquisition (Update: Confirmed)" TechCrunch

"Blizzard announces July 27 release for StarCraft II" CNET
Help! Major time killer arriving on our computers.

"The Curious Case Of Vancouver Incubator Bootup Labs" TechCrunch

"Advice From Founders Who Bootstrapped Their Way to Success" TechCrunch

"BrandZ Top 100 Global Brands Confirms Tech Is Taking Over the World" Fast Company

"Luxury goods are not only status symbols - they provide psychological armour as well" London Business School

"More Americans Favor Than Oppose Arizona Immigration Law" Gallup

"Arizona's Un-American Immigration Law" Forbes, Shikha Dalmia

"Why Arizona Drew a Line" NYTimes, Kris W. Kobach

"Arizona: The Wrong Answer" The Huffington Post, Desmond Tutu

"Mr. Buffett Goes to Bat for Goldman, Moody's" WSJ

"Goldman Sachs and Abacus 2007-AC1: A Look Beyond the Numbers" Knowledge@Wharton

"Goldman Sachs Money for Obama Wins at Monopoly" AEI, Kevin A. Hassett

"GOP Should Push Tough Regulation of Wall Street" AEI, Michael Barone

"How much is too much, Barry?" American Thinker

"What Happens to Offshore Drilling After the Gulf Oil Spill?" Fast Company

"Unanswered Questions on the Spill" NYTimes

"Betrayed by the NHS: Doctor who gave her life to health service is refused vital cancer drugs that could save her" Mail Online

"North Korea has plenty of doctors: WHO" Reuters

Android Team Party

Christine recently joined the Android team to do partnerships, so we attended the annual party this past weekend. It was cool and we brought our girls too. Later we dropped them off at home for bedtime and then came back for more food and drinks. Christine also got the balloon maker (for children) to create a Little Mermaid balloon for her.