gdp's Comments

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : The Honda Accord, Then and Now (and Now)

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:21:24 +0000

Isn't that what happens to everyone when you hit your 30s...weight goes up and fuel economy goes down...

Redeye VC : Help me rename "Lifestyle Business"

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:23:50 +0000

I call them "equity efficient" businesses. You hear a lot about "capital efficient" but that alone is not true. I know of several businesses that aren't necessarily efficient with capital, but are able to obtain that through means other than raising equity (e.g. customer pre-payment). An equity efficient business might be big or small but one thing it does not need is what VCs sell (equity capital). That's my $0.02.

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : The Fog of War, Remembering Robert McNamara

Mon, 6 Jul 2009 20:51:27 +0000

I thought the same thing this morning when I read McNamara died. Fog of War was a great documentary and the line I remember most is this one where McNamara quotes Le May saying, "Had we lost the war, we [Le May and McNamara] would be prosecuted as war criminals." The bigger point he was making was "proportionality" and the fact that you should always consider the consequences even in the moment. RIP McNamara.

VC Confidential : Reducing Stress in the New Normal with Pareto

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 14:40:30 +0000

Your math is impeccable and triangulates with the earlier "debate" Fred Wilson instigated. It's hard to argue that "money in" can substantially out pace "money out" for any period of time. But when you step back, what I wonder is why the capacity for VC is so small (just $10 billion) in a $14 trillion economy? Every year something like $1 trillion is invested in "innovation" in the US and it appears that the "capacity" for VC is just 1% of that. Why would that be?

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : Most Expensive Real Estate Markets in the World

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:07:46 +0000

I'm not surprised. These are all countries that have opened up in one way or another over the past decade and have created a handful of really wealthy people amongst a sea of poor people. The middle class in all of these countries is small or non-existent so there is an "us" and "them" attitude amongst the rich and poor. Basically if you're rich, there's a limited amount of real estate and there are a handful of people willing to pay for it.

Mendelson's Musings : Vendor Client Relationships

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 21:12:07 +0000

This is great. I used this in a post but couldn't find a trackback. Thx for sharing.

Tom Keller : More on the death of cable TV

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 15:15:24 +0000

Funny, over the weekend I canceled our super-premium cable package we've had for years which was near $100 per month but we just never watched. It turns out the only thing we watched was CNN and the occasional PPV movie. Hulu, Youtube, MLB and the web has replaced cable for me. Now if only CNN would stream their broadcast live then I'd bail completely on cable.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : In Support of Detroit

Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:55:38 +0000

The US automakers blew it in the 70s and 80s. Chrysler got bailed out and Ford and GM were propped up with subsidies, but all that did was perpetuate bad habits. I actually think the government got it right this time to put Chrysler and GM through bankruptcy as that should teach a lesson to investors. It's time to stop allocating capital based on "sunk costs" and old habits and instead to fund the current best ideas for today and the future.

http://www.jeffnolan.com/blog/ : Climate Change Reconsidered

Fri, 5 Jun 2009 23:22:30 +0000

I totally agree with you that the discussion about an issue like climate change ought to be fact-based. But this piece (sponsored by the Heartland Institute) hardly qualifies.

OnlyOnce : Five Years On

Mon, 11 May 2009 23:09:16 +0000

As a reader of your blog for the past 5 years I'm thrilled. In the traditional media world there are newspapers, magazines and books. I think of these as addressing short-, medium- and long-term topics. My personal consumption is about 50%/25%/25% although 100% of the "newspaper" category is fulfilled online as is about half of the "magazine" bucket. I don't have a Kindle so my "book" bucket is still 100% dead tree. Anyway, all a long way of saying that "Twitter" is the short-term information category online and blogs are more like the "magazine" bucket. There are places for both and the authors of all are not necessary interested in / good at all.

VC Confidential : What Compensation Should You Give Your Team?

Mon, 4 May 2009 16:24:32 +0000

The 2008 CompStudy Report is online in its entirety and the 2009 CompStudy survey is open for participation (participants get the 2009 results free).

Feld Thoughts : The Best Entrepreneurs Know How To Fail Fast

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 22:53:26 +0000

I hear ya. The data are definitely not clean and pretty, but it's nice to see *some* numbers at all, as you said. I've heard that point about the definition of "success" many times when I mention it. You could be right. The argument would be that "market timing" skill is not important for $10MM-$50MM exits because it doesn't really matter how big the market is....it's an execution play and therefore repeat entrepreneurs (even those with failures) are better operators than first timers. The only caveat that most VCs are looking for exits north of $50MM so the research's definition of "success" is in line with the typical requirement.

Feld Thoughts : The Best Entrepreneurs Know How To Fail Fast

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 21:58:11 +0000

Brad, you should check out this research by Prof. Gompers et al from HBS on serial entrepreneurs. The data say that an entrepreneur who has failed before is not more likely to succeed in a subsequent venture as compared to a first time entrepreneur. However, an entrepreneur who has succeeded before is significantly more likely to have a repeat success. The paper is really fascinating as there are a bunch of other things in the same vein that he identifies.

Feld Thoughts : 101010 – Fun With Numbers

Mon, 9 Mar 2009 03:03:07 +0000

Have you read this book, Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet, the autistic savant who recited Pi to 20K digits or so? If you like numbers, you'll love this book.

Feld Thoughts : Play the Point, Not the Score

Mon, 2 Feb 2009 19:31:25 +0000

A long time ago I was having a conversation with someone on the topic of sunk costs, how they didn't matter going forward, etc. And the response has stuck with me all these years when he replied, "sunk costs aren't sunk if you sunk 'em." I totally agree with your thesis about playing the point, yet so frequently it doesn't happen. How many times have you seen good money go after bad into a failing startup? How many times have you seen a CEO hang on to a problem employee too long? It's counter intuitive, yet so frequent that there must be some compelling logic there. Need to think more about this one...

Feld Thoughts : Two Keys To Life – Running and Reading

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:16:12 +0000

Awesome find! I had to repost.

Paul Kedrosky: Infectious Greed : Bernie vs Benford's Law: Madoff Wasn't That Dumb

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:36:52 +0000

Interesting point. I'm really curious to see how the SEC can explain away their inaction given the volume and detail of evidence their received, including the Markopolos memo from 2005.

Feld Thoughts : Oblong - Seeing Is Believing

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:25:00 +0000

I disagree with Rick in that there are very real current applications of this. It reminds me of that (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw) of Johnny Lee (PhD student now at Microsoft) who hacked a Wii to create a sort of "poor man's g-speak". And regarding the comment about "muscular arms" I think that would be like saying, "no thanks" to the Xerox/Apple GUI introduced in the 80's because of the risk of carpal tunnel. Personally, I can't wait to be freed from the office desk and mouse...

Ask the VC : What To Do When You Are In A Circular Discussion With A VC

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:34:31 +0000

Good one. It could be a "no" as you indicate, but it's most likely a "not now" or perhaps a "maybe." I've seen a few VCs be explicit about this, but most give this somewhat circular argument or another similar one (I wrote about these a while ago.) Raising money is like dating...you have to read the body language and other non-verbal clues because folks rarely say what they are really thinking.

Tom Keller : Why Blog?

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 05:17:06 +0000

I blog for the comments.