Feld Thoughts

Good Morning, Vietnam

brad@feld.com — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:11:15 -0700

Yeah - that was one of my favorite movies of my youth - I've always loved Mork. I guess that's part of the reason I moved to Boulder. The title of this post is nonsensical - I just wrote what came to mind because this is going to be another of my "here's what I found interesting on the web this morning" posts. I've got six for you today instead of five. Going forward, these will be categorized as "Daily Reading" although of course you can search for magic words that you remember via my Lijit Search Wijit on the sidebar.

- Starting a High-Technology Startup: While it's not a terribly exciting title, it's a great article by Ben Casnocha for eJournal USA about starting a company. I adore Ben and think he's an extraordinary young man. It's an article.

- Angel Financing: Todd Vernon, the CEO of Lijit, nails how an angel financing works. I get asked questions about angel financings all the time. Todd's post is going to now be one of my standard "go read this" things. If you are raising an angel financing, thinking about it, or just want one entrepreneurs very thorough view about it, here it is.

- Doing Business with the Semi-Permeable Corporation: Greg Cohn of Yahoo has a comprehensive post on his view of the challenges "of doing external relationship development in the current tech environment from inside the walls of a public company." I've known Greg for a while, have great respect for him, and think he accomplishes this really well. It's also a good counter article to all the snark going around the system about Yahoo right now.

- The Art Market's Stealth Correction: If you collect art like Amy and I do, you know that there has been massive value appreciation (inflation?) in a wide range of art, especially post-impressionism stuff. Well - what goes up can go down and the Art Market might be more tightly linked to the Housing Market - just more quietly. Pop?

- Publisher Spotlight: Go2Web2.0: I am a shameless ~~pimp~~ promoter of my portfolio companies. Lijit is one of my favorites (although I love all my children equally). Lijit regularly profiles some of its publishers (taking a page from FeedBurner's playbook). Orli Yakuel - who writes Go2Web2.0 has a good overview of why she likes (and uses) Lijit. Yeah - I know - I snuck this one in - but hey - if you have a blog and don't yet use Lijit you can't get one of their cool stickers yet. Try it.

- WallStrip: 5-7-08 Yahoo and Microsoft... the Postmortem: Apparently when you wander around the streets of NY, everyone you run into is an expert on tech M&A. I like Julie Alexandria, but I sure miss Lindsey and Howard's walks around NY.

Good morning.

Yahoo! 404

brad@feld.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:21:37 -0700

Some great images are coming in already in response to my Request For Images For A Presentation post. I couldn't resist putting this one up on the heals of the Microsoft / Yahoo! drama.

If you don't get it - well - I can't help you. (Thanks Ray)

Request For Images For A Presentation

brad@feld.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:34:50 -0700

I'm giving a presentation at my MIT Sloan 20th Reunion on June 7th. I'm part of the "Back to the Classroom" series and am giving a presentation titled Software Innovation - Do You Think The Last 20 Years Were Exciting? The Next 20 Years Will Blow Your Mind.

The rest of the program includes several great MIT professors talking about the following:

Prof. Roberto Rigobon The United States and the World's Recession
Prof. Anjali Sastry Projects for change: Bringing management tools and ideas, collaboration, and learning-by-doing to the challenge of global health delivery for tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs, and other diseases in resource-poor settings
Prof. JoAnne Yates, CrackBerrys: Exploring the Social Implications of Wireless Email Devices
Prof. Drazen Prelec, Neuroeconomics

It should be a stimulating day. As a result, I've started working on my presentation, a full month before I have to give it.

For the opening, I'm going to do a rapid fire year by year walk through of software from 1988 to 2008. I'm then going to roll forward to 2028.

I'm looking for help on imagery. If you have great jpg's / gif's of "software images" (I'm not defining this yet - just casting the net widely) please email them to me. If you know of interesting images or videos on the web, post the URL in the comments. If you have any other suggestions for interesting places to look for stuff, post a comment.

I'm mostly interested in imagery that I can tie to a specific year between 1988 and 2008. For example, 1993 is a screen shot of Mosaic Version 1.0.

Thanks in advance for any help y'all can provide. I'll put the presentation up on the web after I've given it.

Foundry Group Joins the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado

brad@feld.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 14:00:26 -0700

Today we announced that Foundry Group has joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. We've contributed 1% of our carried interest (the functional equivalent of 1% of our equity) to the Community Trust Endowed Fund of the Community Foundation Serving Boulder County.

When I co-founded the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado (EFCO), we explained what we were trying to accomplish in the post titled Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado Encourages Early Stage Giving. Fifteen months later, with the addition of Foundry Group, we now have 19 member companies.

To everyone that has supported and/or participated in EFCO, thank you! If you are a founder or an employee of a Colorado-based company (or venture capital firm) that is interested in participating in EFCO, just drop me an email.

All Decisions on Patent Disputes Since 2000 Might Be Invalid

brad@feld.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:31:54 -0700

When I read the NY Times Article In One Flaw, Questions on Validity of 46 Judges my immediate response was to break out laughing. Then I said - out loud - "no fucking way." Then I laughed some more.

John Duffy, a law professor at George Washington University Law School just might be my new hero. According to the NY Times:

He has discovered a constitutional flaw in the appointment process over the last eight years for judges who decide patent appeals and disputes, and his short paper documenting the problem seems poised to undo thousands of patent decisions concerning claims worth billions of dollars.

His basic point does not appear to be in dispute. Since 2000, patent judges have been appointed by a government official without the constitutional power to do so.

The Justice Department appears not to be disputing this claim. They passed on the opportunity to dispute it in December and said they "were at work on a legislative solution."

Here's the best part:

"They did warn that the impact of Professor Duffy’s discovery could be cataclysmic for the patent world, casting “a cloud over many thousands of board decisions” and “unsettling the expectations of patent holders and licensees across the nation.” But they did not say Professor Duffy was wrong.

If it was a legislative mistake, it may turn out to be a big one. The patent court hears appeals from people and companies whose patent applications were turned down by patent examiners, and it decides disputes over who invented something first. There is often a lot of money involved.

The problem Professor Duffy identified at least arguably invalidates every decision of the patent court decided by a three-judge panel that included at least one judge appointed after March 2000."

Dear USPTO - we knew all of those software patents were bogus. However, we forgot to tell you that some of the judges were appointed illegally. Therefore, all the decisions about those bogus patents are now - well - bogus.

You can't make this shit up.

TECH Cocktail Chicago - May 29th

brad@feld.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:41:15 -0700

I'm attending and speaking at TECH Cocktail in Chicago on May 29th. Since I'm not a conference guy, it'll be entertaining to see if I can sit still the whole day since my panel isn't until 3pm.

If you are in the Chicago area, I encourage you to come to this event put on my Frank Gruber and Eric Olson. There are going to be some dynamite speakers that I expect will deliver something different than the typical Silicon Valley conference thing. Plus it's at Loyola University, a place I've never been before which is always fun for me.

Registration is easy and painless. I'll be there all day - come out and play.

My Partners Are Rock Stars

brad@feld.com — Tue, 06 May 2008 05:26:02 -0700

While Soul Patch's new album Sooner or Later is not yet on the Billboard Top 10, I believe it is #1 on the VC Rock Album Chart so far this year. My partner Ryan McIntyre explains the history of the band. Learn more by joining the Soul Patch Facebook group and look for scandalous photos of Ryan and Jason Mendelson in the upcoming issues of Variety and People Magazine.

Even VC's need groupies. Please help.

Let's Make Software Patents "Defensive Only"

brad@feld.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 21:05:47 -0700

In my quest to abolish software patents, I've been pondering "short term approaches" since I doubt the Supreme Court is going to wave a magic wand and make my fantasies come true anytime soon.

I've been hearing about something lately that bothers me a lot. More and more companies are paying engineers a bonus to file patents. Not "get patents" - simply generate patent applications. The intended consequence is an obvious one - companies get to file more patents. The unintended consequence is a particularly nasty one - lots of shitty patents get filed and the PTO has to wade through that much more garbage.

A friend of mine - who recently was "paid to file a patent" said he considered requesting that - if granted - the patent only be used defensively. I asked him why. He responded that he felt conflicted and thinks a lot of his peers feel the same way. He didn't think the patent was particularly valuable, useful, or valid. However, he was reluctant to turn down the bonus that he was getting for simply filing the patent. He didn't view it as a good use of his time (or of his company's time or money), but he realized that the patent system is motivating his company to file as many patents as they can. He has little expectation that the patent will be granted, but he was happy to get paid the bonus.

I asked him what would make him feel better. He surprised me when he said "My company should agree to only use the patent defensively if it is granted." I asked him if he thought this was a unique perspective and he said no - he thinks many experienced software engineers are skeptical of software patents. While they are skeptical, they understand the battle going on right now and realize the value of ever increasingly large number of patents for defensive purposes.

Wouldn't it be interesting if there was a grass roots movement of experienced software engineers around software patents for defensive purposes only.

Joel Spolsky Rants on Architecture Astronauts

brad@feld.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:43:26 -0700

I love a good rant. Especially about software. Joel is one of the best ranters out there - when he gets going there is no stopping him. Last week's rant was titled Architecture astronauts take over. He takes Microsoft Live Mesh to task and reminds us of the legacy of Hailstorm, Groove, Lotus Notes, and - well - the past. And he explains why synchronization is not the killer app. Well - it sort of it - as long as we don't realize it's happening. But then again, the real problem is that there just aren't enough programmers in the US anymore.

Joel - nice rant.

Some of Om's Favorite Things

brad@feld.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 13:10:14 -0700

I love it when blogs pop up from people I love reading - like Om Malik - that highlight stuff I also love. In this case, it's FeedDemon and the ThinkPad x300. These are two of my favorite nerd things. I've been using FeedDemon since before Nick Bradbury joined up with NewsGator several years ago and still think it is one of the most finely crafted pieces of Windows-based software that I've ever used. And I regularly used it on my relatively new and currently sticker free ThinkPad x300.

The New Thing Called Wired Magazine

brad@feld.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:30:13 -0700

While everyone is spending their day talking about Microsoft and Yahoo, I thought I'd share an email with you from 1993. Once again, my old friend Warren Katz has dug into his email archive and pulled out a doozy. This time I'm introducing him to this great new magazine called Wired.

Subject: Wired.com
Date: 25 Apr 93 16:57:27 EDT
From: Bradley Feld <75170.1206@CompuServe.COM>
To: Warren Katz

Warren,

If you haven't seen it already, check out the new magazine WIRED. It's excellent. Flood them with press releases for Mak -- they'll definitely pick you up (in issue #1 there's an article about SimNet and in issue #2 there's an article about how Jaron Lanier is fearless).

If you haven't heard of them, email them at info@wired.com.

Hope you're doing well. I'm back in town for a few weeks -- let's get together.

... Bradley

Yeah - well - I thought it was funny. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

How To Get A Job In Venture Capital

brad@feld.com — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:19:31 -0700

I just posted the great VC blog of the day over on Ask the VC but I think that it is so useful I'm reposting about it here.

One of my favorite VC posts of all times was my partner Seth Levine's post titled How to become a venture capitalist. I regularly get emails from folks looking for a job in the VC industry and I almost always point them at this post.

Seth has followed up with a new post titled How to get a job in venture capital (revisited). It's updated with some additional information for those that respond to the first post by saying "I get it that it's hard, but what should I do over the next five years to position myself for a VC job."

While the bullet points (go to business school, work for a start-up, start a company of your own, work for a bank or consulting firm, and put yourself out there) may seem obvious, Seth's commentary is really helpful.

I strongly encourage anyone interested in pursuing a VC career to read both of these posts.

Book Review: Bounce!

brad@feld.com — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:55:26 -0700

I just finished reading Bounce!: Failure, Resiliency, and Confidence to Achieve Your Next Great Success by Barry Moltz. I think Barry was originally introduced to me by Matt McCall, one of my co-investors in FeedBurner and a Chicagoan like Barry.

There are very few good business books about failure. Most of the ones I've encountered in the past use failure as an early part of the "rags to riches" process of the classic Horatio Alger parable. Dull.

Barry takes a different approach - he uses failure as a theme throughout the book and describes it as an integral part of a long term business experience. Just like the cliche "you haven't really been in business until you've been sued", I think the cliche "you haven't really become an entrepreneur until you've failed at least one" applies. Barry does a good job of weaving a variety of individual stories (including his) around his philosophy and theorizing.

Like most business books, it is about 50% too long. Long ago I concluded that "editors" believe the hardcover business book needs to be around 200 pages. As a reader, I think there should be a 100 page limit - that would force the writer (and editor) to get to the point and be less redundant. While this doesn't detract from the book too much, there are a few sections that are skimmers.

If you are an entrepreneur - especially one early in your career - this is a very worthwhile book to read.

On the failure theme, Andrew Hyde has a post up titled Startups Fail that includes news about a handful of recent Boulder failures: Nau, Organica and Falling Fruit. Andrew reminds us that failure is an integral part of entrepreneurship.

My Next Monitor

brad@feld.com — Fri, 02 May 2008 15:57:02 -0700

Whenever someone comes in my office that hasn't seen me before, they always fawn over my monitor. I enjoy my 30" Apple beast, even though it's running Vista.

Yes - that would be my next one curtsey of 9X (via Engadget).

Me at 19

brad@feld.com — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:13:31 -0700

What a fun picture of me and Kevin Parent (now at Oblong) that someone found and gave me yesterday. I was a sophomore at MIT and probably 19 (although maybe 18). Oh to be 170 pounds again.

Can you name the statue? Bonus points if you can name the location on the MIT campus.