happy chaos freedom machine

  We do not think you’re different. We are not confident in your ability to establish strong relationships with companies. And we will probably not think of you when we need funding later on.  Particletree » How Not to Pitch to a Startup . For years I’ve talked to VCs when I’ve met them, and I [...]

[Read more →]

 Virtualization is hot (or was, until VMWare’s stock took a beating — nevermind, it’s still hot in IT departments, where it counts), Web 2.0 is hot, and “Cloud computing” is hot. Together these trends must be sending cold chills down the collective spines of the giants of the IT industry.  This article on Forbes.com captures [...]

[Read more →]

 The work of Duncan Watts, described in this article at Fast Company, has truly profound ramifications. In the past few years, Watts–a network-theory scientist who recently took a sabbatical from Columbia University and is now working for Yahoo NASDAQ:YHOO –has performed a series of controversial, barn-burning experiments challenging the whole Influentials thesis. He has analyzed [...]

[Read more →]

I suppose this was inevitable, but it’s still fascinating to see tha, as the New York Times suggests, outsourcing works, so India is exporting jobs.

[Read more →]

Think I’ll buy this article: IngentaConnect Disagreement and the Stock Market, which attempts to catalog the types of “disagreement models” that describe patterns like …the tendency for stocks that have had unusually high past returns or good earnings news to continue to deliver relatively strong returns over the subsequent six to twelve months (and vice-versa [...]

[Read more →]

Goldman Takes ‘Private’ Equity To a New Level – WSJ.com: “It represents the latest step in the creeping exclusion of individual investors from a growing proportion of financial-market activity. For instance, giant private-equity firms are busy buying public companies and delisting them from stock exchanges. The growing importance of hedge funds — which are generally [...]

[Read more →]

This device is not a keepsake from Space: 1999, instead it is a handheld instrument for screening for lead targeted at consumers. A small step in what I believe will be a huge market opportunity – personal product & food safety testing. Contamination of toys and other consumer products is one aspect of this, but [...]

[Read more →]

The market volatility we’ve experience lately is a symptom of significant changes in the global economy. It will take some time to understand precisely what is happening, but this article in Risk magazine may be describing one factor – higher reliance on algorithmic trading. Using robots to trade allows firms to move larger amounts of [...]

[Read more →]

The real estate bubble is bursting, but what does that mean? Momentary hiccup, or economic apocalypse?

[Read more →]

In the eighteenth century Thomas Malthus made a name for himself by grimly prognosticating that humanity was doomed to periodic famines. Population grows geometrically and inevitably out paces agricultural output, which can only grow arithmetically, hilarity ensues. That our history since Malthus has not been totally dominated by massive famines and wave after wave of [...]

[Read more →]