I bought $AMZN at $168 on Jan. 31st.
Being Fat Is Not Healthy
My comment from AVC.com.
I think Ben made a lot of good points, investing in the business to beat competitors, the goal is to capture the market and money in a down economy can be a big advantage, but his story sounded alien to me. As Fred stated, “Loudcloud raised $350mm in four rounds of financing (including an IPO) in the first 15 months of its life. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz can do that. Most of you can not.” I’d love to be in the position Ben was, but I don’t see it happening soon. So what’s a person to do? Learn startup aren’t about spending less money, they’re about spending less money before product/market fit; especially for new markets. Web service startups are relatively inexpensive to start, so one can create something and get feedback from users. When people like the service and there is traction, you should consider fueling the business with outside capital.
Originally posted as a comment by theschnaz on A VC using DISQUS.
Back in mid-2009, Douglas Bowman left Google for Twitter, and in the process a small meme developed about his exit blog post. He semi-famously wrote:
…Now, I understand how someone who is passionate about design aesthetics would have a problem with that kind of culture, but when you…
Russian Hill Apartment Interior by Zack|de Vito Architecture (via russian_hill_160210_06 » CONTEMPORIST)
Warner retreats from free music streaming
Warner artists like REM may no longer be available to stream for free
Record label Warner Music has said it will stop licensing its songs to free music streaming services.
Companies like Spotify, We7 and Last.fm give free, legal and instant access to millions of songs, funded by adverts.
Warner, one of the four major labels, whose artists include REM and Michael Buble, said such services were “clearly not positive for the industry”.
If your product is Great, it doesn’t need to be Good.
I just subscribed to Paul’s RSS. He was one of the creators of Gmail.
“By focusing on only a few core features in the first version, you are forced to find the true essence and value of the product. If your product needs “everything” in order to be good, then it’s probably not very innovative (though it might be a nice upgrade to an existing product). Put another way, if your product is great, it doesn’t need to be good.” link
Great Obama Quote
“The notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs — why would I resist that? I wouldn’t … It doesn’t make sense if somebody could tell me, ‘You could do this cheaper and get increased results,’ that I wouldn’t say, ‘Great.’ The problem is, I couldn’t find credible economists who would back up the claims that you just made.” #bestquote
Originally posted as a comment by theschnaz on A VC using DISQUS.
