Lefty February 24th, 2007
I just heard that an old high school buddy of mine has launched Danger Room, Wired’s new blog about defense technology. It’s only been up for a week or so, but there are already posts about warrior monkeys, telepathic bureaucrats, and videos of stuff exploding. I love it.
Lefty February 24th, 2007
This Monday evening, I’ll be joining the rest of the Materialite team as well as other quarterfinalists at the Stern New Venture Fair. We’ll be manning a table and answering questions from the fair attendees, which will supposedly be made up of potential funders and advisors. Should be fun.
Lefty February 24th, 2007
If you didn’t know it, the good folks at the Kaufmann Foundation are launching Entrepreneurship Week USA this week (February 24-March 3). They’ve got a big event out in Stanford to kick the week off, but us East Coasters have some options to participate as well. On Monday in DC they are hosting a conference on entrepreneurship in public policy (including the effects of legislation on immigration, healthcare, and education.) And in New York on Tuesday, they are holding a networking event at NYU Stern to connect young entrepreneurs with potential mentors.
Lefty February 17th, 2007
Anyone who knows me knows that I am the ultimate karaoke master. So I really have no excuse for taking this long to jump on the web-based karaoke apps bandwagon, which includes sites like ksolo, singshot, and bix. So today I decided to do something about it, and try these sites out.
Ksolo doesn’t work on the macintosh, so they were elimated from contention right off the bat. And bix seems to have moved their emphasis away from singing contests towards all kinds of random contests (mostly of the “hot or not” variety.) But Singshot - those guys are the real deal. While the song selection could be expanded, there were certainly enough tracks to get started. Check out my version of George Jones’ “The Grand Tour” below. My goal is to take over the top spot as best singer of that particular song, so for the love of god please get on the site and vote for me. I will be forever grateful.
Lefty February 17th, 2007
I lived in Austin, TX for most of the early 90’s, and in fact got my undergraduate degree from the UT Austin. I tend to make it down there once every year or two to visit old friends and eat massive quantities of Mexican food.
When I lived in Austin, South by Southwest was only a couple of years old, and it was only a music conference. Of course, now it’s much, much bigger, and also has a huge film and interactive media component. Just about everyone has heard of it, and just about everyone has been there at least once. And has the festival has grown, so has Austin’s reputation. I remember when I first moved down there, people I told would like at me like I was crazy and say something like, “You’re moving to TEXAS?!? They lynch Yankees like you down there?” Now when I tell people I lived in Austin they invariably say, “Austin is so cool - I was down there for SXSW two years ago and ate at this awesome restaurant/saw some amazing band/had a wonderful time.”
Anyway, in all my subsequent visits to Austin I’ve always avoided going down there during SXSW time. I wanted to avoid the crowds and craziness, and I wanted to experience the mellow Austin that I remembered. But this year I’m thinking really seriously about heading down to SXSW Interactive on March 9th-March 13th. Has anyone out there been to the Interactive event before? Or is anyone planning on going? Send me an email to “lefty” at this domain, or hook me up with a comment.
Lefty February 17th, 2007
We just heard word that our “social entrepreneurship” entrant into the Stern Business Plan Competition has survived into the “Semi-Finalist Candidate” round. There had been 40 plans in the competition, but only 12 made it into the current round (including us). Now we have to write a full-fledged plan by March 1st, at which point the field will narrow to 4. At stake: $100,000 in prize money!
Lefty February 11th, 2007
Nice post on VentureBeat about the current VC trend of investing in “green” technology. Check it out.
Lefty February 11th, 2007
I just got back from another full day at Stern, where I started my first elective course, “Entrepreneurial Finance”. The focus of the class is on the inner workings of the venture capital industry, as well as the private equity markets more generally. The professor seems genuinely passionate about the topic, and his enthusiasm seems to have infected the class.
He made one fact about the VC industry very clear: these guys make an insane amount of money. Listening to the lecture also reinforced something of which I was already aware, but I never really think about that much: after San Francisco, Boston is by far the biggest hotbed of tech entrepreneurship in the country. I assume this is largely because of Harvard and MIT. Maybe it’s time to head up there for a visit to check out the scene.
Lefty February 5th, 2007
1) I just got back from taking a three day intensive course at NYU entitled “Professional Responsibility: Markets, Ethics, and Law”. The class focused on defining the role of ethics in a business context, and we touched on a number of noteworthy topics: globalization, discrimination, privacy, market failures, whistleblowing, corporate espionage, insider trading, and several others.
We also had to read a course packet containing about 90 articles, the subjects of which ranged across all the various topics covered in the class. I think my favorite was an article the NY Times Paul Krugman, who addressed some of the criticism of globalization in the provocatively titled “In Praise of Cheap Labor.” I highly recommend it for a quick overview of some of the tough issues involved.
2) Man, was that a great Puppy Bowl yesterday, or what? This was my third year watching this great American institution, and I was pleased to see more mixed-breed dogs this year, as well as the big banner for Petfinder. There was even a puppy that was predominantly Pit Bull, but the announcer delicately referred to his breed as “All American”.
3) I just found out that my scheduled ice hockey game for tonight was cancelled by the Central Park authorities because it is too cold. Isn’t that like canceling a swim meet because it’s too wet? I swear, it’s times like this where I’m ready to pack my bags and move to Canada (or at least Minnesota). What an embarrassment. (For the record, it’s 17 degrees right now, with wind chill at around 0 degrees.)