Posts from February 2007

I woke up thinking about Morty this morning. I haven’t seen or heard from him in over ten years. But Morty taught me one of the most important lessons about negotiating that I’ve ever learned.

Morty was Isaak’s partner in Multex early on. They put up the initial money to get it started. Morty wasn’t a venture guy. He was a real estate lawyer and sometime real estate investor. He was as conservative as you can get and never liked the startup/venture business. But he was Isaak’s partner. And Isaak asked Morty to negotiate the term sheet for the seed round with me.

This was late 1992 and I’d been in the venture business for five years and was on my second or third deal on my own. I’d negotiated a bunch of term sheets by that point, but I’d never had a negotiation like the one I was in for with Morty. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever had one as rough as that since.

Morty wasn’t familiar with venture terms. They didn’t make sense to him. So standing in an airport pay phone (before cell phones) I went line by line, term by term with Morty.

We got to redemption and he started in. "Why do you need this provision Fred?". I was getting tired of his non stop push back and blurted out "Because it’s standard. We always get this provision. Always have, and always will".

That got Morty pissed. He shouted over the phone:

I don’t give a f>>>k that you always get this provision. Doesn’t mean shit to me. This deal will be the first time you don’t get it if you don’t explain why you need it.

That set me back on my heels and I weakly explained that if the deal goes sideways for years, we need some way to get out of the deal and redemption provides that path. I don’t even remember if he bought that argument. But I do know that we had redemption in the Series A at Multex and pretty much every deal I’ve ever done.

But the point Morty made rang true to me and I’ve lived by his rule ever since. I never ever say that a specific provision is "standard". Nothing is standard. You either need it or you don’t. Explain why you need it and most of the time you’ll get it or something like it as long as both sides really want to make a deal.

Well actually it was love. But it didn’t last that long.

I woke up this morning, fired up my browser, and found this love letter to Van Halen written by Bob Lefsetz. Man can I relate.

For two years, 1978 and 1979, I loved that band. By the third record, it was over and I was in college. But those first two records. Damn were they good.

So I went to YottaMusic and put on the best of record that Bob talked about in his post.

Then the first record.

Then the second.

All before breakfast.

Here’s a list of the top 52 commenters at AVC since the start of this blog.

This data is not available in TypePad so I had to get it elsewhere. And so this is the first time I’ve seen it. I did not have this data available when I wrote the original post on this topic.

I got Jackson and Tony Alva right. That was easy. I am not sure if Steve is one person or an aggregation of several. It sure helps to have a url to identify someone.

But how did I miss Charlie Crystle, Dave Friedman, and Rick Stratton in that original post? These guys are veterans who continue to add their insights on a regular basis and this blog would not be the same without them.

I got the rest of the top 10 right. Phew.

Chris from biztechie and Raj are also stalwarts who deserve recognition. As do Tom and Jason who are not surprisingly in the top 15 (Tom is shown as two different people on this list lower down).

I am happy to see Hugh, Giordano, and Dimitar up at the top. I love these guys. Hugh’s from London, Giordano’s italian but lives in Brazil (did I get that right?), and Dimitar is from Bulgaria. AVC’s an international community!

I could go on and on, but I’ll stop there. I know I should link out to all these people. But I am rushing to get this out and go have breakfast with my kids.

One last thought. 772 comments Jackson! Wow. That’s a lot of captchas to fill out.

Emily (our middle daughter who is 13) sent me an email last night.

can you put on the server the album/albums that has paul westerberg songs: let the bad times roll, and bern for me?

Emily likes Paul Westerberg. What could be better than that? In celebration, I am going to post a performance of Let The Bad Times Roll from Paul’s show at The Warsaw in Brooklyn in 2002 (almost 4 mins long). I think Jackson was drinking beer and eating polish sausages at that show.

First, I had no idea that post would end up at the top of techmeme today. Slow news day I guess.

Second, I am not a tech luddite. I know how to use a computer and a broswer. I have the most updated plugins you can have. The announcement speech video didn’t work for me. And a bunch of other people too. Same with MyBarackObama. Here’s my profile on MyBarackObama by the way. (shit, don’t click on that link, you can’t link to a profile on his website. there’s no unique url for each member).

Third, I was not attempting some kind of hatchet job on Obama. He’s my favorite candidate of the bunch.

The reason I posted it was that I care about the net’s impact on or political system. Rightly or wrongly, I see the net as the greatest democratizing force to enter our society in several generations. And I want to see the candidates use the net to its fullest. Obama’s campaign couldn’t show me his annoucement video yesterday. Their social network pages wouldn’t load either. That troubled me.

That’s all there is too it.

Chris said I missed the opportunity to post about the speech. Yeah, but I couldn’t watch the speech.

Rob doesn’t understand why I want the posts I do here to show up on Obama’s website. If Obama wants me on his website, then he has to have this blog on his website. It is me.

Jerry says "in fact, the information you provide is demonstrably false and probably
something you did to screw up your configuration. All because YOU (as
in ME, ME, ME) couldn’t get your browser to work."

I forgot what happens when you start blogging about politics. Gotta get thicker skin.

UPDATE: Here is the link to my profile. Thanks Raffy.

Almost from day one, it’s been possible to search AVC (first via google, then via yahoo, now via google). The search field is on the left sidebar, above the fold. I use it all the time to find my old posts.

I assume some people use it to find posts on things they are interested in, like my thoughts on term sheets, valuations, social networking, the Arctic Monkeys, etc.

Sometimes I won’t have what you are looking for. If it’s question about the venture capital business, I’ve got something better to offer now. You can search the entire venture capital network that I am a part of at FeedBurner.

The way to do that is go view the venture capital network badge on the left sidebar, below the fold in my house ads. It looks like this.

You’ll see that you can use this badge to advertise in the venture capital network (daily subscriber reach of 150,000 people who are interested VC), explore the venture capital network (62 VC blogs), and search the network.

This search feature is provided by a new social search company called Lijit. Brad Feld has more about this on his blog. Give it a try.

Steve Jobs isn’t the only one pointing out what’s wrong with the music business. Bob Lefsetz nailed the live music problem yesterday at the end of his End Of Innocence post.

Ever since I was in high school, concerts would be announced, tickets would go on sale, and the ones I wanted to go to would be sold out within minutes. This is the most frustrating experience and it continues to this day. Andrew and I were shut out of the Arcade Fire/Judson shows even though we were at our computers at 9am the day and minute the tickets went on sale.

So no big deal, go to StubHub or eBay and get them in the secondary market, right? Well that’s not so easy because they’ve made the Judson tickets non-transferable. DRM for tickets now. Fuckheads.

So back to Bob who calls out this issue in the post I linked to at the top:

The LEGITIMATE ticket sales are DWARFED by the secondary market.  So
now the agents are declaring war.  They want ALL the money, EVERYBODY’S
money.  How dare these interlopers in the secondary market come and
steal what’s theirs (and it’s a thuggish business, read this with all
the wild west overtones you can.)

The reason that the legitimate tickets sales are dwarfed by the secondary market is you have to be in the ticket business for a living to get a legitimate ticket to the best shows these days. The average fan like me doesn’t have a chance. So we go to StubHub and participate in an auction. This screws the artist who is like the company in the 90s that sold stock in the IPO at $10/share only to watch it trade instantly to $50/share, just because the bankers were in cahoots with their hedge fund clients.

It’s time to make all concert tickets priced with an auction mechanism so that the artists get the benefit of market rate ticket prices and fans can buy the tickets directly. It’s time to take the margin out of the secondary market by pricing tickets correctly at the initial sale.

Here’s how Bob finishes his thought on the ticket problem:

While the concert business was arguing over guarantees, it lost touch
with the true value of a ticket.  When shows became events instead of
habitual activities, when superstars, mostly old and gray, ruled, when
that’s all people wanted to see, those comprising the infrastructure
didn’t realize the price of the ticket was secondary to access.  That a
fan would pay WHATEVER IT TAKES to be inside the building, UP CLOSE AND
PERSONAL!  Two thousand bucks to sit in the front row?  A blue collar
employee called my radio show to say he’d paid $2500 apiece for Paul
McCartney seats, to be within feet of the stage.  He didn’t own a home,
he was still paying for his car, but he had to BE THERE!  Whereas
whenever anybody sits in the way back, in the rafters, paying fifty
bucks, they’re happy they’re there, but they’re PISSED OFF!  In other
words, tickets need to be auctioned.  But this isn’t politically
correct in the industry.  So, StubHub comes in to bridge the gap,
giving people what they want.  The concert business hasn’t specialized
in giving people what they want for years, is it any wonder that
someone else swooped down and did?

The music business is so screwed up. They overcharge for music and undercharge for tickets. They handicap the sale of online music (the future) to protect the CD (the past). Thank god some artists have rejected the whole music business and are going it alone. That’s our way out of this mess for sure.

Here’s some hate mail to Bob Lefsetz from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah that shows the way forward:

Hi Bob,

As usual, I’m shocked by your attitude towards Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.  I’m convinced you haven’t listened to their new record, and I’m saddened that the model created with this band isn’t given more recognition by the one person who has called for all the changes we’ve actually put into practice.  To call what we’re doing "IRRELEVANT" undermines every single email you send out.

"There’s no buzz here, nobody cares."

I don’t know what world you’re living in, but I think selling 19,000 records in a week means lots of people care.  Maybe you’re talking about that traditional buzz you’re used to, the barrage of radio and video, snipes and singles, playing the game.  This is a band that’s never made a video, never played with Nickelback at a radio show, never done all those things every other band is forced to do. The marketing/publicity/radio/video budget for this record is under $15,000.  They made a record, they put it out.  And they live much better than 95% of all bands I’ve worked with, including the vast majority of acts I worked with during my time at a major – all this while owning their masters and publishing, touring in a bus, and not being forced to do anything they don’t want to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUIsP23LTk0

You’re so fond of using Pollstar numbers to prove people don’t care about bands – go check out ours, from around the world.  You’ll see the band has been headlining shows for a year now, and maybe 5 or so haven’t sold out.  Check the numbers from last time they were in LA, two sold out nights at the Fonda.  Check out the numbers in Tokyo, London, Paris, Hamburg, Minneapolis, Boston, Chicago, Seattle….go look Bob, you’ll see that people do actually care ALOT about this band.

Last year you made some list of 25 things that band’s should or shouldn’t do.  CYHSY had followed 24 of them, the one exception being that they played Letterman.  I can never fault a band for wanting to play that show.  It’s fun playing on the same stage the Beatles played on.  But seeing as how we’re pretty much your poster children, I’m amazed you don’t show us more respect.

And go listen to their music.  You might actually like it.

Nick Stern
Manager, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

I hope CYHSY starts auctioning off tickets to their shows. That would be great.

I had high hopes for Barack Obama’s net savvy. But today his campaign blew it. I heard that he announced his candidacy for President today in Springfield, IL, where Lincoln did the same thing almost 150 years ago. I decided to go see the video. I went to Obama’s website and clicked on the video. Turns out it only plays in Internet Explorer. Firefox and Apple users were directed to another link that didn’t work for me. That sucks.

I don’t know what they did today, but it didn’t work. They’ve been using the Brightcove player successfully and I like the stuff they’ve done with that so far. I even embedded an Obama video in one of my earlier posts. But as Jackson pointed out in the comments, the Brightcove players requires Flash 9 and many don’t have it. YouTube might not have the quality of Brightcove, but Jackson never complains about not being able to watch my YouTube videos.

So after being shut out of the video, I decided to play with the website a bit. It let’s you create a profile. That’s pretty neat. It says that they are trying to be inclusive. Anyone can have their own page on Obama’s website. But "MyBarackObama", which is what they are calling the social aspects of the website, wouldn’t load just now. Today’s a big day, they are getting a lot of attention. It’s not acceptable to be experiencing server overload.

So then I saw that they let you write your own blog. That’s smart too. But what if you already have one? No way to import my political blog posts into my profile. The people who are most likely to blog for Obama already have blogs. It’s silly to shut them out.

But despite all the bungles today and they made a bunch, I do think Obama’s team gets the net. They just have some work to do to get it right. The Obama website is certainly a lot better than Hillary’s. So is Edward’s for that matter. Both Obama and Edwards have links to flickr, youtube, facebook, and myspace pages on their home page. That’s smart.

My friends who are deeply involved in politics tell me that the Democratic campaign is going to be about money, big money, and that Hillary has the big advantage and it may be over before we even get to the primaries. I am saddened to hear that. Because although we could play the big money game, I hate it. It’s not democratic. It’s not of the people, by the people, and for the people. The net is. I hope the Net plays an even bigger role in 2008 than it did in 2004. And if it does, Obama, Hillary, and Edwards have work to do.

I have WordPress envy. But I am not going to switch. I’ve got too much invested in TypePad. One thing in particular is stoking my WordPress envy. I want to offer my readers the ability to subscribe to a comment thread. I know there’s a plugin for WordPress that does that. Is there any code I can put into my TypePad template that does the same thing?