Did you know that you can get AVC delivered by email every day?
I've had this feature for as long as I can remember. At least seven or eight years.
But it seems like it is hidden because not that many people choose to get it this way.
You can go here and subscribe via email.
I use a service called Feedblitz to power this. The one feature I'd love to see Feedblitz offer is "reply to the daily email and post a comment". That would be killer.
The President's Commission on Fiscal Reform, known as Simpson Bowles because it was led by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, recommended that we find $6 trillion in spending cuts and new revenues to get the Federal Budget to a healthy place.
I stopped by the Wharton Economic Summit last week to hear Austan Goolsbee, formerly Obama's Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, give a keynote. In a wide ranging talk that touched on most of the key economic issues facing the US, Goolsbee pointed out that by hook and crook, we have already accomplished half of Simpson Bowles. We might not like the political nonsense around things like the "fiscal cliff" and the "sequester", but they have allowed the folks in DC to implement $3 trillion of spending cuts and new revenue.
But of course, if we have accomplished half of Simpson Bowles, that means we need to get to the second half. And that will be a lot harder because it requires our country to come to terms with entitlements. When asked why it is so hard for the politicians to tackle entitlements, Goolsbee pointed out that the general public believes two important things; we have a spending problem in Washington and we should not touch medicare, medicaid, and social security. Sadly, those entitlements are a big part of our spending problem and left alone, will be the entire spending problem in time.
I read with interest on Peggy Noonan's blog yesterday that the President had dinner last week with much of the Republican leadership and they had a frank and honest conversation about how to get to the second half of the $6 trillion. It's worth reading that post because it suggests that our political leaders actually do have the will to get to Simpson Bowles. It sounds like they all know it must be done.
Of course, there is a big difference between it must be done and it will be done.
When it comes to the economy here in the US, I believe a few things. First, our country might be a mess but it is in better shape than most of the rest of the world. Second, that it is entirely in our power to fix the problems we face. Third, we must take in as much as we spend over the long haul or we will go bankrupt. Fourth, if we take our fiscal medicine and do that responsibly over time we will not go back into a recession. Fifth, our economy is expanding with some vigor now and we have a moment, both economically and politically, that we must not miss.
So I am hoping our leaders find the will to get this done. It is essential, not just for our generation, but most importantly for our future generations.
A bit over a week ago, I was asked to interview Jack Dorsey at the NYU Entrepreneur Festival. I posted that news to AVC and all of you helped me compose the set of questions I used for the interview.
The livestream and archive was/is hosted on an NYU student built service, which is great. That said, the stream has a few hiccups and starts a few minutes in. It's about 50mins long.
One of the biggest problems at SXSW is lack of a good mobile data connection. The carrier networks are overloaded by the sheer density of people using their phones. And the SXSW WiFi is similarly overloaded. This year, there will be a third option. Look for a free wireless service on your phone called We Heart WiFi:
We <3 WiFi "Heartspots" @ SXSW 2013
We will be at SXSW demonstrating the potential of "Super WiFi" on March 8-10.
Each Heartspot is powered by 100% open wireless technologies — connected to a single gigabit fiber backbone via Super WiFi backhaul links.
No cables, just wireless. All using open spectrum.
The Heartspots there to give people fast wifi, and to demonstrate what's possible with open wireless technologies.
One of my favorite things about these heartspots is they are mobile. Since the backhaul from the WiFi access point to the Internet backbone is "Super WiFi", these heartspots can be taken to the places where there is most need for good WiFi.
"Super WiFi" is the unofficial name for the next generation of wireless sharing technologies like WiFi. Unlike your cell phone, WiFi uses open (or 'unlicensed') spectrum available to anyone with a device approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for any use. Some years ago, the FCC opened unused television channels (called "TV whitespaces") for the next generation of "Super WiFi" technology on a limited basis. Last week, the FCC finally approved this new technology for nationwide use — making massively improved WiFi possible. However, the spectrum needed to realize this vision is at risk.
Go to this page and learn all about Super WiFi, the challenges facing spectrum reform, and the opportunities that come from more open WiFi. It also explains how you can find We Heart WiFi heartspots while you are in Austin for SXSW.
I am extremely proud that USV is one of the creators of this project and has supported it financially.
If this book is as short and as good as this video, I am going to love it.
You can back the project on Kickstarter and get the book and other rewards. I just did.
The White House and the FCC have recently come out in favor of allowing consumers to unlock their phones. That is a really good thing. Let's hope that the rest of the regulators in this country join them in this stance.
I would go even further. I would assert that rooting, jailbreaking, and other actions that users take to gain total control of their device should be entirely legal in this country.
Here is why. We need to defend the concept of general purpose computing. General purpose computing is the idea that the owner of the computer can get access to the base computing functions on the device. Rewind to the time of the homebrew computer club. Hackers and coders were building their own computing devices and putting software on them and making what became personal computers. Personal computers have evolved a lot since then, most recently ending up in our pockets and purses, but they remain personal to the core.
In recent years we have seen more and more attempts to separate us from the core computing functions on our personal computing devices. The iPhone is stock full of them and that is the fundamental reason I will never use one. The same is true of the iPad. So iOS users jailbreak their phones. The evasion iPhone jailbreak is on 23 million phones now.
Android phones and tablets are better, but the carriers who sell these Android devices play Apple's game pretty well themselves. Getting a Nexus with a clean build of Android what I do. Others cleanse their phones with Cyanogen or other mods. All of this activity shows that many of us want to control our devices, configure them the way we want, and put the software on them that we want to put on them.
It feels to me and other industry observers I talk to that we are moving away from this notion of general purpose computing to some other place where we use devices that are controlled by others and that we can't truly make our own. This is a dangerous trend in the technology world and one we need to resist.
I feel a growing divide between the users, who are rooting, unlocking, and jailbreaking in record numbers, and the device makers and marketers who are tightening up the screws on their devices ever tighter. I stand with the users in this fight and unlock, root, and jailbreak as much as I can. You should too. And our governement should make this activity legal so that we do not face any adverse consequences from this behavior.
InSITE is one of my favorite organizations in the NYC tech community. They bring together graduate students at various schools around NYC (business, law, engineering, computer science, design and PhD and post doctorate programs in natural sciences and medicine) together for a two year program designed to get these talented people deeply engaged in the NYC startup community.
InSITE has been expanding a lot in the past few years and they are working to fund that expansion. That's where Kingpins Night at Bowlmor comes in. Advertised as "New York City’s first and only startup bowling competition. It is a fundraiser and friendly competition for the entrepreneurial community in NYC." It happens on April 15th, tax day, at 7pm at Bowlmor in the Union Square neighborhood.
When the InSITE folks told me about Kingpins at the talk I did last week, I immediately promised to buy a lane and compete. I then explained that while I am a terrible bowler, I can throw a strike between my legs. Asked to demonstrate, I did, forgetting that I was on video. This GIF resulted which I am most certainly going to regret. But it is too good not to share.
[click on the image to see the GIF in action. i will try to figure out how to embed a GIF here]
It may take me all night of trying to throw that strike between my legs, but try I will. I hope to see you there on April 15th at 7pm for some fun and a good cause. If you or your company wants to get a lane, go here to reserve one.
I have been writing MBA Mondays every week since January 2010. There have been roughly 160 MBA Mondays posts to date. It is a substantial body of work. I have no clue how many words I have written on this topic, but it feels like a lot.
I am not sure where to go from here. I am spent and don't feel like I have any more MBA Mondays material. I used to look forward to writing these posts every Monday. Now I dread it.
So I am suspending this feature for now. Taking a sabbatical. I can't promise they will be back. But I am not sure they are over either. Time will tell.
And now a return to a favorite topic here at AVC – patents, patent trolls, and the urgent need for patent reform here in the US.
One of my favorite ideas for sensible patent reform is "loser pays" for the legal costs of the other side.
The reality is that patent trolling is a low cost form of shakedown and that there isn't much economic cost on the troll to deter this behavior. If challenged in court, patent trolls win less than 25% of the time. And yet so few of these shakedowns ever go to court because the cases get settled for economic reasons (settlement cost are less than expected defense costs). And these settlements fund the trolls to keep shaking companies down. If the target company can recover their legal costs by defending themselves and winning, then the math over the settlement changes and more cases will be litigated, thus increasing the costs for the trolls.
This is where the SHIELD act comes in. There are so many things to like about this bill. It is only five pages long. It only does 1 1/2 things. The one thing is amend patent law to provide for loser pays. The 1/2 thing is it allows the court to require the troll to post a bond early on in the case to be sure they can and will pay the legal costs if they lose.
This is a bi-partisan piece of legislation being introduced by a representative from Oregon (Peter DeFazio – D) and a representative from Utah (Jason Chaffetz – R). In their press conference introducing the bill (embedded below), they say that the leadership is going to get moving on this bill quickly.
I think we should all help them by letting our representatives know we support this legislation. I just did that and it only took 15 seconds.
Last monday night, I did the annual fireside chat with InSITE, literally with an iPad fire at my side. I talked for about 20 minutes about two areaas I am thinking alot about, pervasive computing and machine learning, and what might be possible at the intersection of the two. After that there was Q&A, and then we went out for drinks at a nearby pub. It's always one of my favorite public speaking events of the year.
