This is an awesome 1 hour video that I watched over and over just to make sure I absorbed all the points from the awesome serial entrepreneur himself—Marc Andreessen. If I had more time, I’d transcribe it.
Archive for the ‘people i like’ Category
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders: Marc Andreessen
Sunday, May 16th, 2010Cecily’s Closet .org – for children with special needs
Wednesday, April 21st, 2010
A special plug for my mentor, Rachel – a genuinely awesome person!
If you are in San Diego and know of any children with special needs (or their caregivers), please do let them know of this excellent resource: Cecily’s Closet (www.cecilyscloset.org)
Everything from “guerilla” tips and tricks on how to navigate the “landscape” as a caregiver, to winning a free room makeover for your special needs child .. you’ll guaranteed to find something of use to you.
RB @Evan William’s 10 rules for startups
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010So good I’m RB’ing (re-blogging) it. Just in case the original ever gets taken down.
#1: Be Narrow
Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there’s less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there’s a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.
#2: Be Different
Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is Google. Deal with it. How? First of all, realize that no sufficiently interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets. Second, see #1—the specialist will almost always kick the generalist’s ass. Third, consider doing something that’s not so cutting edge. Many highly successful companies—the aforementioned big G being one—have thrived by taking on areas that everyone thought were done and redoing them right. Also? Get a good, non-generic name. Easier said than done, granted. But the most common mistake in naming is trying to be too descriptive, which leads to lots of hard-to-distinguish names. How many blogging companies have “blog” in their name, RSS companies “feed,” or podcasting companies “pod” or “cast”? Rarely are they the ones that stand out.
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Shai’s Divide and Conquer!
Monday, April 13th, 2009Shai Agassi is a real genius—one of my rock stars that I’m just dying to meet. I’ve already got to meet the other big name in electric cars, Elon Musk from Tesla.
He has said before that he’s good at break big problems into smaller problems, solving the pieces, then aggregating the results. I’m not familiar with his work at SAP, but clearly he’s proved this with his divide-and-conquer approach to problem solving here. Computer scientists make some of the best problem solvers out there.
In this TED talk, Shai talks about a shift in thinking: viewing the electric car’s battery a discrete unit that’s interchangeable, vs. today’s mentality where the car is one with the fuel tank (who would buy a car without a fuel tank, or vice versa?)
I’ve previously blogged about unbundling production from delivery before with examples of Amazon.com and it’s IT infrastructure, mobile phones as a poverty buster, and this is kind of like that, but with other concepts tied in – e.g. subsidized pricing (e.g. like how cell phones are subsidized by carriers).
The analogy Elon Musk uses (I can’t find where he said this, but I swear I remember him saying this), is like air travel today. I can fly to Europe from California for $500. But that’s because I’m not the first person to ever fly on that plane, nor will I be the last; the same air plane gets reused over and over for many flights. The point here is that the owner of the plane doesn’t have to recoup the cost of the plane with a single flight, it is done over a period of time. The higher the utilization rate, the faster they recoup the investment.
That’s why Elon’s SpaceX goal of building a reusable rocket is so revolutionary (most people don’t realize this) and is an important step for man-kind. Imagine being able to fly to the moon or other planets in our solar system for the price of a flight ticket?
Back to Better Place. In Shai’s talk, he shows how battery for electric cars follow a Moore’s law-like curve; battery prices will drop as its technology increases. By unbundling the ownership of the car and the battery, you can increase the utilization rate per battery which result in people owning these cars having access to the latest and most efficient battery at that time (vs. someone stuck with the same battery for the lifespan of the car). Small but important point.
Shai’s a very cool guy who is literally, changing the world. I’m a big fan.
Check out his TED talk if you haven’t already!
Two types of pain. Pick one.
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.â€
—Jim Rohn, entrepreneur, author, and motivational speaker
I found this in my inbox from Keith Ferrazzi’s Greenlight Community. Keith’s book “Never Eat Alone” remains one of the few books that I can wholeheartedly say that it’s one of my favourites of all time – and it changed my life.
