Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts|General Discussion|General Technology

Revisiting the T’s with Talent

I usually don’t track “the news” or “chatter” but the recent Facebook acquisition of NextStop is about talent.  Possibly geolocation and hyper-local data but more about who is there and why they are there.  I was having this discussion with several persons the other day.  Companies buy other companies for talent, data aggregation and possibly technology.  The reason I say possibly technology is that most companies do not care about the tech – mostly talent.  I have a term for the companies that move our tech world:  The Folks Inside The Firewall.  The Folks Inside The FireWall (TFITF) already have a long term strategic view of where they want to go 5,10,20,50 years.  Take this to the bank.  In a blog a couple of years go I discussed the Three T’s of a Startup.  I listed talent as number one.  Why?  I prefer quality over quantity.  I prefer the elite performers.  I’d rather have two A game coders than 10 posers.  I located a recent plot of distributed and related coding jobs.  While the plot focuses on Casandra rest assured that the areas of machine learning, data mining, natural language processing and semantics are going to skyrocket.  10 years ago we were worried about connections, storage and compute resources.  This is no longer the case.  We are revisiting this world – yet again – same algorithms – more data.  It reminds me of the hey day of digital signal processing engineers.

As I discussed in my previous blog Three T’s of a Startup many times the companies do not even use the acquired technology.  So please do not take it personally when your great code base is destroyed.  Philosophically Art is meant to be created and destroyed.  The money and vesting schedule will make the destruction worthwhile – trust me.  If you want to go be idealistic go right ahead.  The smart ones wait and vest.  Colloquially called resting and vesting (RnV).  It is a great way to past the time.   That said this brings up the question of is it really about the software now?  Clearly, GOOG does not need a geo-loc technology nor are they going to be a travel agency.  Patents?  Possibly.  In that same blog I discussed how many executives at these companies just say put together a team, write some code, create some provisional patents.  If the stuff halfway does what your roadmap says we will probably buy you.   Look for my next blog on this subject called Mercenaries For Hire – Have compilers – will not travel.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home!

 

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Direct Thoughts|General Discussion|General Technology

Money It’s A Hit!

 

Why We Do IT

“If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose- because it contains all the others- the fact that they were the people who created the phrase “to make money”. No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created.” ~ Ms. Ayn Rand

I’m not sure about you, but every time I am asked why I do what I do – I always think it sure beats digging ditches.  I mean really folks let’s be honest here.  Would you be doing anything else?  Software is the most scalable profession this world has ever known and in this post-July 4th blog I was thinking – wow America created the industry.  The Epicenter of it all.  I believe that creating software is the epitome of The American Dream.  An Idea, A Computing Device and a Connection.  It is complete freedom.  There are no rules.  The only rules are mandated via the compilers and processors.  The one-to-many multi-cast aspect of creating software and now DataSpaces is completely scalable.  Doctors, Lawyers, and in some cases Stock Brokers are not scalable as many times it is a one to one relationship and is a time allotment with respect to target audience.  If your creation is a hit then there is a non-linearity for scale that cannot be duplicated.  Then comes the after affect.  Money.

Most do not set out to say – “Hey I am going to make some money.”  Nope in the software world you say, “Hey wouldnt if be cool if <insert idea here>.”  I am really getting tired of people trying to soften the aspect of Extreme Capitalism in the software industry.  So for arguments sake which I enjoy let us do a little play acting:

Entrepreneur: I am creating a Data As a Service company for Socnets

Venture Capitalist: So why did you found the Acme DaaS Corporation?

Entrepreneur: To save the White Hooded Wood Owls from extinction.

Venture Capitalist: Wow that is great I can definitely see my 10x return on this $10M Series A investment.  Whoo Hoo!  Lets do it! Woot!

Not realistic huh?

So lets step back here in a minute.  If you want to be a philanthropist and have not inherited a ton of money then creating a really hot software company with a great exit is a way to get there so you can save the White Hooded Wood Owl. (DISCLAIMER: We are not being selective of wood owls please find the brown one here. In fact I do not think there is such thing as a white hooded wood owl).

So what should you say?  Well Mr./Ms. VC I want to sell this and make a ton of…wait….keep guessing…. MONEY!

Don’t posture.  Money Rules the game.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home.

Posted on : By : TCTJr Posted in : Artificial_Intelligence|Direct Thoughts|General Discussion|General Technology

The Way To Do It

The machine in action: ITA hammered it.  Massive 100M Series A raise from the crew at Sequia and Catalyst and then in 2010 Google decides to pick them up for700M after a year long bidding war with the usual suspects. Read it here:

ITA Exits at $700M

That said notice why they were bought:  The Data.  Data provisioning and categorization in a nice neat package.  Fluid data that empowered other sites.  Also note the nature of this deal.  People wonder why The Valley will always be on top.  Most will say because they had a head start.  I say because they will continue to invest in people and ideas.

Until Then,

Go Big Or Go Home.