'technology' Category
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Last question: gimme your password
March 27, 2012Imagine this scenario: You just completed a full day of second-round interviews at the Company’s premises following your successfully making the first cut at their on-campus recruiting session. It was a long, grueling day, but you feel good about the positive impression you made on everyone. Your well-prepared questions clearly hit the mark, and you […]
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YouTube: 1. War criminals: 0.
March 13, 2012In the 7-day span since last week’s Rude VC column, the digital world has witnessed the fastest growing video campaign in the history of social media. I’m of course referring to the Kony2012 short film produced by Invisible Children. The human rights organization launched a video with a sole objective to render famous and agitate […]
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Europe still has a winner in Barça
March 6, 2012Last week Europe hosted the Mobile World Congress, an annual ritual in which over 60,000 people in dark gray and black suits invade Barcelona in an event originally organized by the consortium of mobile network operators. The event used to be called 3GSM, named after the nearly ubiquitous technology standard for mobile communication. The GSMA […]
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France’s Chopra moment
February 13, 2012It has been interesting to follow the recent transatlantic flap triggered by Ilan Abehassera’s interview in Betabeat. Abehassera denigrated the French entrepreneurial scene in a piece that oozed of auto-pr; Liam Boogar of Rude Baguette called b.s. In reality, I suspect both individuals were viewing the same market but through the lenses of different eras. […]
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SOPA faltering, but this is only round 1
January 20, 2012Wednesday’s blackout by several websites in protest of SOPA undoubtedly pushed the pending SOPA legislation against the ropes. As the NY Times reported, this was a case of grassroots new media beating the old guard. On January 17, only 31 members of the U.S. House of Representatives opposed the legislation, with 80 in support. The […]
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Going dark tomorrow in protest of SOPA
January 17, 2012This blog is admittedly a small fry, but principles matter. And based on principle and in a show of solidarity with popular websites like Reddit, Minecraft, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and A VC, this blog will join them in going lights out tomorrow in protest of the SOPA legislation currently pending in congress. For more rationale, see: […]
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American ambassadors or traitors ?
December 15, 2011I’m not feeling very patriotic today. Part of my mood stems from the thought of today’s hearing by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the Stop Online Piracy Act. The SOPA legislation currently winding its way through the U.S. congress would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court […]
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Does Local matter ?
December 8, 2011We hear the repeated siren’s call of social / local / mobile. As of matter of fact, this year’s LeWeb conference captures this three-part mantra as its very theme. And you’d be hard-pressed to find a VC fund in Europe today not following this guiding light for its investment strategy. Among the takeaways of LeWeb’11, […]
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Portfolio job openings
November 30, 2011Despite the macro-economic distraction, some of our startups are still growing wildly and seeking to recruit top talent. Here are a couple open positions: A java back-end developer, to work closely with the Head of Technology and the Game Development team. A mobile games content manager, responsible for testing and selecting new mobile games that […]
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These premises are utterly confidential
November 29, 2011Fred Wilson captured my feelings perfectly in his post today about Reception Desk NDAs. Thankfully, this practice has not taken hold in Europe yet, European subsidiaries of US firms notwithstanding. European startups, particularly their fundraising advisors, love asking VCs to sign an NDA. As I’ve written before, I think NDAs waste precious time, bring little […]
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MVP: Winds of change in France
September 13, 2011MVP! MVP! MVP! In the States you can hear this chant on any given Sunday afternoon at the ballpark, as well as frequently in the open workspace of any given web startup. The only reaction this three-letter acronym would elicit in France, however, would be ‘Tony Parker’. And even that is limited to a select […]
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Rumors of Flash’s demise greatly exaggerated ?
August 3, 2011Last summer’s heated public brouhaha between Apple and Adobe has been more of a low simmer during summer 2011. The initial calamity of not being able to play Flash on the iPad (and not being able to do this even faster on the iPad2) has subsided. This is probably due to a number of factors, […]