Shows
Fred Wilson's A VCA Letter To Senator Manchin (a post by @FredWilson)"Senator Joe Manchin wrote a public letter to financial regulators asking them to âtake appropriate action to limit the abilities of this highly unstable currency.â The letter in its entirety is here . What follows is a letter from me to the Senator. Bitcoin is a powerful new technology platform that, like the Internet itself, is not controlled by anyone or any company. It is a globally distributed network of computers that allow financial transactions to flow seamlessly and at a much greater efficiency than current methods. A bitcoin is the store of value in the system and it acts a bit li...
2014-03-0602 minFred Wilson's A VCA Letter To Senator Manchin (a post by @FredWilson)"Senator Joe Manchin wrote a public letter to financial regulators asking them to âtake appropriate action to limit the abilities of this highly unstable currency.â The letter in its entirety is here . What follows is a letter from me to the Senator. Bitcoin is a powerful new technology platform that, like the Internet itself, is not controlled by anyone or any company. It is a globally distributed network of computers that allow financial transactions to flow seamlessly and at a much greater efficiency than current methods. A bitcoin is the store of value in the system and it acts a bit li...
2014-03-0602 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Recognizing Wine Labels (a post by @FredWilson)"My son turned me onto a wine app called Delectable Wine . I am waiting for the Android version so I can use it too. But I've used it a bit on his iPhone and its a really nice and useful application. Think of Delectable Wine as Instagram for wine. People post the wines they are drinking, their reactions, tasting notes, etc. You follow your friends and experts (like Arnold ) and you see what they are drinking. You can tag where you had the wine and what you thought about it. There's a really nice searchable archive so you can go...
2014-02-1401 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Behavior Of Your Users Normally Doesn't Change (a post by @FredWilson)"A few weeks ago the traffic coming to the new usv.com dropped off by 20 or 30% week over week. Brian and Nick were wondering if it was related to the new design we rolled out at the end of January. They decided to take a deep dive into our analytics to see what was going on. I told them it had to be some sort of plumbing issue. Something that was hooked up to usv.com must have gotten unhooked. Because I have rarely seen the behavior of an entire user base change drastically overnight because of something like a...
2014-02-1302 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Perception Of Conflict Is Conflict (a post by @FredWilson)"VC is a service business like law firms and ad agencies. Our customers are the entrepreneurs we back. Our shareholders are our limited partners. When we do a good job of helping our customers create value, our shareholders benefit. But, like law firms and ad agencies, it is hard to provide truly objective and unbiased advice when you have a conflict of interest. In the law and advertising business, clients will demand that their service providers don't work for their competitors. The same is mostly true of entrepreneurs and VCs. There is no language in the stock purchase agreements we...
2014-02-1204 minFred Wilson's A VCGo Bowling With The NYC Tech Community (a post by @FredWilson)"The annual NYC tech bowling event is around the corner. Kingpins of Silicon Alley will happen on April 7th, at 7pm.  Kingpins of Silicon Alley Bowlmor - Chelsea Piers April 7, 2014  7 PM Kingpins of Silicon Alley is New York Cityâs first and only startup bowling competition. It is a fundraiser and friendly competition for the entrepreneurial community in NYC. The funds go to benefit InSITE, a fellowship that connects exceptional graduate students to start-ups to help accelerate those companies to funding.  At the end of the event, we will crown the Silicon Alley Bowling Champion!  To attend click www.kingpins.eventbrite.com I will be there...
2014-02-1101 minFred Wilson's A VCWhat's So Special About DonorsChoose.org? (a post by @FredWilson)"So Fast Company has selected DonorsChoose.org as one of its most innovative companies and on top of that, they decided to put DonorsChoose founder Charles Best on the cover of the magazine and write a longer article about them as well. It's pretty unusual that a non-profit would be selected for such a list and highlighted in this way. But then again, DonorsChoose is a pretty unusual non-profit. I've been fortunate to have been involved with DonorsChoose for the past seven or eight years and have been on their board for the past three or four. So I thought...
2014-02-1003 minFred Wilson's A VCIf It Sounds Too Good To Be True, It Probably Is (a post by @FredWilson)"Ben Horowitz has a great post up on his blog, called Why I Did Not Go To Jail . I would encourage everyone to go read it. But in the event you aren't going to do that, he tells a story about an options strike price plan that his CFO recommended to him. It turns out the plan was against the law and his GC stopped him from implementing it. I've heard a lot of ideas over the years that, like this options strike price plan, sound too good to be true. And in most cases, they were just that. I...
2014-02-0901 minFred Wilson's A VCLightweight Engagement Gestures (a post by @FredWilson)"I was on vacation with my friend John and he asked me how I used the favorite button on Twitter. I told him it is a way to tell people that I've seen the tweet when I do not want to reply. I use it in two primary ways. To signal that I saw and liked a tweet. And to signal that I saw a tweet to the person who sent it. The two are different only in that in the second case, I probably did not like the tweet but I still wanted to acknowledge it. I really like...
2014-02-0601 minFred Wilson's A VCDream It. Code It. Win It. (a post by @FredWilson)"I attended a CS Teacher Meetup last night at USV. We talked about a lot of things but focused on the issue of getting more girls to code. It's an important issue that I think we are starting to make good progress on. Though not focused on girls per se, I heard about a neat coding challenge that is happening this Spring called Dream It. Code It. Win It . This is a programming challenge (not a Hackathon) aimed at High School and College students. It is organized by the MIT Club of New York, MIT Enterprise Forum, and Trading Screen...
2014-02-0401 minFred Wilson's A VCThe CEO Bootcamp (a post by @FredWilson)"My friend and former business partner Jerry Colonna has created The CEO Bootcamp . It's a four day retreat in the Colorado mountains with 19 other CEOs and a few facilitators, led by Jerry. The first CEO Bootcamp was last fall and you can see what attendees thought about it here . And here's a blog post by Sooinn Lee about her experience last fall at CEO Bootcamp. There are two aspects to this experience. There are the four days where attendees learn skills to help them manage the leadership role they are in, and there is the ongoing support that the group...
2014-02-0301 minFred Wilson's A VCiOS8, Health Data, and Open Data (a post by @FredWilson)"News is leaking out of Apple that iOS8's primary feature will be health and fitness data. Rumors are that there will be a new app called Healthbook that will track a plethora of health and fitness data that iPhones and related devices (iWatch?) will be able to collect on the person carrying the devices. This is interesting to me on a number of levels. We have been looking at this sector for a while and one of the things that has kept us (USV) from making investments in this space is the sense that all of this data capture...
2014-02-0201 minFred Wilson's A VCTumblr (a post by @FredWilson)"I read this in an analyst report published on Yahoo! yesterday: We believe Tumblr is an underappreciated asset with fast growing user base and engagement levels. We think Tumblr may actually be capable of creating as much value as Yahoo! core. It's not clear to me how much value the "Yahoo! core" has so it is not possible to put a number on this statement. But it is telling. I have been using Tumblr every day for almost seven years now. USV invested in Tumblr in the fall of 2007 and we ceased being investors last year when Tumblr was sold...
2014-01-3002 minFred Wilson's A VCBitcoin Tuesday (a post by @FredWilson)"There are at least three Bitcoin events that I know of in NYC today. I do not think any of them are public events but the fact that there are three in a single day is interesting to me. This morning, NYC's Economic Development Corporation is hosting a Bitcoin breakfast with some of the leading banks and financial services companies in NYC to discuss Bitcoin. My partner Albert will be attending that. Also in lower manhattan, Ben Lawsky , New York State's Superintendant of Financial Services, will be holding hearings about Bitcoin. I have been asked to testify and will do so...
2014-01-2802 minFred Wilson's A VCHumans Of New York (a post by @FredWilson)"I have a new favorite blog and I thought I'd share it with all of you. I found it via the Gotham Gal's blog (which in and of itself is kind of embarassing. We sleep together and I found this via her blog). It's called Humans Of New York . I follow it on Tumblr. Every day I get two to five posts. Each post is a picture of a new yorker or two. And something that was said by the subject of the photo. It's like riding the subway, but even better. You get to see all kinds of people...
2014-01-2701 minFred Wilson's A VCThis For That (a post by @FredWilson)"My partner Brad, who is the conscience of USV, said something in one of our recent monday team meetings that has been rattling in my brain ever since. It was a throwaway line for him. He probably doesn't even remember it. But I do. We were talking about some investment opportunity and one of us turned to him and asked him what he thought. He said, "I generally can't get excited about anything that is this for that." What he meant by "this for that" is Airbnb for boats, or Snapchat for business, or Dropbox for videos. What Brad is...
2014-01-2602 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Google Maps Shortlinks (a post by @FredWilson)"In the google maps android app, if you search for a place, you can click the share icon and send that location to anyone via a wide assortment of apps. I did that last night and emailed this to myself. Buvette http://goo.gl/maps/7dzMz I absolutely love this feature and use it all the time. I email places to people, I kik places to people, I text places to people, I tweet places to people. But for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to do this on the web. When I locate a place on...
2014-01-2401 minFred Wilson's A VCWhen Siri Takes Over Your Phone (a post by @FredWilson)"One morning earlier this week, I cam down early and was working in our family room/kitchen area. My oldest daughter was charging her iPhone in the kitchen and it was randomly playing music. I would get up, turn off the music, and then a few minutes later, it would start again. Eventually I turned off the phone. A bit later, when my daugher came down, she was in shock, her phone had randomly called dozens of her contacts on its own over the night. So I took a look at her phone and it seemed that voice control had...
2014-01-2301 minFred Wilson's A VCTelling Like It Is (a post by @FredWilson)"I told a Rob Kalin story yesterday and I am going to start this post with another one. When Rob left Etsy for the second time, it fell to me to tell everyone what was happening at the company's all hands meeting. I asked Rob what he wanted me to tell the several hundred employees who would assemble to hear the news. Often there is a story concocted about the founder or CEO wanting to step back, take more time with their family, needing a break, etc. And so I wanted Rob to tell me how he wanted this story...
2014-01-2203 minFred Wilson's A VCYou Are Not Your Work (a post by @FredWilson)"My friend Gary said this to me the other day in an email. He wasn't talking about me but he could have beeen. Last night I went to bed thinking about my work, dreamt about my work, and woke up thinking about my work. It's been that way for me since I started Flatiron in the mid 90s. To some extent it's been that way for me since college. Fortunately I have the Gotham Gal and three awesome kids to keep me from going fully into the fire . I spent the past four days skiing wtih my family and some...
2014-01-2103 minFred Wilson's A VCInvesting In Startups In Europe (a post by @FredWilson)"One of the big european tech conferences starts today. It's called DLD and my partner Albert is giving a talk there tomorrow. The last big european tech conference was LeWeb and I gave a talk there . You might wonder why we fly across the pond to attend and talk at these events. The answer, as Sten Tamkivi explains in TechCrunch , is that europe is a great place to invest in startups. Sten lists five reasons that european startups are exciting: 1) Talent 2) New Models 3) 400 million customers 4) Global skills 5) Security and privacy I agree with all of those but to me the bi...
2014-01-1901 minFred Wilson's A VCVC Pitches In A Year Or Two (a post by @FredWilson)"Entrepreneur: I plan to launch a better streaming music service. It leverages the data on what you and your friends currently listen to, combines that with the schedule of new music launches and acts that are touring in your city in the coming months and creates playlists of music that you should be listening to in order to find new acts to listen to and go see live. VC: Well since Spotify, Beats, and Apple have paid all the telcos so that their services are free on the mobile networks, we are concerned that new music services like yours will...
2014-01-1502 minFred Wilson's A VCWomen Entrepreneurs Festival 2014 (a post by @FredWilson)"The fourth annual Womens Entrepreneur Festival starts this evening and continues all day tomorrow. The Gotham Gal and her friend Nancy Hechinger , who is on the faculty at NYU's ITP program , are the founders and festival chairs. The goal of the WE Festival is "to sow the seeds for a community of women entrepreneurs, to expose women who have not yet taken the entrepreneurial leap to women who have." This year's theme is "be bold" and we all know that being bold is a requirement for entrepreneurship (and life I would argue). This year's event, like the three before it...
2014-01-1401 minFred Wilson's A VCBitcoin - Getting Past Store Of Value and Currency (a post by @FredWilson)"Lightspeed India has a post with ten predictions for Bitcoin in 2014 . It's a good read and I agree with many of them. But prediction number 7 is the one I am most interested in right now: 7. The use of Bitcoin will evolve beyond âstore of valueâ or âtransactionsâ The underlying Bitcoin protocol makes itself applicable beyond the use cases of âstore of valueâ and âpaymentsâ. The Bitcoin foundation took a huge step in allowing meta data to be included in the blockchain. This will unlock a lot of innovation and maybe even prompt regulators to acknowledge the potential of Bitcoin, making it all the more difficul...
2014-01-1302 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: usv.com daily email blast (a post by @FredWilson)"For those of you who have made a habit of visiting usv.com regularly to see what the usv community is reading and discussing, we now have a way of getting that via email. Here is how 1) go to usv.com 2) on the upper right, click "Log in with Twitter". If you don't see that option you are already logged in and can go on to the next step. 3) once you are logged in, click "Settings" in more or less the same place on the page 4) under Settings, make sure we have your correct email addres, then look for Daily...
2014-01-1001 minFred Wilson's A VCWho Is Your Customer? (a post by @FredWilson)"In a double sided marketplace, of which we have many in our portfolio, it is always tricky to figure out who your customer is. Many marketplaces punt on this question and answer with "both". I think it's hard to run a business with two different customers. It can be done but it is hard. Yesterday, Kickstarter published some year end stats in a beautiful presentation. I would encourage all of you to take a quick spin through them. It will take you between 10 seconds and a few minutes depending if you watch the videos. Even though Kickstarter served over 3mm...
2014-01-0901 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Mutual Company (a post by @FredWilson)"I remember a time when I was growing up when many of the savings banks and insurance companies were mutual companies. A mutual company is one where the customers own the company, more or less. It seems like the concept lost favor and many of these banks and insurance mutual companies were " demutualized " in the 80s and 90s. I don't really profess to understand all the reasons and history behind mutualization and demutualization. I suspect some of you may know a lot more than me about this stuff. I started thinking about mutual companies after reading Joe Nocera's column in...
2014-01-0802 minFred Wilson's A VCA Web Service For Qualified and Accredited Investo (a post by @FredWilson)"I just finished filling out a sixteen page questionnaire for an investment the Gotham Gal and I are making. I fill out this identical form about once or twice a month for various investments we make. Each time I get the form, I find a version I filled out previously in my archived email and copy the answers line by line. It's complicated and I want to make sure I answer the questions correctly. This form is created by lawyers to make sure that we are qualified and/or accredited investors. They also use this form to verify our tax...
2014-01-0702 minFred Wilson's A VCBack To Work (a post by @FredWilson)"I took the past two weeks off. I turned on my out of office notification, checked email less, stayed on top of things but reacted to less, did zero meetings, did fewer calls, and didn't go to the office at all. I slept eight hours most nights and a bit longer on a few. It was great. I'm relaxed and rested. To celebrate the new year, going back to work, and to put an exclamation point on the rested and relaxed thing, I am going to archive all email in my inbox. If you sent me something and did not...
2014-01-0602 minFred Wilson's A VCA Couple Trips To The Future (a post by @FredWilson)"During my year end vacation, I read a few books and saw some films. The two I want to talk about today are Dave Eggers'Â The Circle and Spike Jonze's Her . I am a fan of both artists and have consumed most of their prior work. Though they are very different works, both take us on a trip to the near future and show us what our lives may be like. And, though I am more than a little bit involved in the industry that is taking us to that place, I came away from both disturbed and a tad bi...
2014-01-0503 minFred Wilson's A VCMy First Investment (a post by @FredWilson)"Brad Feld told the story of his first VC investment (after making 40 angel investments) on his blog yesterday. The Gotham Gal told the story of her first angel investment on her blog today. I was involved in both stories and both investments worked out well. Yoyodyne sold to Yahoo! and Curbed sold to Vox Media, both for similar amounts interestingly enough. My first venture investment didn't work out so well. It was in a company called Software Developers Company (SDC) which if my memory is working may have been a thinly traded public company. SDC was in the business of...
2014-01-0303 minFred Wilson's A VCNew Outlets & New Voices (a post by @FredWilson)"The greatest thing about blogging is that it has opened up so many new voices and new outlets. Just in the past few weeks, we have two new outlets, both from WSJ veterans. The All Things D team has flown the coop and has resurfaced as Recode . The formula seems to be pretty similar to All Things D, the team is intact (at least it looks so to my untrained eye) and the format is familiar. They will do a big conference to anchor the whole thing. At least right now, it seems that the only things that have really ch...
2014-01-0203 minFred Wilson's A VCUnresolved (a post by @FredWilson)"My friend John asked me yesterday what my New Year's resolutions were. I thought about it for a bit and then told him that I have none this year. Of course like most everyone I want to eat healthier and exercise more (which for me means mostly yoga and cycling). I want to be a better husband, father, business partner. But these are ongoing efforts that I have been working on for years. I also have some very specific things like finding a new doctor and shopping for some new pants, shirts, and jackets (some of which the Gotcham Gal...
2014-01-0101 minFred Wilson's A VCIt's A Wrap (a post by @FredWilson)"The Gotham Gal ends 2013 looking into the future and thinking about how her porfolio companies will grow next year. I am similarly minded as we wrap 2013. I am excited about 2014, and in particular the big opportunities that await many of our portfolio companies. I/we have a view about what is coming and I tried to lay that out at LeWeb earlier this month . We continue to look for investments in companies that fit into that view of the world. But for me, it is the development of the companies we have already invested in that is always the most in...
2013-12-3102 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Purity Of Angel Investing (a post by @FredWilson)"Though I have made a few angel investments here and there over the years, it has never been my primary approach to investing in startups. I joined a venture capital firm when I was 25 years old and have been working at a venture capital firm ever since. I grew up in the business of investing other people's money and that is how I have gone about investing in startups ever since. Over the past five years, I have watched The Gotham Gal build a portfolio of angel investments . She has invested in almost fifty companies in the past five years...
2013-12-2703 minFred Wilson's A VCA New Look For 2014 (a post by @FredWilson)"I have been unhappy with the way this blog looks for a while. I've fallen into my typical habit of putting too many widgets on it and messing things up. I have also discovered that the layout of the blog is making disqus work more poorly on mobile than it should. Many of you have run into problems commenting on mobile and it's likely that is my fault, not disqus' fault. I also want to do an even better job of optimizing the blog for reading on phones and tablets. That was the goal of the last redesign, which we...
2013-12-2301 minFred Wilson's A VCFounders and CEOs (a post by @FredWilson)"I watched the Steve Jobs movie with Ashton Kutcher last night on the flight to Salt Lake City. It wasn't great to be honest but the board room scences with Jobs, Markkula, and Arthur Rock (and later on John Sculley) were pretty compelling. Having been through some of that myself over the years, I winced when Arthur Rock came down hard on Jobs and was depicted as a patronizing father figure. Mike Markkula got much better treatment and came across as the good guy who tried to to the right thing by Jobs. The pivotal scene in which Sculley decides he c...
2013-12-2202 minFred Wilson's A VCMarkets and Clearing Prices (a post by @FredWilson)"Last saturday night in NYC was a bit of a moment for Uber and their surge pricing mechanic. Most people were seeing 3x-5x in manhattan for most of the night and there were reports of 10x for some people. There was a snowstorm, people were out at holiday parties, and there was more demand for rides than there were cabs. So in some sense the market worked and rides went to those who were willing to pay the most for them. The next day Mo Koyman tweeted about it and one of the larger twitter conversations I have seen...
2013-12-2002 minFred Wilson's A VCMy Idiosyncratic View Of The World (a post by @FredWilson)"Jeff Wise has a piece in this week's NY Magazine about teaching kids to code which features my partner Albert's home school and great programs like Code.org and Girls Who Code. It also talks about the work my colleagues and I are doing to bring CS education to all of NYC's public schools. Jeff ends the piece with this observation: Like much tech-world philanthropy, the tech schools are arriving as a fiat from on high, rather than welling up from grassroots demand, and itâs easy to read the education evangelism as motivated, at least in part, by a des...
2013-12-2000 minFred Wilson's A VCCrowdfunding Brooklyn Castle: An Update (a post by @FredWilson)"I woke up to this email: Hi Fred, This weekend our team traveled to Florida to compete in the National Grade Chess Championships. We won! Our sixth graders and our seventh graders each won the team championships after three grueling days of seven games each of which could last up to three hours. Thank you for your support! here is a link to a little video the kids made today...sorry to say i am better at chess that video production..if the kids look exhausted it is because we arrived back in NY at 1 am last night. https://www.face...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCTargetspot and Radionomy (a post by @FredWilson)"Yesterday we announced a deal that I have been working on for the past three months. Our portfolio company Targetspot has merged with Radionomy, the leading streaming radio company in Europe.
The combination creates the largest global audio ad network and brings Radionomy to the US. It also gives the Targestpot network an anchor tenant that will make it easier to do sophisticated targeting campaigns that require both scale and reach. Advertisers can now leverage the capabilities of a digital audio network with reach to over 75M listeners and more than 80 publishers in both the U.S. and Europe.
The...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCTaking To Dos and Moving Up The Y Axis (a post by @FredWilson)"Dec 17
2013
Targetspot and Radionomy
Yesterday we announced a deal that I have been working on for the past three months. Our portfolio company Targetspot has merged with Radionomy, the leading streaming radio company in Europe.
The combination creates the largest global audio ad network and brings Radionomy to the US. It also gives the Targestpot network an anchor tenant that will make it easier to do sophisticated targeting campaigns that require both scale and reach. Advertisers can now leverage the capabilities of a digital audio network with reach to over 75M listeners and more than 80 publishers in both the U...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Smartphone As A Wallet (a post by @FredWilson)"Last night the Gotham Gal and I went out with a bunch of friends. We met at a restaurant on the upper east side that had recently opened. It was snowing pretty heavily all day yesterday and we were worried about getting a cab on the street. So as we were getting ready to leave, I hailed a cab on my smartphone so that it would pull up in front of our apartment building. The car came more quickly than I thought it would and we scrambled out of the apartment and got in the car and headed uptown.
When...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCFun Friday: Year End Lists(a post by @FredWilson)"It's been a month since we've done a fun friday around here. Getting much too serious it seems. So let's do one today. It's year end and time for year end lists. Here are some that I saw and liked:
The New Yorker's Best Books of 2013, Part 1
The New York Times 10 Best Books of 2013
The New Yorker Best Movies of 2013
Cliff Chenfeld's Music Picks for 2013
Kirk Love's Top 10 Albums and Songs for 2013
works in progress:
my songs of the year (i will publish this at some point in the next week)
Brian's best of 2013
Ok, that's enough from me. Please...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Limits of Capitalism (a post by @FredWilson)"I am a capitalist. Contrary to the occasional community members who call me a socialist or a techno communist, I believe wholeheartedly in the power of markets to efficently determine what's best in most cases.
But I am not an absolute capitalist. I believe that markets do break down from time to time and we need to recognize when those things happen and do something about it. The labor movement, when it was not corrupt for the most part, is an example of a societal response to a market breakdown.
When we stare into the future, we see that our...
2013-12-1803 minFred Wilson's A VCHour Of Code (a post by @FredWilson)"This is CS Ed Week and this year we are celebrating it with an Hour Of Code. The idea is to get every student to spend an hour this week writing code.
If you want to do this with your kids (at home or in school), here are some resources to try:
The Codecademy Hour of Code iPhone app - download this on an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch and learn the basics of coding in an hour. As many of you know, Codecademy is a USV portfolio company and millions of people have used Codecademy to start learning to...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Government Surveillance Letter (a post by @FredWilson)"Note: The website this post is about is now down. I am not sure if that means this thing was a hoax or something along those lines. Regardless, I believe the sentiments expressed on the website are correct and that Internet companies, large and small, should ban together to express them.
Sometime last night, a letter to the President of the United States and Congress was published on the Internet. It was signed by eight of the largest Internet companies; Apple, AOL, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Twitter, and Yahoo!
The website where the letter is hosted outlines five principles for...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCMobile Shopping (a post by @FredWilson)"I've been doing some holiday shopping. I like to do all my shopping online. I don't really enjoy being in stores and I like the convenience of having the items delivered to me.
This holiday season, I've been trying to shop more on mobile, both phone and tablet. I am doing this partly because I want to see what the experience is like and partly because as I spend more time shopping on mobile, I realize it's easier in some ways.
It feels to me that as a reaction to the shrinking real estate that is available in mobile, particularly...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Personal Hangouts (a post by @FredWilson)"I have had a personal conference calling bridge number since the mid 90s. I know the number by heart. I give it out all the time via email, text, and kik. It does not require a participant code. When I type my host code, we are all connected. I have not found a better model for voice conference calls in the almost twenty years I have been using this number.
But more and more I am doing hangouts instead of calls. And I want the same experience for hangouts. It used to be possible to get a "static URL" for...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCMaintaining High Maintenance (a post by @FredWilson)"The New Yorker gives high praise for this web video series called High Maintenance. The episodes are short (~5min) and there are eleven episodes in all. It is about a pot dealer who rides around NYC and meets all sorts of strange and outrageous people. This bit from the lead actor in the New Yorker piece rings true to me after I watched a bunch of episodes last night:
The thing about weed is, we didn’t want to use it as a punch line. Instead, it’s this substance that, like chocolate, causes people to expose their own foibles. Peop...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCThe Goodlatte Patent Bill (a post by @FredWilson)"Yesterday the White House came out in favor of Rep Bob Goodlatte's patent bill. This is a good thing.
The Goodlatte bill doesn't have everything in it that we would like to see in a bill aimed at reducing the pain that patent trolls inflict on the innovation economy, but it is a good start and I think it can get improved in conference with the Senate.
One thing that was taken out of the Goodlatte bill that we would like to see put back in during the conference with the Senate is the broadening of the covered business method...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCMy Idiosyncratic View Of The World (a post by @FredWilson)"Jeff Wise has a piece in this week's NY Magazine about teaching kids to code which features my partner Albert's home school and great programs like Code.org and Girls Who Code. It also talks about the work my colleagues and I are doing to bring CS education to all of NYC's public schools.
Jeff ends the piece with this observation:
Like much tech-world philanthropy, the tech schools are arriving as a fiat from on high, rather than welling up from grassroots demand, and it’s easy to read the education evangelism as motivated, at least in part, by a de...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCLarge Networks, Big Data, And Healthcare (a post by @FredWilson)"Zander posted this NY Times opinion piece to usv.com yesterday and it's been rattling around in my head since then. The author suggests that big data is coming to health care and bringing with it many issues that will have to be resolved. I am sure that is so. But I also think the intersection of big data and health care and our large networks thesis is likely to produce some interesting investment opportunities for us and some valuable health care services for consumers.
Jason Karlawish, the author of the NY Times opinion piece, writes:
This is a revolutionary...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Disqus Thumbnail Ads"Arnold suggested we discuss these ads last week so we are going to do that. But first some background.
Disqus, which is a USV portfolio company, offers a free ad-supported service for both commenters and publishers. Their first ad product is promoted discovery which has been a link oriented product for the past year. Publishers opt into promoted discovery and share revenues with Disqus if they opt-in.
Recently, Disqus added the option for publishers who are running promoted discovery to switch from links to thumbnails. I decided to make that switch and turned on thumbnails a week or two ago...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles (a post by @FredWilson)"I love the John Hughes film starring John Candy and Steve Martin in which the two of them go to great effort to get home from NYC to Chicago in time for Thanksgiving dinner. I might put it on this morning while the Gotham Gal is cooking in the kitchen.
I thought of that film yesterday as I was coming out of the subway and person after person was coming down the subway stairs with their luggage. On most days you don't see people dragging their luggage into the subway. But the day before thanksgiving is different. Thanksgiving is a...
2013-12-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCWitch Hunts and Public Data (a post by @FredWilson)"I was reading a thread on Hacker News this morning and came across this gem of a comment:
One of the consequences of a public transaction chain is the great potential for witch hunts. Here's one of the first examples, but it surely won't be the last.
The backstory here is a couple researchers posted a paper suggesting that Satoshi (the inventor of bitcoin that nobody knows) had done a large transaction with the founder of Silk Road. That was picked up by the New York Times last weekend. Well it turns out that was not what happened. What happened...
2013-12-1802 minFred Wilson's A VCCrowdfunding More Public School Chess (a post by @FredWilson)"The AVC community will remember back to this summer when we helped to crowdfund a middle school chess team that was struggling to come up with the money to go to the tournaments it had won numerous times over the past decade. That was a huge success for everyone involved. And like most successes, it brought out other similar efforts."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 26, 2013.
2013-11-2602 minFred Wilson's A VCA Note About Bitcoin (a post by @FredWilson)"Yesterday I received an email from a reader who wanted to know why I was hyping my position in Bitcoin. It's a fair question and one that I feel like responding to publicly as welll as privately."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 24, 2013.
2013-11-2501 minFred Wilson's A VCThe New Freedom (a post by @FredWilson)"There's a great Andy Serwerinterview of Marc Andreessen up on Forbes. I would recommend everyone go give it a read. Marc expresses many of the same things my partners and I are seeing and feeling right now."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 25, 2013.
2013-11-2501 minFred Wilson's A VCFeature Friday: Two Factor Authentication (a post by @FredWilson)"With everything in the cloud now, it is important to protect your most sensitive information. I like two factor authentication for doing that. Bad people can steal passwords, but stealing your password and your phone at the same time is not as easy. And under the theory that being harder to rob than your neighbor is often enough, I feel pretty comfortable with two factor auth security and use it on as many online services as I can."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square...
2013-11-2201 minFred Wilson's A VCBuying Your Holiday Gifts With Bitcoin (a post by @FredWilson)"Everyone focuses on the price of Bitcoin these days and it is no wonder why. But for Bitcoin to be anything more than a store of value, we need to see a transactional ecosystem develop. When the citizens of the world will be able to buy and sell from each other and from retailers of all shapes and sizes via Bitcoin, then we will have truly realized the potential of a global digital currency."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on...
2013-11-1901 minFred Wilson's A VCFintech Innovation Lab 2014 (a post by @FredWilson)"I have written about the Fintech Innovation Lab here before. It's one of the first vertical accelerator programs that have cropped up in NYC and its one of the best. They take a handful of promising fintech companies each year and give them introductions to the top execs at the leading financial services companies in NYC."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 18, 2013.
2013-11-1801 minFred Wilson's A VCSoftware vs Hardware (a post by @FredWilson)"One of the things I am noticing is the trend to try to solve problems with software instead of dedicated hardware. That makes sense for a whole bunch of reasons, but the biggest ones are that the marginal cost of additional user is almost zero with software and that you can iterate your product much more quickly with software."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 17, 2013.
2013-11-1702 minFred Wilson's A VCFun Feature Friday: Embeddable Media In The Comments (a post by @FredWilson)"I got wind of this yesterday in the comments to my SoundCloud post. You can now put a link to media that is embeddable (tweet, image, video, audio, etc) and Disqus will attach the media to the comment. Jim leaked the news in this comment."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 15, 2013.
2013-11-1500 minFred Wilson's A VCMobile Is Eating The World (continued) (a post by @FredWilson)"This isn't the first post I've written with this headline. That was here. But both of the posts are about slide decks I saw."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 13, 2013.
2013-11-1300 minFred Wilson's A VCMy Avatar (a post by @FredWilson)"My friend Howard is in town and he's going to come by my office today to see me. It got me thinking about the good old days at Wallstrip and all the fun we had. And how that led to the avatar I use here and everywhere else on the web. So I am reposting the story of my avatar which I initially told here four or five years ago."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 12, 2013.
2013-11-1203 minFred Wilson's A VCLoss Ratios In Early Stage VC (a post by @FredWilson)"When I was early in my career, I casually mentioned to an older VC that I had yet to lose money on an investment. He replied "that's not good, you aren't taking enough risk." I have gone on to lose a lot of money over the years. And made a fair bit too."
Content from Fred Wilson's blog, avc.com, used under Creative Commons License. Fred Wilson is a VC and principal of Union Square Ventures. Originally posted on November 11, 2013.
2013-11-1102 min
MBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 49 M&A Case Studies: ChiliSoftMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 49 M&A Case Studies: ChiliSoft
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read by Alistair Moulton Black
from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/2oQNZNennc4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2012-02-1700 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 48 Selling Your CompanyMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 48 Selling Your Company
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read by Alistair Moulton Black
from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/v9SfI9ZsH54" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2012-02-1700 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 47 The MBA Mondays CurriculumMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 47 The MBA Mondays Curriculum
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read by Alistair Moulton Black
from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/ifJhJ-wJ4vs" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2012-02-1700 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 46 Buying and Selling AssetsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 46 Buying and Selling Assets
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read by Alistair Moulton Black
from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/F23Tw74sLYs" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2012-01-2100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 45 M&A FundamentalsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 45 M&A Fundamentals
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read by Alistair Moulton Black
from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/0kMHG7hFVWk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2012-01-2100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 44 Acquisition FinanceMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 44 Acquisition Finance
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read by Alistair Moulton Black from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/f-0t7CO9Xpo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2012-01-2100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 43 Employee Equity: How Much?MBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 43 Employee Equity: How Much?
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read by Alistair Moulton Black from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/wOdEyTa1s3k" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-12-2100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 42 Employee Equity: VestingMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 42 Employee Equity: Vesting
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read by Alistair Moulton Black from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/JT1LL0_fa7k" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-12-1500 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 41 Employee Equity: Restricted Stock and RSUsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 41 Employee Equity: Restricted Stock and RSUs
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read by Alistair Moulton Black from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/uSH07aPsHIM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-12-0300 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 40 Employee Equity: The Option Strike PriceMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 40 Employee Equity: The Option Strike Price
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read by Alistair Moulton Black from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/D0beEwbvrWE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-12-0100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 39 Employee Equity: The Liquidation OverhangMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 38 Employee Equity: Options
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read by Alistair Moulton Black from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/SXl9ZkK1IDY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-2600 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 38 Employee Equity: OptionsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 38 Employee Equity: Options
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/Zt4V5hn_K5I" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-1200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 37 Employee Equity: AppreciationMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 37 Employee Equity: Appreciation
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/JsEPXaYnPk4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-1200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 36 Employee Equity: DilutionMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 36 Employee Equity: Dilution
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/2NVhIUADLDg" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-1200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 35 Employee EquityMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 35 Employee Equity
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/ahbLqc7Wxkk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-1200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 34 Outsourcing vs OffshoringMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 34 Outsourcing vs Offshoring
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/6JhMhQVVYEY" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-0100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 33 OutsourcingMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 33 Outsourcing
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/pt1TwsDmDuk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-11-0100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 32 What A CEO Does (continued)MBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 28 Enterprise Value and Market Value
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/-q93-3rItJo" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 31 What A CEO DoesMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 31 What A CEO Does
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/2uaIm8dOd40" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 30 Commission PlansMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 30 Enterprise Value and Market Value
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/cQREe_MeFBk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 29 Bookings vs Revenues vs CollectionsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 29 Bookings vs Revenues vs Collections
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/ZEiofjIWM6A" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 28 Enterprise Value and Market ValueMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 28 Enterprise Value and Market Value
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/cMGpwI9lfbU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 27 Off Balance Sheet LiabilitiesMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 27 Off Balance Sheet Liabilities
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/Cm47_BxS94Q" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 26 Sunk CostsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 26 Sunk Costs
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/OD42KzBgWPU" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-0300 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 25 Opportunity CostsMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 25 Opportunity Costs
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/C6gEO_njLJQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-0200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 24 Purchasing Power ParityMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 24 Purchasing Power Parity
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/6onkZ0t7Who" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-0200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 23 Currency Risk In A BusinessMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 23 Currency Risk In A Business
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/9YeU2UZMiHQ" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-0200 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 22 HedgingMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 22 Hedging
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/GzulIzLnRNE" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-10-0100 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 21 DiversificationMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 21 Diversification
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/xpsX-fbLYwk" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-09-2500 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 20 Risk and ReturnMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 20 Risk and Return
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/iWKet3VoiS4" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-09-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 19 ForecastingMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 19 Forecasting
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/nonAvvi8P2E" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-09-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 18 Budgeting In A Large CompanyMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 18 Budgeting In A Large Company
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/vCm_bKzOeiM" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-09-1800 minMBAMondaysMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 17 Budgeting In A Growing CompanyMBA Mondays by Fred Wilson Post 17 Budgeting In A Growing Company
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read by Raph Kossew from talkshoot.com<img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/soundcloud/mbamondays/~4/0sa9QUPH9vI" height="1" width="1" alt=""/>
2011-09-1800 min