I’ve been maintaining this blog for almost a decade, and a lot of helpful content is now hard to find because I had been lax about tagging it with categories. So, I’ve just added categories for all of my past blog posts, which you can see in the right column. This should make old content...
[Continue Reading]Is The Government Telling The Truth When It Says Your Data Is Secure?
(I previously published this at Techcrunch.) Modern encryption systems are, in theory, exceptionally secure. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), for example, is so sophisticated that all known attacks are considered computationally infeasible. It is no surprise then, that the NSA considers 256-bit AES safe for storing top-secret data. What is a little more surprising, however,...
[Continue Reading]How Private Equity Funds Are and Should Be Using Social Media
Can professional investors use social media? Or, is social media strictly for teenagers and staying in touch with your friends? Historically, institutional investors kept their investing strategy and their activities very discreet. Today, however, some are aggressively employing social media tools to discuss their strategies, deals in the pipeline, and even their political views...
[Continue Reading]Partnering Strategy, Subcontractors, and Uber
You can’t hire in courtesy and managerial competence; it has to flow from company management outwards. I’m traveling to Atlanta and Boston this month, so starting to plan my logistics. Part of what Uber’s customers pay for is an easy-to-use layer across multiple cab services in multiple cities. I don’t mind too much paying them...
[Continue Reading]How VCs Deploy Operating Talent To Build Better Companies
Drew Hansen just posted a very interesting piece on Forbes on, “How VCs Deploy Operating Talent To Build Better Startups”. He draws on the research study my coauthors and I are about to publish on best practices in how venture capitalists increase the odds of company success through operational assistance. We are using just about...
[Continue Reading]Teach your computer to read your mind
InteraXon, a leader in thought controlled computing and a ffVC portfolio company, launched an Indiegogo campaign today to support production of Muse, a multi-sensor brainwave measuring headband. For the last year, InteraXon has been deep in development of Muse, which will allow users to see how their brain is performing in real time, to play games with...
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