Does the Iphone Suck?

I just waited 1 minute for my phone to connect to call my wife.  But hey I only had 3 bars and a 3G symbol.  Why should this phone work in downtown New York?  It’s not that big a market.
This afternoon I was standing next to a window in the betaworks office as John Borthwick [...]

Fred Wilson and Tim O’Reilly on Startup Opportunity

After a great bike ride into work that was joyously interrupted by Ry’s Halloween Parade at school, I stumble upon a Art Laffer’s op-ed piece in the WSJ courtesy of Brad Feld.   Another in a series of doomsday scenarios that just redefine the word “buzzcrusher.”
It’s a pretty well-argued piece, but during this month’s depressing news, [...]

“Yalla,” say New York’s Israeli Startups

Last night 200 people attended our TechAviv New York meetup.  Awesome turnout and with even sicker demos.  In particular I wanted to highlight a company called Innovid which was seeded by Jeff Pulver and later backed by Genesis Partners.  They are still in stealth mode, but they have a product  that allows for in-video placement [...]

Consumer Confidence Crushed

Thanks to Jermy at Lightspeed for assembling all the explanations.  Long story short consumer confidence ( a measurement about how people feel about the next six months) is the worst it has been ever.  Check it out here.
Confident as I am about the future I feel compelled to share the bad stuff too.

Tech Powerhouse Endorses Obama

An extraordinary endorsement from Tim O’Reilly who does not disclose his political affiliations but appears to be an independent.  Very much worth reading here.

When Obama Wins

Roger, I’ve been thinking about your doomsday post that you published yesterday.
This is the worst seven weeks in America since Sept 11 to October 31st 2001.   Seven years ago that period was marked by an emotional state of fear that was totally unfamiliar to us. Remember riding the subway or airplanes in the aftermath?  We [...]

A Startup Academy

We have taken to calling our program at TechAviv — an academy.  As a result, several potential backers have asked us to elaborate on our program.  Of course, this implies that we have a set program which we were trying to avoid.  Our process was to examine the current models at Ycombinator, SeedCamp, Betaworks and [...]

Senate Moves Closer To Dems

Ted Stevens and Sarah Palin are not helping the good people of Alaska.  It’s a disastrous Republican year.  The last time this happened Bill Clinton and a democratic congress were as arrogant as could be coming out of the gate.  Let’s hope Obama and his team remember that this mistake lead to huge setbacks in [...]

Open-Source Fundraising

In late July of this year, I sat down with my friend Yaron Samid to get his thoughts on a Ycombinator for Israel.  As it turned out, he was thinking about a Betaworks for Israel and our conversations over the next month lead to the formation of a new venture called TechAviv. TechAviv helps launch [...]

Explaining The Bailout Plan

Naval Ravikant, a thoughtful venture investor/entrepreneur on the west coast pointed this barron’s interview out to me.  I’m reposting because Barron’s is a subscriber only product.  I wish I could use tipjoy to give them some cash.  They deserve it.  Hopefully Roger Ehrenberg will respond with his view on Anna Schwartz’s interview.
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB122489726575668975.html
Tearing Into the Fed [...]