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Author: Bonnie

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

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Given recent world events, we decided that wouldn’t it be interesting to examine what the results would be if elected officials and their policies were put under the same scrutiny as are startups – using an investor lens.

We use the following simply as an example.

There have been several mandates/regulations coming from the current administration and state and local governments that are pushing the population to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned for residential purposes and pushing us increasingly onto the power grid. Read More...

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

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Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Given the present situation in the Middle East, it’s not easy to write about something like, say, the FEMA emergency broadcasting system test alert that we all experienced October 4, like it or not, and attention does need to be paid there – coming!

The invasion by Hamas into Israel and the attacks and wholesale murder and/or kidnappings of innocent civilians was amoral, to put it mildly. The world is gobsmacked, no matter which side you’re on, and since we opine on tech rather than politics, there is very much a lesson here for us all in tech overreach.

Huh? Read More...

He’s Baa-aack!

He’s Baa-aack!

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Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Meta – the company formerly known as Facebook – has gone all in on the metaverse and judging from this past week’s press conference where Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg showcased his latest and greatest, it looks like this time, it might just have legs. Pun intended, of course, for those of us who remember his past iteration of the space and the legless floating torsos.

Now he’s back, like a bad penny, and in case you missed it, here is Everything Revealed in 10 Minutes, including “the launch of 28 chatbots (conversational agents), which supposedly have their own personalities and have been specially designed for younger users. These include Victor, a so-called triathlete who can motivate “you to be your best self”, and Sally, the “free-spirited friend who’ll tell you when to take a deep breath,” France24 reported.

“Meta sees these as “fun” artificial intelligence,” the piece continues. “Others…feel that this latest technological development could mark the first step towards creating “the most dangerous artefacts in human history”, to quote from American philosopher Daniel C. Dennett’s essay about “counterfeit people.” Read More...

Who Doesn’t Enjoy a Good Tech Bro Pissing Match?

Who Doesn’t Enjoy a Good Tech Bro Pissing Match?

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Image by 849356 from Pixabay

There was a recent, er, exchange of words between that grandaddy of accelerators, Y Combinator, or rather CEO Garry Tan, and Ari Partovi, founder and CEO of relative upstart accelerator, Neo. During a keynote he gave at HackMIT, in “his 15-minute speech, Partovi says he mentioned YC once, saying: “The mentor ratio: we have as many mentors as Y Combinator, except they’re serving 20 startups rather than 250 startup,” TechCrunch reported.

“The comment seemingly infuriated (Tan), who took to X… to write: “Competition is good. What isn’t OK is when competitors like Neo slander Y Combinator by saying ‘YC does not offer personalized advice’… YC has 12 group partners including me: When we fund you you get 1:1 advice for the life of your startup.”

Boys, boys, boys!

Tan’s are fightin’ words – and Partovi’s, from Tan’s point of view, possibly tortuous, in the legal sense. Or, as the TechCrunch headline put it, Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately? Read More...

How to Blow It At an Investor Meeting

How to Blow It At an Investor Meeting

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Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

We were recently approached by a potential new client, who wanted feedback on his pitch deck, a rewrite and assistance with reaching out to the appropriate investors.

We liked him and his product and decided to take him on as a client.

An investor friend called us a few days later, and asked what we were working on, meaning was there anything in our pipeline that might be of interest to him and his fund. We gave him the broad strokes on the software that our new client had built, and which already had some traction in the market, knowing full well that it was in his sweet spot. Read More...

And the Winner of this Year’s Darwin Awards of Tech is…

And the Winner of this Year’s Darwin Awards of Tech is…

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Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

It’s time to offer something of a Darwin Award for Tech, which we will call the SOSy Awards – for SOS, of course, bestowed on people who are so off base in their pursuits, they clearly need help. Or a serious intervention, at the very least.  Our suggestion for this inaugural winner is none other than everyone’s favorite doctor, even though he has no medical degree, received a C+ in organic chemistry, and is a college dropout…

Bill Gates!

We’ve chosen Gates as the premier recipient for many reasons, not the least of which is his latest foray into pseudoscience: Bill Gates Funds Plan to Chop Down, Bury Millions of Trees in the of climate change, of course. You know, those things that convert carbon into oxygen, which are necessary for carbon-based species such as people to survive.

“MIT Technology Review reported that Kodama Systems had raised around $6.6 million, a hefty sum, from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, billionaire Bill Gates’s climate fund. Trees will be cut down in California and buried in Nevada for this “stealth effort,” which Kodama characterizes as “biomass burial,” PJ Media reported. Read More...

Investors in the Hotseat

Investors in the Hotseat

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Image by Lutz Krüger from Pixabay

Since we’re in the last throes of summer and many investors unplug at this time – not all, mind you, but this is the last hoorah of summer, so not the best time to send out that pitch deck, unless you happen to know the investor or someone in the fund. Then you’re more likely to get a response, which will most likely be, “looks interesting. Let’s revisit this after Labor Day.”

Been there, done that and tis the season.

That other season. Read More...

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

Time to Stop and Smell the Absurdities

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Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

It was something of a travel week for us, and a good time to at long last look at articles in the ‘save for later’ pile, which we did: stopped to smell the absurdities.

Incandescent lightbulbs were outlawed recently in favor of the longer lasting and supposedly more climate friendly LED bulbs, but according to greenmatters, LED Bulbs May Not Be as Great as We Thought — Studies Show Health and Environmental Risks, reporting that “Per a recent study published in the journal Science Advances, researchers from the University of Exeter have noted various health and environmental risks that come with LED lights. According to The Guardian, LED bulbs are becoming increasingly more common, and even though they are more energy efficient, they emit more blue light radiation”…which is harmful to human health and the environment.

What to speak of the fact that they arguably create more of an environmental hazard when it comes to their disposal. Read More...

The Rise of the Rest?

The Rise of the Rest?

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Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

It’s mid-August and thoughts of back-to-school and returning to work are in high gear. Or at least amping up.

Especially since tech companies are tightening their rules on remote work.

“Zoom, once the poster child for remote work during the pandemic, is now forcing a significant number of its employees back to the office, joining the growing chorus of tech companies pivoting away from remote work. Despite its explosive growth and popularity as a virtual communication tool, Zoom seems to have caught the in-office fever. The company’s hybrid approach demands that employees within 50 miles of an office show up in person at least two days a week, supposedly to foster team interaction,” the New York Times reported. Read More...

No Is an Acronym

No Is an Acronym

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Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay

We’ve covered this subject before, and here’s a reminder – with other points added, and updates, since certain of the investors mentioned did change funds. Or started new ones. So, once more with feeling…

When you were a kid how many times did your parents say No! N-O, NO! More than once, we’d wager. How many times did they say, Yes, Y-E-S, YES!’ Bet I can count the number of times on one hand – zero. Never happened.

We did notice this at a fairly young age – long before we knew that there was such a word – that NO is an acronym. It was parent-code for ‘keep trying’ or ‘change the talking points.’ In some cases, we found that if we changed our approach or arguments, we could get a yes. Persistence pays. And the same can be said of investors. Investors hate to miss opportunities, so they don’t really like to say No. Investors like to hedge their bets and keep their options open. Sometimes they will give you a hard and fast No and mean it. Still, that said, things change, so one never knows if it truly is a hard No. Read More...