Advice Archives - Page 18 of 35

EPIC!!!

September 14, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

The news of the week was that the closely-watched trial between Apple Computer and Epic Games concluded. It was not a win all around, but it did deal “a massive blow to the walled-garden business model of Apple’s App Store.”

According to CNBC, “Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers…issued an injunction that said Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing. Apple typically takes a 15% to 30% cut of gross sales.”

“Apple will now be required to allow developers to direct users to third-party payment processors, meaning developers can now collect revenue directly, and can no longer disallow developers from using account registration data to contact users outside the app,” Gizmodo reported. “…but it’s very far from a complete victory. Gonzalez Rogers ruled against the gaming company on every single other count, finding that while Apple violated California’s Unfair Competition law, the case did not establish Apple to be an illegal monopolist…It’s not clear, as of this moment, how wide the ramifications will be beyond the App Store specifically. Google, which also booted Fortnite from its Play Store in response to Epic’s moves, is facing a similar lawsuit that has yet to be resolved.” Read More...

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

August 31, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

We often get reader feedback/notes and have received several lately that brought various points to our attention which we feel are worth sharing.

One such reader is a so-called minority. We’ve met in person. We do not know his vax status, neither do we care, nor is it any of our business. He did note that with all the various programs that people, establishments and companies have put in place on both the private and professional fronts, whenever he is asked to show his proof of vax, qua ‘papers’ (unheard of since the Nazi era), what he feels is something not unfamiliar to him:

Discrimination. Read More...

Wee the People

August 18, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

We were half joking last week when we suggested that, in many cases in tech, so-called terms of service be renamed ‘terms of servitude.’ Given the amount of data scraping and surveillance we’ve seen because of the lockdowns (think the enormous spike in Amazon and Walmart online orders, while mom and pops were forced to close). It’ll be interesting to see what fresh hell comes next. The New Normal? Might want to think New Police State.

Or something like that.

The New Apple, to the Core

August 10, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

Apple recently announced that they’re going to scan U.S. iPhones for images of child sexual abuse, “drawing applause from child protection groups but raising concern among some security researchers that the system could be misused, including by governments looking to surveil their citizens,” according to Yahoo News.

Apple is all about protecting children, as we well know. After all, Apple knew a supplier was using child labor but took 3 years to fully cut ties, despite the company’s promises to hold itself to the ‘highest standards,’ report says. “Ten former members of Apple’s supplier responsibility team (said) the company has refused or has been slow to stop doing business with suppliers that repeatedly violate its labor policies when doing so would hurt its profits.”

So, obviously Apple is not driven by protecting children, although claiming so does tend to pull at the heartstrings and move people to quickly surrender yet another aspect of their privacy/allow surveillance. As Matthew Green, a top cryptography researcher at Johns Hopkins University, pointed out in the Yahoo piece, “abuses could include government surveillance of dissidents or protesters…”What happens when the Chinese government says, ‘Here is a list of files that we want you to scan for,’” Green asked. “Does Apple say no? I hope they say no, but their technology won’t say no.” Read More...

The Tortoise and the Huh???

July 27, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

How often have we heard that slow and steady wins the race? We’ve been looking at funding reports lately and there’s no doubt that this has been a banner year for both funding – and exits. Win-win for both sides of the table, and all the better when seemingly everyone wins, what, eh? Or do they? And funding, in some cases, seems to be happening at incredible speeds.

According to Pitch Book, Venture capital rewrites the record books, with “Venture-backed companies having attracted $150 billion in 2021, more than 90% of last year’s record total…IPOs and SPACs helped to drive the exit value of venture-backed companies to $372.2 billion in the first half of 2021. That was 30% higher than 2020’s all-time record…Firm-level fundraising also (took off), with investors closing funds worth $74.1 billion, about 91.5% of 2020’s record-breaking amount. And Deals, exits, funds—US VC’s records for value are going to get even bigger Read More...

The New Global Tech Ecosystem: Why There’s No Going Back

July 20, 2021 Bonnie Comments 1 comment

It’s right about mid-summer, the halfway mark, and we hear more and more about how two of the tech capitals – New York and Silicon Valley – are ‘back.’ We also hear a lot of debate online about when events should be scheduled again where people will meet in person, at an actual venue. September? October? Some have already started, although in many cases, we see that the number of attendees is somewhat, if not greatly diminished, which was not necessarily true when the events were being held online.

We also wonder how many startups – and how much new funding – was a result of the new borderless ecosystem. Do these new friendships/affiliations simply go away when the world goes back to in-person events and meetings? We regularly attend a now-online, formerly in-person event whose attendees span multiple states and several continents due to the lockdowns. As venues reopen and some people return to the tech hubs – not all will – and in-person events, will the online participants be cut off? So long and thanks for all the fish? Read More...

The Heat Is On…Big Tech

July 13, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

It may be summer, but we well know that tech – and rust – never rest. Last week, “Former President Donald Trump, who has been banned from most major social media platforms, announced a class-action lawsuit against tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, along with their respective CEOs Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai,” Yahoo reported. “…In court documents, Mr. Trump’s legal team argued that the tech firms amounted to state actors and thus the First Amendment applied to them. Legal experts said similar arguments had repeatedly failed in the courts before,” said the New York Times.

But Palace Intrigue noted a while back that in April, 2012, “Barack Obama himself admitted that the government helped Google and Facebook get off the ground. The government was present at the beginning when both companies were created.”

Summer Reading: Lessons from the Pros

July 6, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

We’re full on into summer, when people kick back a bit and even take some time to read. If you’re looking for recommendation and are in the midst of raising capital or plan to very soon, one our readers have suggested Foundry Group founder and Techstars co-founder Brad Feld’s Venture Deals: Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist. As well as former New York Angels Chairman and NY Venture Partners founder Brian Cohen’s What Every Angel Investor Wants You to Know: An Insider Reveals How to Get Smart Funding for Your Billion Dollar Idea. Finally, there’s angel investor Jason Calacanis’s Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups–Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000, and as one reviewer noted: Should have titled this book: ‘The ABC Angel: Arrogant, Brilliant, and Confident!’ Then again, for those of us who know him well, that’s Jason, what, eh?

Feld also offers a free Venture Deals course that “demystifies venture capital deals and startup financing to give both first-time and experienced entrepreneurs a definitive guide to secure funding.” Sign up and make sure that you’re notified as to when the next session is starting, which will most likely be Fall. Read More...

Why We Need to Stop Calling NewCos Startups

June 29, 2021 Bonnie Comments 0 Comment

In case you haven’t notice, the lockdowns have led to an uptick in entrepreneurship and as many newly-minted founders are discovering, starting a business is easy. Building one, not so much. Instead of ‘startups,’ we prefer to call them ‘newcos,’ as you’re building a new company, and a company is about doing business. Startup? You start up a car, you’re off to the races. Or to the grocery store or wherever, provided that you’ve maintained the car, it’s charged or filled with gas, etc. Eventually you will have to get it serviced, and if something goes wrong, you call in a specialist. In tech, they’re called mentors/advisors/consultants. Like the mechanic, they do expect to be compensated for their time and expertise. Like a mechanic, they may do a free assessment. But if you need some work done, well, you have to pay them. Otherwise your vehicle won’t…startup.