May 23rd, 2012 § § permalink
iceland (Photo credit: osmium)
Iceland has a unique opportunity to lead the world by defining a Internet Enterprise Zone, Brad Burnham of Union Square Ventures defined this term to me while he was in Iceland. What do we mean by this IEZ? We mean a Policy framework focused on allowing innovation in the Internet space.
via: blog.startupiceland.com
I recently visited Iceland (again) and had a privilege to meet some of young entrepreneurs there. The amount of startups and interest in
entrepreneurship is amazing, specially if you consider that the whole country is the size of Ljubljana, Slovenia Capital.
The locals told me that the financial crisis hit everyday people pretty badly, specially because they actually weren’t doing anything wrong –
normal people were as scrappy as you’d expect from a scandinavian. They have also been very resourceful throughout history, probably a result of
harsh weather and soil conditions.
Oh, and every citizen has Facebook profile, which makes them super efficient at forming a new constitution. The rest of us should observe and learn.
May 8th, 2012 § Comments Off on Union Square Ventures adds technology ‘advocate’ to its payroll – how about other experts? § permalink
“WE ARE SAVING THROUGH PAYROLL SAVINGS” – NARA – 516067 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Great and important move, that USV probably decided to do because it has to be done right and there is nobody else who would take it on themselves.
It’s an established fact that technology and politics are increasingly finding themselves at loggerheads with one another, as issues of privacy, piracy, and copyright, not to mention net neutrality and media consolidation cut a larger profile on the national stage.
via: thenextweb.com
I was actually thinking recently that a different kind of activity would make sense for early stage VC – provide experts in residence for their startups, for instance: cutting edge virality ninjas, scalability/big data experts, startups finance expert… these guys should be seasoned, amazing, unaffordable by a normal startup, but if shared amongst a portfolio, they could really make a huge difference.
March 5th, 2012 § Comments Off on The Content Industry has Made Everybody a Pirate [Video] § permalink
Image via Wikipedia
not sure why i skipped this when it was happening, but Fred is totally right on this one.
Fred Wilson, managing partner at Union Square Ventures, passionately argues that “everybody is a pirate” of copyrighted digital content because internet content isn’t convenient for consumption. The content delivery system is flawed, he believes, and “in a world where everybody is breaking the law, you got to look at the law: is it the right law?
via: www.geeksaresexy.net
his argument reminds me of public trash cans situation – if you feel people should trow less garbage on the streets, the first thing to do is to put up more trash bins, not increase the fines.
