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| http://www.gilder.com/ | Issue 370.0/January 30,
2009
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HEADLINES:
- The Week / The Tech
Entrepreneurs Who Will Bring You Tomorrow
- Friday Feature / Steve Forbes: China’s
Long Tail
- Friday Blogger Bonus / Entrepreneurs
Still Thinking Big
- Readings /
The Week / The
Tech Entrepreneurs Who Will Bring You Tomorrow
CARL LAVIN, Forbes.com “Davos 2009”
(01/29/09): The headline faces at the World
Economic Forum are all one-name political figures from the global political
stage--Putin, Wen, Clinton--or from the loftiest heights of the corporate
world--Gates, Brin and Page, Dimon.
It will be some lesser-known figures, though, who plant the seeds that can
grow into a new economic boom. These executives use two names (or even three,
when a founder has to add a company name, too, to be identified). They didn't
cause the current global slowdown, and they insist on viewing it as more
opportunity than crisis.
As finance companies and manufacturers lay off tens of thousands of
workers, these executives face personnel problems, too. Typically, they wrestle
with questions like this: If I am adding 10 people to a 100-person roster, do I
invest more in sales or engineering?
What does the economic crunch mean to Richard Muirhead of Tideway, a
software company that helps information technology managers understand the
inner workings of complicated server operations?
The financial sector was a first beachhead for the young, U.K.-based
company. Now, Muirhead told Forbes between sessions at Davos, he's looking at
other areas, including governments, and accelerating a move into the Middle
East and other markets.
In his view, many participants at the Forum are at
"the early stages of facing up to what has occurred--not at acceptance by
any means." He, along with several other pioneering entrepreneurs here,
also spoke forcefully about the need for, as he put it, "accountability
for people who have produced toxic products." He means toxic financial
products, of course, and it's clear that many executives navigating though a
storm of bleak financial news would welcome jail terms for the guilty.
Most of these new companies are high-tech enterprises,
serving other tech business (Tideway), addressing consumer health issues
(23andMe, RainDance Technologies), green power (GridPoint), digital publishing
(Brightcove, AdMob, Seesmic) or social media (LinkedIn).
Reid Hoffman, the founder and chairman of LinkedIn, provides a place online
for people in business to network, search for jobs or employees and ask and
answer focused questions. It's a little like Davos, without the snow or the
stepping on toes. Oh, and instead of 2,600 people involved there are more than
26 million.
Some 9 million LinkedIn members are in Europe, a
region where membership is growing by about 400,000 a month. Hoffman has added
French and Spanish functionality recently and hinted very strongly that the
site will soon be available to German speakers.
Talking near the YouTube corner at the Congress Center
here in Davos, Hoffman noted that he was prepared to speak about privacy on a
World Economic Forum panel ("you have to sing for your supper"), but
that the reason he was at the Forum was to raise his company's European profile.
As he discussed the current economy, his entrepreneurial
optimism contrasted strongly with the generally glum mood of many of the
conference's economists and finance executives….
Read On:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/davos-tech-muirhead-leadership_0129_tech.html
|
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Friday Feature / China’s Long Tail
STEVE FORBES, Forbes.com “Industry
Insights” (01/29/09): Sometimes the story of
the day can drive major topics right out of the news. Though we've been fixated
for months on the global financial crisis, it's worth noting that we spent most
of this decade following another financial story--the explosive economic
emergence of China.
China's importance as a trading partner, investment opportunity and political
rival deserves more attention than it's getting.
The disaster of Mao's "Great Leap Forward,"
where the government killed 60 million of its own people in the name of
Communism, is still being felt today.
Those who would preserve the authoritarian nature of
China's government aren't gone, but they've been marginalized by the facts of
life in the modern world.
The authoritarians tried to respond to the 2002 SARS
[Severe Acute Rerpiratory Syndome] outbreak by conning the global community
with denials. It didn't work. China eventually dealt openly and honestly with
other world powers, and investment dollars followed.
From 2002 onward, China exhibited amazing GDP growth,
climbing 11.4% in 2007. With China's government pursuing a massive stimulus
package, it looks like it will show moderate positive growth for 2008 while
other economies have retrenched.
Let's put China's growth in context--during China's
fastest-growing five years, between 2002 and 2007, the United States, though
growing at a slower rate, effectively added an economy the size of China's to
its GDP. While China is an emerging power, it has not yet "arrived."
China is a unique problem for Barack Obama. He must see past the
isolationists in his own party and pursue a consistent free trade agenda.
China's labor and its growing consumer market will provide a boon for U.S.
businesses, and our investments will ultimately help China's people escape
decades of oppression.
Obama must also deal skeptically with China when it comes to national
security. Our ability to conduct intelligence around the world is based on our
satellite capabilities. Is it any wonder that China has frenetically pursued
the technology to destroy such satellites? That's an argument in favor of
developing space-based defense systems.
Comment on this story:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/23/intelligent-investing-china-long-tale-Jan26.html
__________________________________________
Friday Blogger Bonus / Entrepreneurs Still Thinking Big
CHRIS
O’BRIEN, Mercury News (01/23/09): Over the
course of the past 40 years, Silicon Valley has experienced regular cycles of
economic ups and downs that come with being one of the world's leading centers
of innovation. And during those down cycles, it's become routine for folks to
do some hand-wringing about whether the valley has lost its way.
On the whole,
it's probably a healthy thing to take stock and engage in some soul-searching.
But these periods of self-flagellation have been followed by a period of new
innovation and economic boom, with some booms being bigger than others.
The latest sign
we're entered into the period of angst came in the form of a BusinessWeek cover
story a few weeks ago that asked, "What's Wrong With Silicon Valley.”
Reporter Steve
Hamm worries that the valley has become too focused on short-term earnings,
that venture capitalists have curbed their ambitions, and that innovation is
suffering as a result. The story makes some points that I would echo,
especially the short-term thinking. But then, that's not unique to the valley.
But on the bigger
point, I think the piece gets it wrong. Innovation is going strong in Silicon
Valley, thank you very much. And not just small, incremental innovation. There
are still plenty of entrepreneurs thinking big and tackling problems of an epic
scale with the potential to have profound affects on our lives.
For proof, just
look at Greenbox.
You've almost
certainly never heard of this San Bruno-based startup. They have just a handful
of employees. But a couple of the founders — Jon Gay and Robert Tatsumi —
happen to be the guys who invented Flash, the multimedia platform that powers
most video and animation you watch on the Web. So they know all about creating
something that has widespread impact on people's lives.
The pair left
Adobe a few years ago, along with a couple of other members of the Flash team,
and eventually launched Greenbox. But far from curtailing their ambition, this
time around they've dramatically expanded it.
With Greenbox,
the team is trying to revolutionize our relationship to the energy we use. They
are building an entire system of hardware and software that will provide
consumers with a vast amount of data about their energy usage. The team
believes that by filling the information void about our energy-consumption
patterns, we will be able to find small ways to alter behavior that will
dramatically lower our energy costs.
“People's
relationship to energy is changing," Gay said. "And there's an
incredible void of information about what people can do."
While people may
want to find ways to cut their energy use, it can feel like an overwhelming
task. Do I need to swap out all those appliances? Do I have to change my
lifestyle? The Greenbox folks would answer no, at least, not to start.
Instead, by
having rich, detailed information on energy consumption, people can see how
small changes can have big, immediate impacts. The system becomes more powerful
as more devices in the home are connected to the Internet, or a network, and as
more utilities install smart grids. All of this data is served up in rich
charts that compare energy usage anonymously to other homes in the
neighborhood.
Of course, it's
way too early to say whether Greenbox will be a success. They are in a trial
with a utility in Oklahoma. And for the benefits of such a system to kick in, a
lot of pieces will have to line up, from consumers to home builders to
utilities. But the Greenbox team points out that if 30 percent of people cut
their energy consumption by 20 percent, that would avoid the need for 35
coal-fired plants.
Whether or not
Greenbox changes the world, the main thing is that they're trying. Their
ambition is huge. And in the green-tech area, it's easy enough to find dozens
of such examples of entrepreneurs with bold visions that have the potential for
widespread impact. They have been supported by venture capitalists who see both
the potential to do good and large markets that offer the possibility of big
payoffs.
To take stock of
Silicon Valley today, any examination ought to begin with areas where big
potential innovation is happening, such as green tech and mobile. Instead, Hamm
gets around to them only toward the end of his story where he quotes Ken
Lawler, a valley partner with the venture capital firm Battery Ventures, who
points to new developments in biotech, solar power and other green
technologies. "Innovation is still alive and well," he says.
"It's in new areas."
That's right. The
valley's pivot to becoming a leader in green technology demonstrates the
underlying vitality of the region's innovative culture. It may be the big story
of this generation of entrepreneurs. And the fact that green tech has become
the category that's attracting the most venture capital over the past year
shows that many VCs are still making big bets.
And more than any
single technology or market, it's such big thinking that remains the valley's
most important product.
Check Out Chris’s Blog:
http://www.siliconbeat.com/
__________________________________________
Readings /
NEC to Cut 20,000 Jobs
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123331016306332975.html
100 Corporations That Will Survive 100 Years
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/28/long-lived-companies-leadership_0128_sustainability.html?feed=rss_news
Fraunhofer claims
world record in solar cell efficiency - 41.1%
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41224/113/
AT&T talking with Apple
about 3G-ready MacBooks?
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/01/28/att_talking_with_apple_about_3g_ready_macbooks.html
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