jammur

The big VC firms are increasingly trying to do early stage angel investments to get their foot in the door, so to speak. They will likely have better advice at the early stage than they would have a few years ago because they have more experience with companies at that stage.

Also, Andreessen Horowitz added Chris Dixon (a very well known angel investor) as a general partner, so I think this speaks to their intentions of being able to help companies at an earlier stage.

I'm not sure that's necessarily true, but in the context of creating a company around a product, I would say that selling is as important as creating.

Saying that "Improving is not Apple-style innovation," seems kinda wrong. Yes, they've had a few brand new product launches, but most of their time has been spent improving existing products. The progression from the original iPod to the current version has been a series of incremental improvements over the course of the last 11 years. Same goes for all the Mac computers. If anything I think the opposite is true, that Apple-style innovation tends to be improvement, with a few big leaps once in a while.

Also, new isn't necessarily better. I think Microsoft is in a position right now where they have the choice of duplicating the iOS/Android experience, or trying something completely different. Since they've shown a willingness to spend tons of money on new projects and play the long game, I think their strategy of trying new things is good for them. Products don't generally start out great, but rather get there over time and over multiple incremental iterations. I think Microsoft is essentially still searching for v1. Apple on the other hand already has a product that people love and buy in huge numbers. They have their good v1 and are now trying to make it great through incremental improvements.

Considering their P/E is so low, AAPL is likely undervalued and so their stock is likely to gain in the coming year. A major reason for this current drop is that funds and institutional investors are trying to lock up profits before year end and before any potential rise in capital gains taxes.

I think this is the problem that the "Lean Startup" methodologies aim to solve, enabling you to cheaply and quickly test out ideas in order to find the one that will satisfy the criteria you listed.

You're correct about the current state of payments in Canada, but many Canadian banks are now issuing Visa debit cards similar to the debit cards issued by American banks.

It's possible that he might have requested it if he expected to divulge some sensitive information.

Can you elaborate on this, Fred? What's the benefit of having a round, over "a bunch of investors"?

Unfortunately, "Dustin Moskovitz executes a pretty minor (and sensible) liquidity transaction" doesn't inspire people to click the link and view their ads...

I have to imagine that a chunk of that money is to provide liquidity to the founders, which they very much deserve.

I don't really see how this is a bad thing. They were very much profitable, and were likely able to dictate the terms of the deal. Also, the money came from one of the most, if not THE most, reputable and respected VC firms.

I'm really sorry that's the experience you had. I can't say that the app is perfect -- we've got a decent bug list we're working though -- but I can say that it shouldn't be like that. If you have a couple minutes, shoot me an email at jamie@trypair.com and I'll try my best to get everything working for you.

I love it! Disclosure: I'm one of the co-founders of Pair :)

Part of the "scandal" the article mentions is the possibility that a portions of RIM's recorded revenue does not quality as such, since it could have been for Playbook's that could be returned to RIM.

I'm shocked at the amount of xenophobia in the comments on the CNN site. Being Canadian, I have no idea whether it is representative of the population at large, but it appears that many Americans have been brainwashed into the thinking that the only immigrants are the ones driving cabs or working at fast food. The problem is that everybody has been talking themselves to death about illegal immigration, and haven't focused on the benefits of legal immigration. Does the Startup Visa have a chance in hell with the current political climate surrounding immigration in the US?

Depends what the incremental change is. If the change results in increased conversion rates, then it sounds like a legitimate business to me.

Most businesses would be more than willing to pay for a small change if it results in them making more money.

I think the benefit is that in the first scenario, you have to maintain the server yourself. In the second, you only have to worry about the clients. It's definitely a trade off, but for some developers, the benefit of not having to maintain server infrastructure might outweigh the cost of the added complexity of going through Kik.

“With the right strategic execution, significant improvements in the half-baked Playbook and a big dose of luck, RIM could keep its status as a tier-one smartphone maker.”

I really take issue with this statement. First, what evidence is there that RIM’s management are capable of “the right strategic execution”? They’ve had no credible response to the iPhone in the 4 years since it was released, and to Android in the 3 years since it’s first hardware release. A new entrant came into a market that RIM essentially created, and they did nothing for 4 years. I don’t think it’s valid to use the company’s performance in the time leading up to the iPhone, when RIM had no credible competition, as a predictor of future success. The moment a credible competitor began to encroach on their market, they had no response. IMO this is a much better indicator of future performance in the face of dominant competition.

“significant improvements in the half-baked Playbook”

Again, what evidence is there that this will happen. The first Storm was, by all accounts, a massive failure. The Storm 2 was too little, too late. The current management was responsible for both. People love to talk about how Apple came back from the dead, but what they forget is that Apple was driven to the brink of death by someone other than Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs came back and brought Apple to where it is today. Had the existing management remained in place, they would have undoubtedly gone bankrupt. RIM desperately needs a change of management.

“a big dose of luck”

With a big dose of luck, the 6/49 could make me millionaire. But you can be sure I’m not making investment decisions based on those odds.

I think that pegging RIM's future to QNX is a mistake. There is no single technology that will return RIM to it's former status. iOS isn't the reason Apple is succeeding, it's simply one piece of the puzzle.

I keep hearing the same thing you wrote, that QNX runs nuclear reactors so it must inherently be good as a smartphone OS. I fail to see the connection between the two.

An alternative to a mobile skin might be to have the option to "unflag" something. Even with a mobile skin, I could see submissions still being accidentally flagged.

In that case, you are now taller than Yao Ming. The subject of the sentence is your height, and you said it grew 'above'. Therefore the only valid interpretation is that your height is now above Yao Ming's. For it to be interpreted the other way, you would have had to say "My height grew _faster_ than Yao Ming's last year", or "My height _growth_ was above Yao Ming's last year". My point is that people can interpret things any way they want, but that doesn't mean their interpretation is valid.

I don't think it's misleading. Since it says that MS profit "drops below Apple's", it's making reference to a relative difference, in which case it did drop.

The market data suggest that you're mistaken. In 2010, the App Store took in almost 20 times the revenue that the Android Market took in. $1.7 billion for the App Store, compared to $102 million for Android Market. Considering where Android market share stands relative to iOS, this means that iOS users are absolutely more willing to spend money on apps. That's obviously not the case for every Android user, but the relative aggregate difference is what matters when deciding what platforms to develop for.

It's called competition. Spec work does, in fact, devalue the design industry. But so what? That's what happens in a free market when competition is introduced. Most of the freelance designers who are complaining about 99designs are responsible for lowering rates from professional design firms, and yet they don't seem to be concerned about that devaluation.

Banks are absolutely considered victims, but if the victim didn't do their due diligence with respect to keeping their vault secure, then they absolutely share in the blame.

You know what we call banks who leave their vaults unsecured? Neither do I, but it's certainly not 'blameless'.

I'm well aware of victim blaming, but sometimes it's justified. If someone hacked into your bank account and stole your money because of a security flaw your bank decided to put off until later, surely you would lay blame on your bank as well, no?

Let me be perfectly clear, lots of the blame lies with that attacker. But it is also the responsibility of the a web host to fortify their systems sufficiently, which clearly wasn't done in this case.

The major problem with your analogy is that storefront windows don't have hundred or thousands of bricks thrown at them everyday. Web hosts are basically under constant attack. Would you suggest that the CIA, NSA, etc. not worry too much about their computer security? If not, then I don't see why you would imply a web host shouldn't be expected to secure their servers as much as possible either.

If a storefront was under constant attack, then yes, they should have bars over it. In fact, in my hometown, there was a streak of vandalisms where kids were throwing bricks through windows. After getting hit 3 times, one store replaced their huge glass windows with smaller plexiglass ones.

I don't think you can draw those conclusion from the evidence presented. I would guess that quite a lot of the top white hat hackers today sharpened their skills early with some highly unethical behavior of their own.

A good example of this would be how Chris Putnam got hired at Facebook.

http://www.quora.com/How-did-Chris-Putnam-get-hired-at-Faceb...

Exactly. This post tries very hard to trivialize the security holes, and blame their problems on bad luck. They had problems because they decided not to fix glaring security holes immediately.

Maybe, maybe not. It's not just his name that gets the up votes, but the context which it provides. If you've read the previous stuff Zed has written, it kinda gives you context for this site, and adds to the humor.