The Mac ads apparently are correct in many ways about how Mac users differ from PC users. Engadget analyzes this article.
Article on the Funded, the new website.
Google TV sucks ass.
Britney Spears photoshopped magazine cover.
NY Times trying to offload About.com for a small profit.
EBay changing fee structures again. With the prices like they are I don't know why anyone would use eBay when you have Craigslist for free.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
Random crap
British satire about i-bankers. Worth watching:
Finally, someone takes my feelings on Guitar Hero seriously. Why spent so much time learning to push buttons when you could easily learn to really play guitar in the same amount of time?
Why East Coast VCs are notably missing from the Midas list.
Who has money to throw around in the tech industry.
Finally, someone takes my feelings on Guitar Hero seriously. Why spent so much time learning to push buttons when you could easily learn to really play guitar in the same amount of time?
Why East Coast VCs are notably missing from the Midas list.
Who has money to throw around in the tech industry.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Cutting costs at my company
We are in discussions with a potential buyer of our company at the moment. Unfortunately the final decision is not in our hands as all of our notable assets are now owned by some hedge fund guy who probably finds the however-many millions he spent on us to be like pocket change. I honestly don't know why he is spending as much time and money as he is, given the fact that at best he can make a couple million. I would think he would be better off focusing on bigger and better deals. But I'm not going to look gift horses in the mouth.
Anyway, this suitor wants to keep the development staff (what's left of it) but cut some costs. So I am thinking of what I would do if I was in their situation - picking up our assets and needing to cut costs. Of course I can't disclose any material information about the company for legal reasons, but here is a brief run through of our current costs:
First thing I would do is get rid of the huge 5.4 TB SAN data store. We should never have bought it in the first place. We probably spent a million just getting it installed and set up. We can easily set up servers big enough to meet our data needs, everything is segregated anyway. The only reason I can think of for spending that kind of money on a data store is if we were expecting lots of transactions and data to be recorded over a decade or so.
Second thing I would do is fix the lease. We actually had another 8,000 sq ft of space previously, which was gotten rid of last spring. The space was always way too big. I think that maybe management believed their own predictions of exponential employee growth. By this time according to their old investor deck we should have about 400 employees.
The problem with this is that we spent a LOT of money rebuilding the space to suit our needs, including a huge server room that can't really be used for anything else. It's an air conditioned fishbowl type thing and we could easily cut it to a third it's size (it was never even really close to being filled) but that would require knocking down walls and rewiring stuff. We could easily fit our entire current Stav, including the boss's huge office, into the server room and move the servers into a closet or something, but that is extremely impractical. The logical thing to do is divide the space even further to allow the landlord to rent other parts of it out to other people. But that requires expensive construction which we would have to pay for, and it would be difficult to work while that was going on.
One solution I've heard bandied about is moving all of our servers here to the colocated facility, including our development servers. That would allow us to abandon the space entirely and move to a normal-sized office. However that would force the developers to use painful slow VPN tunnels to access the code. A better solution is getting rid of the co-located facility and moving everything here. That still leaves us with the space issues. The only real solution to that is dividing the space, but it will be extremely difficult as we have all sorts of wiring and building to do. Our space includes a couple large rooms that are just used to hold junk. Closets and loading docks and such. That is totally wasted space. Let's count the savings from getting rid of the co-located facility and call the rest a wash, assuming that the costs of building and rewiring would offset the lower rent.
I have cut out $50k at this point, or 20% of our monthly burn. There is that unaccounted for $50k which I will say we can cut in half, though we really may not be able to. That brings our total savings to $75k, or 30%. We don't want to do anything with payroll or health insurance so that's pretty much all I can cut. We need our people and paycuts would send them scurrying for the jobs they already have lined up for contingencies.
We could sell some of our unused hardware assets to partially finance the buildout, I guess. The real problem is the space. Downsizing the space would save a lot of money but would cost a lot of money upfront as well. Even just to move everything to a new space would probably wipe out at least a couple month's worth of savings on the rent. Let's say we really need to cut some extra money. We abandon this space and move to a smaller space, cut the rent in half and spend however much on moving expenses. That saves an extra $20k per month, not counting outlays, bringing our total up to $95k, or 38%. That's about the best I can do without having a full budget in front of me.
These are all very hard decisions and I'm glad I don't have to make them. However if I had been in a position to make them before we would never have been in this situation. I would never spend money as quickly as the management team did. I would be unable to spend so much money so recklessly.
Anyway, this suitor wants to keep the development staff (what's left of it) but cut some costs. So I am thinking of what I would do if I was in their situation - picking up our assets and needing to cut costs. Of course I can't disclose any material information about the company for legal reasons, but here is a brief run through of our current costs:
- We have a large SAN data store that costs about $60k per month
- Our rent is about $40k per month for a huge 11k sq ft space, giving each employee approximately 1,000 sq ft of space.
- Payroll is probably about $80k per month
- Health insurance, etc. is probably around $10k per month.
- Our co-location facility is probably about $10k
First thing I would do is get rid of the huge 5.4 TB SAN data store. We should never have bought it in the first place. We probably spent a million just getting it installed and set up. We can easily set up servers big enough to meet our data needs, everything is segregated anyway. The only reason I can think of for spending that kind of money on a data store is if we were expecting lots of transactions and data to be recorded over a decade or so.
Second thing I would do is fix the lease. We actually had another 8,000 sq ft of space previously, which was gotten rid of last spring. The space was always way too big. I think that maybe management believed their own predictions of exponential employee growth. By this time according to their old investor deck we should have about 400 employees.
The problem with this is that we spent a LOT of money rebuilding the space to suit our needs, including a huge server room that can't really be used for anything else. It's an air conditioned fishbowl type thing and we could easily cut it to a third it's size (it was never even really close to being filled) but that would require knocking down walls and rewiring stuff. We could easily fit our entire current Stav, including the boss's huge office, into the server room and move the servers into a closet or something, but that is extremely impractical. The logical thing to do is divide the space even further to allow the landlord to rent other parts of it out to other people. But that requires expensive construction which we would have to pay for, and it would be difficult to work while that was going on.
One solution I've heard bandied about is moving all of our servers here to the colocated facility, including our development servers. That would allow us to abandon the space entirely and move to a normal-sized office. However that would force the developers to use painful slow VPN tunnels to access the code. A better solution is getting rid of the co-located facility and moving everything here. That still leaves us with the space issues. The only real solution to that is dividing the space, but it will be extremely difficult as we have all sorts of wiring and building to do. Our space includes a couple large rooms that are just used to hold junk. Closets and loading docks and such. That is totally wasted space. Let's count the savings from getting rid of the co-located facility and call the rest a wash, assuming that the costs of building and rewiring would offset the lower rent.
I have cut out $50k at this point, or 20% of our monthly burn. There is that unaccounted for $50k which I will say we can cut in half, though we really may not be able to. That brings our total savings to $75k, or 30%. We don't want to do anything with payroll or health insurance so that's pretty much all I can cut. We need our people and paycuts would send them scurrying for the jobs they already have lined up for contingencies.
We could sell some of our unused hardware assets to partially finance the buildout, I guess. The real problem is the space. Downsizing the space would save a lot of money but would cost a lot of money upfront as well. Even just to move everything to a new space would probably wipe out at least a couple month's worth of savings on the rent. Let's say we really need to cut some extra money. We abandon this space and move to a smaller space, cut the rent in half and spend however much on moving expenses. That saves an extra $20k per month, not counting outlays, bringing our total up to $95k, or 38%. That's about the best I can do without having a full budget in front of me.
These are all very hard decisions and I'm glad I don't have to make them. However if I had been in a position to make them before we would never have been in this situation. I would never spend money as quickly as the management team did. I would be unable to spend so much money so recklessly.
Random Stuff
Shut up, Diablo Cody or whatever the hell your fake name is. Having to watch your cliche, Wes Anderson-wannabe movie was bad enough, I don't want to hear more of your opinions.
Scoble's advice to those about to be laid off by the massive layoffs occurring everywhere.
Andy Kessler on the banking crisis. I've read his books and enjoyed them greatly and highly recommend his work.
Scoble's advice to those about to be laid off by the massive layoffs occurring everywhere.
Andy Kessler on the banking crisis. I've read his books and enjoyed them greatly and highly recommend his work.
Online tools
Lately I've been going through a lot of the tools available online to make life easier. Stuff like simulscribe for voicemails (it uses voice recognition to transcribe and email and/or SMS you the message); iwantsandy for scheduling; jott for I'm not sure what; twitter; tumblr; asksunday; it goes on and on.
All of these could be very useful tools for managing my life. However the learning curve required to use each is a bit prohibitive. I have dozens of phone numbers and email addresses to remember; multiple service fees to pay every month.
It gets a bit overwhelming. These tools are supposed to make life more manageable but they end up making it less. I'm trying to think of a way to roll these all together and make it actually useful. A common site would be nice but how do you get around the different protocols, formats, and learning curve for each? By the time I have Sandy transcribe an appointment, have ask sunday reschedule it for me, jott a note to myself and then get reminded it probably ends up being quicker to just write it on a piece of paper in my pocket and then look at it.
How do we make these digital tools more useful, and not overwhelming? At the moment I am very overwhelmed as I signed up for a few new services today: iwantsandy, jott, socialtext. I'm juggling dozens of emails from each and trying to figure out how to use them and if they will even be useful. Faxing is more efficient than using all of these things. Or a whiteboard (if geography wasn't a limiting factor).
How do we use these tools as tools, rather than having them consume more time than they save?
All of these could be very useful tools for managing my life. However the learning curve required to use each is a bit prohibitive. I have dozens of phone numbers and email addresses to remember; multiple service fees to pay every month.
It gets a bit overwhelming. These tools are supposed to make life more manageable but they end up making it less. I'm trying to think of a way to roll these all together and make it actually useful. A common site would be nice but how do you get around the different protocols, formats, and learning curve for each? By the time I have Sandy transcribe an appointment, have ask sunday reschedule it for me, jott a note to myself and then get reminded it probably ends up being quicker to just write it on a piece of paper in my pocket and then look at it.
How do we make these digital tools more useful, and not overwhelming? At the moment I am very overwhelmed as I signed up for a few new services today: iwantsandy, jott, socialtext. I'm juggling dozens of emails from each and trying to figure out how to use them and if they will even be useful. Faxing is more efficient than using all of these things. Or a whiteboard (if geography wasn't a limiting factor).
How do we use these tools as tools, rather than having them consume more time than they save?
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Tidbits
WalMart takes a bunch of magazines out of its stores.
Google video on the secret history of silicon valley:
Google video on the secret history of silicon valley:
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Links for the Day
Meg Whitman stepping down from eBay. Ebay - if you need a new CEO I'm right here!
Mint.com is the "axe body spray" of web start-ups. I actually worked on a project that is pretty much identical to what Mint ended up being a few years back. If only my bosses had the vision to see beyond an immediate paycheck and get something funded and running I could be rich right now.
TechCrunch on what makes Digg work.
Mint.com is the "axe body spray" of web start-ups. I actually worked on a project that is pretty much identical to what Mint ended up being a few years back. If only my bosses had the vision to see beyond an immediate paycheck and get something funded and running I could be rich right now.
TechCrunch on what makes Digg work.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Humor for Friday
Every urban legend is true:
What an internet blog post comment stream would look like in the real world:
What an internet blog post comment stream would look like in the real world:
The Google Generation and Impatience
Is the Google generation the most web-literate? Possibly. The most comfortable with technology? Almost definitely. But the best at getting information? Apparently not.
Apparently young people today are too impatient and get frustrated with even the slightest delay between their impulse and it's being gratified. And apparently the disease is spreading to younger and older alike.
My son, for one, gets violently angry if his computer takes more than 30 seconds to start up. And it almost always does. I remember waiting hours for a computer to startup and I didn't even complain. That never really happened but it sounded good.
This new paper by some British institute studies these issues.
Apparently young people today are too impatient and get frustrated with even the slightest delay between their impulse and it's being gratified. And apparently the disease is spreading to younger and older alike.
My son, for one, gets violently angry if his computer takes more than 30 seconds to start up. And it almost always does. I remember waiting hours for a computer to startup and I didn't even complain. That never really happened but it sounded good.
This new paper by some British institute studies these issues.
More on non-competes
Bijan Sabet is once again talking about getting rid of non-competes. And it looks like he is fairly serious about actually trying to do it, not just giving his opinion. I have discussed that subject here before, but I have stuff I want to add...
Non-competes are ridiculous. I have one in my contract and it prevented me from looking for another job while my company was spiralling down. Even though I knew they are difficult to enforce (it's hard for a company to prevent an individual from making a living) I didn't want to take the chance.
About a decade ago I was working for a very small IT consulting company. They started contracting me out to do programming for another small web start-up that happened to have a lot more money for about ten what they were paying me. The start-up ended up making me an offer of three times my current salary, but the original company had written a no-hire clause into the contract. The CEO of the start-up brought in his big expensive lawyers and they figured out a way around that clause for me. They did not hire me - they hired my company to do work for them. They also paid me ridiculous sums of money in addition to the base salary as bonuses and incentives or maybe just to burn money. The CEO of the start-up went bankrupt, pissed off all of his friends who had invested lots of money in his company, and got divorced. I haven't heard of him in about 7 years. The guy who owned the original consulting company is still plugging away, I am still in touch with him, and consider him a friend.
This story doesn't really apply to non-competes, although I suppose it could. I am also reminded of the lessons I learned while working for that start-up, which could be a whole other post. But right now we are discussing non-competes.
I don't know about employment laws in California at all, as Bijan pointed out in response to my last post, I guess my wife is probably not the best legal expert on California employment law, despite her having many, many jobs in California. But I do believe that non-competes stifle innovation and creativity. What is the point when you have NDAs and confidentiality agreements that cover the same effect but are much more enforceable (to a degree at least).
I don't know about the company, but the non-compete forced me to take huge risks upon myself and my family, namely that this company would be able to keep us clothed, fed and sheltered for the two year term of the non-compete. It was a two year contract and I assume the non-compete would have extended for two years past the end of the contract. So that's four years of my life I had to lock up! They compensated me for taking that risk with equity, but that equity is now worthless due to gross incompetence on the part of the management team.
What could have happened if the non-compete was not there? I would have felt more comfortable looking for another job. I may have gotten an offer from, say, Google. They could easily bankroll any legal defense I would have to put up against the company. They could crush the company with their pinky, or buy us with pocket change (which, incidentally, they did want to do but did not due to the gross incompetence and unfettered arrogance of the management team.) So the only effective difference is my comfort level and pocket change for Google in possible legal costs.
More will be written on the situation regarding my company as I can without compromising anything, but as for non-competes... They are silly and ridiculous and pointless.
Go here to voice your support for eliminating non-competes.
Non-competes are ridiculous. I have one in my contract and it prevented me from looking for another job while my company was spiralling down. Even though I knew they are difficult to enforce (it's hard for a company to prevent an individual from making a living) I didn't want to take the chance.
About a decade ago I was working for a very small IT consulting company. They started contracting me out to do programming for another small web start-up that happened to have a lot more money for about ten what they were paying me. The start-up ended up making me an offer of three times my current salary, but the original company had written a no-hire clause into the contract. The CEO of the start-up brought in his big expensive lawyers and they figured out a way around that clause for me. They did not hire me - they hired my company to do work for them. They also paid me ridiculous sums of money in addition to the base salary as bonuses and incentives or maybe just to burn money. The CEO of the start-up went bankrupt, pissed off all of his friends who had invested lots of money in his company, and got divorced. I haven't heard of him in about 7 years. The guy who owned the original consulting company is still plugging away, I am still in touch with him, and consider him a friend.
This story doesn't really apply to non-competes, although I suppose it could. I am also reminded of the lessons I learned while working for that start-up, which could be a whole other post. But right now we are discussing non-competes.
I don't know about employment laws in California at all, as Bijan pointed out in response to my last post, I guess my wife is probably not the best legal expert on California employment law, despite her having many, many jobs in California. But I do believe that non-competes stifle innovation and creativity. What is the point when you have NDAs and confidentiality agreements that cover the same effect but are much more enforceable (to a degree at least).
I don't know about the company, but the non-compete forced me to take huge risks upon myself and my family, namely that this company would be able to keep us clothed, fed and sheltered for the two year term of the non-compete. It was a two year contract and I assume the non-compete would have extended for two years past the end of the contract. So that's four years of my life I had to lock up! They compensated me for taking that risk with equity, but that equity is now worthless due to gross incompetence on the part of the management team.
What could have happened if the non-compete was not there? I would have felt more comfortable looking for another job. I may have gotten an offer from, say, Google. They could easily bankroll any legal defense I would have to put up against the company. They could crush the company with their pinky, or buy us with pocket change (which, incidentally, they did want to do but did not due to the gross incompetence and unfettered arrogance of the management team.) So the only effective difference is my comfort level and pocket change for Google in possible legal costs.
More will be written on the situation regarding my company as I can without compromising anything, but as for non-competes... They are silly and ridiculous and pointless.
Go here to voice your support for eliminating non-competes.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Internet Party
Mildly amusing video about different web sites having a party. Not terribly funny or anything, but it's a perfect "meh" moment for a Thursday afternoon when you are sitting watching the clock.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Rock Band
More Guitar Hero and Rock Band douchebaggery. I still don't get this game. It sounds kind of fun but I can't imagine it would be that much more difficult to actually learn to play the instrument than to pretend learn to hit buttons in a video game.
Give me 20 hours a week of practice and I'll be a virtuoso on any instrument within a month.
Give me 20 hours a week of practice and I'll be a virtuoso on any instrument within a month.
Monday, January 14, 2008
Random tidbits as I sit here depressed
Startup Schwag. For those of you who still go to trade shows for the t-shirts. My personal best score was MacWorld Boston in like 95 or so.
Zuckerberg on 60 Minutes avoiding questions and trying to remember how humans act:
And lame Facebook raves or something. Apparently Facebookers party "really late."
More crappy CGI disasters befall NYC.
Zuckerberg on 60 Minutes avoiding questions and trying to remember how humans act:
And lame Facebook raves or something. Apparently Facebookers party "really late."
More crappy CGI disasters befall NYC.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Some random bits as I catch up on the news
Network Solutions has to find ways to get people to buy domains from them given that they charge three to four times as much as other registrars. Valleywag reports that if someone searches for a domain on NetSol they register it, effectively locking it up for five days. Bastards. Glad I don't use them anymore. I'm not happy with GoDaddy's treatment of me but at least they let me know when they are going to be ripping me off.
TechCrunch reports that Zillow.com is adding millions of listings to their database. I tried it once, didn't give me any useful info whatsoever. Maybe I'll check it out when I'm looking to sell my house, if they are still around.
Paul Boutin gives his opinions of people on Valleywag. Something to do with Nick Denton's new pay structure. Hopefully this gives you a little bit of extra traffic, Paul.
TechCrunch reports that Zillow.com is adding millions of listings to their database. I tried it once, didn't give me any useful info whatsoever. Maybe I'll check it out when I'm looking to sell my house, if they are still around.
Paul Boutin gives his opinions of people on Valleywag. Something to do with Nick Denton's new pay structure. Hopefully this gives you a little bit of extra traffic, Paul.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Some Stuff while I pass time
Interesting article from NYM on wealth and it's effects on families and children. Basically supports everything I've ever thought about the subject.
Liberty Media buys a stake in bodybuilding.com for $100 million. It's a good site but... wow... I wish I'd started it.
Liberty Media buys a stake in bodybuilding.com for $100 million. It's a good site but... wow... I wish I'd started it.
Monday, January 07, 2008
Catching up from the weekend
Have a bunch of stuff from this past weekend. Don't have much time today though. So I am going to start with the least important so the most important goes to the top:
This weekend my girl and I went to the movies. I let her pick since the last... um... every movie we have seen has been my pick. She picked Juno. I wasn't really thrilled, there were lots of other things I would rather have seen, but Roger Ebert thought it was good and I generally respect his opinion.
I hated the movie with some caveats. Ellen Page is a good little actress and the movie had some shimmers of being good, but the execution was awful. Jason Reitman, son of legendary Ivan Reitman, directed it like a knock-off of a bad Wes Anderson movie. From the horrible ironic-east village-folk songs, to the way they titled the seasons, to the way all of the characters were so precious, and finally the feel of the entire movie. By the end I was ready to puke if they played another "cute and weird" post-modern folk song and they did. But I didn't puke.
The story was good, Ellen Page was excellent, and the screenplay was good as far as how it exposed the characters emotions without seeming to do so, but Jason Reitman trying to do Wes Anderson is worse than Wes Anderson trying to do Wes Anderson, which is basically all he seems to do these days. But that's another story.
The other problem I had with the movie was the characters ridiculous hip slang. "Honest to blog?" Honest to shoot me in the head, is more like it. It was like we had a bunch of weird teenagers doing ironic impressions of inner city people, but that appears to be the way they actually talk. I don't know any teenagers who talk like that, unless they were raised by MTV.
Could have been good, wasn't, don't understand what all the hype is about.
This weekend my girl and I went to the movies. I let her pick since the last... um... every movie we have seen has been my pick. She picked Juno. I wasn't really thrilled, there were lots of other things I would rather have seen, but Roger Ebert thought it was good and I generally respect his opinion.
I hated the movie with some caveats. Ellen Page is a good little actress and the movie had some shimmers of being good, but the execution was awful. Jason Reitman, son of legendary Ivan Reitman, directed it like a knock-off of a bad Wes Anderson movie. From the horrible ironic-east village-folk songs, to the way they titled the seasons, to the way all of the characters were so precious, and finally the feel of the entire movie. By the end I was ready to puke if they played another "cute and weird" post-modern folk song and they did. But I didn't puke.
The story was good, Ellen Page was excellent, and the screenplay was good as far as how it exposed the characters emotions without seeming to do so, but Jason Reitman trying to do Wes Anderson is worse than Wes Anderson trying to do Wes Anderson, which is basically all he seems to do these days. But that's another story.
The other problem I had with the movie was the characters ridiculous hip slang. "Honest to blog?" Honest to shoot me in the head, is more like it. It was like we had a bunch of weird teenagers doing ironic impressions of inner city people, but that appears to be the way they actually talk. I don't know any teenagers who talk like that, unless they were raised by MTV.
Could have been good, wasn't, don't understand what all the hype is about.
Friday, January 04, 2008
Action Figures
This is totally awesome... A Seth Godin action figure. I read a lot of Seth's books in b-school and I actually work right next door to him. A very nice guy.
I wonder if he is aware of this doll and if I should send it to him. Hilarious.
I wonder if he is aware of this doll and if I should send it to him. Hilarious.
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Back soon
Deep in the shit right now. No time to do much of anything. I am still alive and will be back soon, though.
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