On my talk on Friday I told my audience that I would never use Powerpoint again because I had worked at Microsoft. That got a HUGE laugh. And I'm serious. Even with tools that make PowerPoint more useful, like this one, I just hate what it's done for presenters. Most use it badly. The ones who use it well are really great, though. It's just that I've sat through so many bad presentations that I'd rather not encourage anyone. - Robert Scoble
I agree, but I think the problem has more to do with a presenter's inability to understand the theater behind what they're doing. PPT does make people lazy, but I have a feeling even if their design department put together a kick ass Flash animation for it, they'd still end up just reading the bullet points. - Ciaoenrico
Brad: I stand up in front of the audience and talk off of an outline and I demo things when appropriate. If I had to use PowerPoint I'd do it like Larry Lessig does it. Lots of photos, very few words. Tell a story with visuals. - Robert Scoble
I moved to images and one thought per slide about 2 years ago. Works beautifully, but your method reminds me of my debate / extemp days. May have to think about going back there. Why do I need an image for every thought, when I am a persuasive public speaker, eh? Thanks. - Brad Nickel
Seriously. Since when did it become okay or useful to paraphrase what you're going to present and then project it on a screen while you present? My company has an Acceptable Usage policy for the Internet; we need one for PowerPoint. - Tim Harding
few tech guys know theater, or story-telling, or art ... all of which need to be part of a visual presentation ... otherwise, just speak, hand out notes. - gregory lent
Yes, use PP in a manner that it doesn't look like PP. Like Paul Isakson's well-known presentation: http://tinyurl.com/37sbht. - Marko
Look at Steve Jobs presentations. He has everything, including the theater. - Roberto Bonini
@Brad Nickel I like to think of the visuals as emotional buoys. Your speaking is the navigation but the reefs, as well as the moorings, need to be given some prominence. - Christopher Harley
I use Powerpoint to keep the flow of information going and to be sure I don't skip something important. Otherwise I might talk the whole hour and a half - being engaging and entertaining - but neglecting some key points.(I teach branding/marketing workshops for small hair salons) - Aura Mae
slides are *not* a script. if you need reminding about what you planned to say, a: use the presenters notes feature and b: this means you need to rehearse more. if you don't know your material inside and out how can you hope to get your message across to the audience? - h1ro
Yeah. I use SlideRocket now, with one eye-popping image and a few words of text per slide. If I have an important set of data to present, I'll put that on a slide--in a recent presentation on the workflow for my podcast, one slide listed all the software I use. But generally it's just an image and a thought. - Brent Newhall
Wonder how Edward Tufte feels about this update? He was always one to rail on PowerPoint (and especially the presentation style that it fostered.) Does this move presentation style in the right direction, or wrong direction? (I understand it allows you to "drill into" a slide to show information contributing to that slide... which is hard to do ad-hoc with linear slides.) - Wade Dorrell
Presenters notes only work if you are standing at your computer. For a workshop where the presenter is moving about the crowd, they are useless. Moving to the next slide is the cue to move to the next topic. Perhaps a workshop (interacting with the audience) is different than a speech which could be memorized? (I can rehearse my content, but it is hard to rehearse the unexpected input from each audience.) - Aura Mae
I still think LaTeX is the best for presentations: writing one couldn't be quickier, and the result, without being a "show", is accessible, readable, good looking and professional. - Marcos Marado via fftogo
this is like blaming wordpress for sucky blog postings and spam blogs. just because it is the most used software does not make it the reason for sucky presentations. (btw I just ordered the office 2007 although i despise the ribbon and what it does to my productivity. it is just that everything other offering of office software is so not on par with needed features for smart working. then again i am a power user who knows what she is doing.) - Nicole Simon
@aura you can never anticipate every possible audience interaction but depending on the content, you can use questions or interactions in an adaptive manner in order to bring the conversation back to your main talking points. you are on stage - you are in control of the conversation. if you are giving a presentation not a workshop. if it's a workshop style event then the rules change. if it's a presentation, you are there to move the audience to understand what you are trying to share - h1ro
@marcos the tool shouldn't matter - i think that people should practice talking with no props or visual aids at all like @robertscoble was mentioning. if you can't tell a story without a 50ft visual aid you might want to rethink your strategy :) - h1ro
@Nicole it doesn't make PowerPoint the reason for bad presentations, but whether the gravity it exerts as popular software has a bad (or good, or no) effect on presentation as a whole is a debate we can have. - Wade Dorrell
I agree. I enjoy using PowerPoint for instructional pres but I never use it alone, its usually in connection with Camtasia or Impatica. But I've noticed that I will hear people say "O, yeah, I can do PowerPoint" and then you do see what they mean: It's every thing that Edward Tufte warns against and more. It just seems to me that they are not enjoying what you can do with the tool. They don't even explore it. And yes, most importantly you have to have a story to tell. You've got to storyboard. - Melanie Reed
Robert's talk at the New Media Expo was far more engaging because he *didn't* use PPT. - Chris Luckhardt
@Chris Luckhardt ...because Robert didn't use any presentation software at all, or because he did use software but it wasn't PPT? - Wade Dorrell
Wade: I didn't use any presentation software at all. Right. - Robert Scoble
@Robert Unclear whether the "Right" was sarcasm or affirmation. Thanks for the reply. Anyway, do you use any kind of resource to share data spoken & unspoken? (For example, do you have a person post to FF the data/URLs during a presentation? Do you do premeditated handouts of some of the data/URLs you think you'll mention?) Certainly someone in the audience can capture this for you, if it's a big enough audience or an important enough talk it's almost guarenteed... but then that person is a stenographer, not a conversation participant. - Wade Dorrell
"Phelps kick starts his day and his metabolism with three fried-egg sandwiches, but with a few customised additions: cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and, of course, mayonnaise. Amuse-bouche out of the way, he throws back two cups of coffee and sits down to an omelette - containing five eggs - and a bowl of grits, a porridge of coarsely ground corn. He's not finished yet. Bring on the three slices of French toast, with powdered sugar on top to make sure there's no skimping on the calories. And to finish: three chocolate chip pancakes." - Andrew Baron via Bookmarklet
Well, Andrew, no Wheaties box for that guy then. - Gerald Buckley
Nice list of Worst... Where's the Best? - Walt Ruppar
MLB for Best (it's Beautifully done). Loopt for coolest overall. Bank of America for "lamest app"... it's just doing some kind of web scrape. Might as well use mobile Safari. - Gerald Buckley
TD Canada Trust sucks. The interface is stuck at 800x600 or something, I can't find what I want easily and the worst part is I've had to enter an answer to a security question right after I've ALREADY logged in! How does that make any sense?? - Rudolf Olah
Do Credit Unions count? USAA.com (I was one of the UI designers) - Sean McGee
Wachovia is not bad, in fact I was just there. - Scott Lockhart
Dunno what you're talking about Rudolf. I run it at 1280x1024 and it works great. Only time you have to enter a security question is if you use it on a different IP from your last login (I think). - Mack D. Male
I'm really liking Bank of America Dave. That and no matter what city I travel to... there's the physical location should I need it. May even be one close to Sand Hill Road. Must check that out RFN! Well, sure 'nuff... 2180 Sand Hill Rd to be exact. OK, happy all over again. - Gerald Buckley
I made a choice based on insfrastructure recently over interface. By that, I mean I chose a new bank not likely to fail in the next year or two. While I still have accounts at Citibank and Wachovia, my local City National Bank is one of the most stable and conservative in the nation, whereas Citi and Wachovia and even BofA are on a downward spiral. City National's works, but is not great. Citibank was ehhh. Wachovia personal is excellent, but Wachovia Business is the worst piece of crap ever developed. - Brad Nickel
Sorry, one more thing. You can't count on the FDIC. Indy MAC took 10% of their funds. They have to charge banks already in trouble more in premiums to cover more banks which will push more out of business. They've begun recalling retired FDIC employees to handle the bank crashes. There may not be enough available to cover your money and how long will you have to wait to get to it even if you are covered..... - Brad Nickel
It is pretty amazing how poor the user interfaces of online banks are. Frankly, I suspect they're conservative intentionally, just like their buildings tend to be. - Dion Hinchcliffe
@Mack hm, I'm pretty sure that the CSS for the interface constrains to a small size. I haven't used the site for a month though because it gave me nothing but trouble the last time. Maybe I'll give it another go - Rudolf Olah
@bradnickel, what do you think, withdraw it? - gregory lent
Commerce Online Bank puts asterisk in the password AND username field. So how do I tell which one I typed incorrectly. - Khürt Williams via twhirl
So far I've found TD Canada Trust to work the best out of everything I've tried (Scotiabank and PC Financial being the others). - John
I hear the Royal Bank of Scotland has a nice one. - Roberto Bonini
CIBC was ok for me in Canada. that is comp'ed to RBC.. I have never used UI of other institutes here (Canada) for personal banking. Worst UI my AMEX expense reporting ! - Peter Dawson
buxfer.com is by far the most refreshing thing in online personal finance. I can aggregate mulitple accounts (BofA, Amex, etc), automatically import and tag tx (it does auto tagging for familiar tx), provides reports and graphs, etc. its like quicken-meets-delicious-in-a-browser-on-steroids. BONUS: iphone interface is awesome (take that BofA!)! Amazing piece of work. - Frank Jurden
Bank of America. It's really well thought out, with seemingly obvious features like running balances in your transaction list just like you might see in your own register! It's amazing how many online banking sites omit this common accounting element. - Todd Harris
While agree that BofA can be really frustrating - especially if you ever move states!- it beats a lot of sites on functionality. Wells Fargo is perhaps simpler, but that's because it can't do half of what BofA can online. To be fair Wells Fargo has been making improvements to the online experience. I haven't used USAA as much, but I agree that it has rich funtionality and a good interface. However, there are eligibility requirements for USAA. - Laura
BofA got a lot of their current interface from their BankBoston acquisition. BB, through various incarnations, was a pioneer in online banking, going all the way back to DOS days. They did some really good stuff when everybody else was still chipping arrowheads. IMHO, it's pretty good on the whole. But it does have some gaps, as you found. This is a tough interface, since there are so many small operations and nit-picky variations to keep people happy. Luckily the customer service by phone is good. - David Lewis
any point is, which bank do u think is the safest for online banking ? - Peter Dawson
Hi Dave - its been a while since I've heard from or about Sally. Congrats on your life changes and health. I've used Bank of the West for 12 years and I find their online stuff, although late to the party, to be easy and obvious. I used Paytrust.com since beta as well and have my bills sent directly to them. I use BOW to pay most of my recurring expenses. - Cindy
@gregory - I moved bulk of money to a very highly rated bank that I found via bankrate.com. Very conservative. Day to day transactions are Wachovia with a small balance there for most debit card transactions so I can still stock up on reward points. - Brad Nickel
Wamu (Washington Mutual) has made a lot of improvements in the last year. I'm pretty happy with it. Editing recurring payments is pretty straight forward. - Peter Warnock
I had a BoA account between 2004-06 when I lived in Boston. Have had a Citibank account since I graduated college. I really disliked BoA's web interface compared to Citibank's. I dumped my BoA account and moved everything back into Citibank as fast as possible after leaving Boston. - Rebecca MacKinnon
Wells Fargo has been good in online banking though I'm not using it anymore. - Amit Morson
"Early stage venture firm Y Combinator, which has funded over a 102 young startups, has “open sourced” the legal documents that they provide to their startups to use as they seek additional funding. The documents were created with their law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati" - Paul Buchheit via Bookmarklet
Paul Graham is doing a terrific job. FEw days ago, for thr first time, they published a document showing what kind of startup ideas they particularly look for, and now this!!! Cool. - Hayk Hakobyan
Then you say taken aim at them Dave do you mean like your comment was aimed at Jason and Mike? - gfurry
I'm starting to think that the name "Winer" is a nickname. - Mattb4rd
DEMO. I've always loved watching the videos coming out of DEMO but I've never been able to find reliable demos from TechCrunch50. Besides, I've seen a bunch of cool things come out of DEMO and not Techcrunch50. - Brandon Titus
for startups? neither. it's a lose-lose proposition unfortunately. no matter what you are up against the noise of 114 other startups launching at the exact same time. - Jeremy Toeman
I want both conferences to flourish, and for lots of new products to come to market, and entrepreneurs, investors *and* users to be happy. I don't like the way the TC50 people are trying to eliminate DEMO, they openly say they're trying to get rid of them and maybe it's in their interest to be the exclusive gatekeepers, but I don't see how it's in anyone elses' interest. In any case, this is my opinion, your mileage may vary. :-) - Dave Winer
It depends on your product and who you're trying to reach. DEMO is probably more appropriate for new hardware, for instance. DEMO was the launching pad for Pleo the robotic dinosaur, for instance. Can't imagine Pleo launching at a TechCrunch event. - Loren Heiny
I'm with Dave - we need more opportunity, not less. There needs to be more events like these. DEMO TC50 and let's add 5 to the calendar while we're at it. - Morgan
Consumer level support for Hyper-V technology - but it will be in there most likely. The 2008 core work has been a fantastic advancement. - Soulhuntre via twhirl
Time Machine, Spotlight, XCode and QuickSilver. Oh, and more cowbell. - Gerald Buckley
Support for common hardwares, less or no BSOD, less memory usage... - AJ Batac
A system that works and is secure. Something that doesn't require trickery through clever advertising to generate buzz about the product. Something that actually delivers on the promises that Microsoft never seem to deliver on. Regardless, I am already a Mac convert, so it needs be something that can make me a true believer before I even consider it. - James Mowery via twhirl
Oh yeah, and a product that doesn't have 6 different options (or however many it is). Give us something for server usage, business usage, and home usage. Microsoft doesn't need to confuse the hell out of their users to sell an operating system. - James Mowery via twhirl
A new file system would be nice, but it isn't like NTFS isn't very solid. I woudl also liek to see the SKU's drop in quantity - again, the Server 2008 work is a real boon there - the fully modular install from command line only all the way to full blown UI with bells and whistles. No need for separate SKU's to tune for a use case any more. - Soulhuntre
A working and non sluggish OS and no IE - Outsanity
Option to downgrade to XP on new PCs. - Brian Norwood
The ability to punch smug OS elitists in the gonads from anywhere in the world. - Akiva Moskovitz
Better integration with webcams which are now included in most notebooks. If I buy a notebook with a webcam, Windows ought to be able to do something interesting with it right away. Along these lines I'd also like to see a virtual camera model that facilitates switching between cameras, screencasts, and the like. This is too low of a level of behavior for 3rd parties to do. And of course there ought to be an API in the .NET Framework that makes using the video stream(s) easy. - Loren Heiny
Vista with an emphasis on performance. WinFS. A security model that doesn't piss me off. Unlock theme support so people can customize without having to "hack" their system or download/purchase software to do it for them. Take a note from OS X on usability. Give Explorer a redesign inline with Finder, or even better Gnome's Nautilus. - Evan Sims
Open source but the relied upon build still coming from Microsoft. That's not going to happen. So how about making it a lean OS maybe putting some of the code in the BIOS. So then UMPC's and MID's can have some direction. - Rodfather
You play the cards you're dealt and she played poorly and lost. She/they need to look in the mirror for the reason why. - Brad Nickel
He totally did. Drew the wind right out of her sails. (Trying my best Borat here...) "NOT!"... So, hard to pull that off. How did he DO that? It was her's to lose. And, she did a marvelous job of it. - Gerald Buckley
I don't like this talk of "X screwed Y's chances." I didn't like it in 2000 when people blamed Nader for Gore losing, and I didn't like it in 92 when people blamed Perot for Bush losing. My major beef with it, aside for any factual-ness arguments, is that it plays RIGHT into the hands of those with a vested interest in maintaining the two party system (i.e., the parties themselves). Then you've got the the assumption that if, for instance, Edwards hadn't been in the race that everyone who voted for him... - David Worrell
would have voted for Clinton over Obama. - David Worrell
That really could be taken a few ways :) .... - Charlie Anzman
How did Edwards have anything to do with Clinton losing? From what I can tell it was mainly due to her complete inability to manage her campaign staff and the huge tactical holes they gave to Obama's campaign to exploit. Sounds like sour grapes to me. She lost. She needs to own up to the fact that she lost and move on. She needs to take responsibility for her failure instead of pointing figures at everyone else. - Alex Scoble
I have to strongly disagree here. Iowa second choice polling never showed Clinton doing well at all. Also polling seemed to show Edwards vote going towards Obama after he dropped out. A great write up from Nate at FiveThirtyEight here. http://bit.ly/20OYbm - JT Perry
"The former candidate's admission of an affair puts his political future, and a potential speaking slot at this year's convention, in jeopardy." - newsjunk.com
" ...a potential speaking slot"? If they let Edwards anywhere near the Pepsi Center after this thing I'll eat my desk." - Bill Barol via NoiseRiver
"On August 8, 2008, ABC News reported that John Edwards admitted to having an affair with Rielle Hunter. In an interview for Nightline, Edwards said that although he was involved with Hunter, he did not love her and was not the father of her child. The interview will air on the August 8 edition of Nightline." - Jason Calacanis via Bookmarklet
How does his private life exclude him from high office? Not that I mind at all, but wasn't that the party line during the perjury impeachment trials? Double standards at work? - Jay Wiegmann
while his wife is dealing with cancer? nice touch scum bag! - Morgan
Personal life and perjury are different. Clinton shouldn't have been on trial for getting a blow job but when he lied, that's a problem. Edwards' personal life matters because it's a reflection on his character. I personally don't put much weight on infidelity but it does have a slight significance and says something about him as a person. And since we are voting for a person to represent us, his personal life matters too. - nicerobot
Damn! Dog house is gonna be crowded tonight. - Gerald Buckley
@the1jay Shouldn't really matter unless you're Obama and you're trying to convince a whole lotta fencesitters and Republicans to come over to your side. - Ijonas
He wasn't going to be named for VP slot anyway, its just disgusting that we as a society feed disgusting publications like the National Enquirer so they can go after this crap. - Brad Nickel
these Blue States are so predictable. always the biggest feminazis cheating on their wives. wonder why? - Noah David Simon
Oh Noah, don't know if you are a Republican, but the hypocrisy in that party is so deep and wide I think we will run out of Internet to cover the gay and sex scandals in that party long before we do with Dems. - Brad Nickel
yes I am a Republican. and um... ur not objective here. or maybe u think Jim McGreevey is a Republican. What presidential candidate had a sex scandal for the Republicans? none. - Noah David Simon
LOL I love it when people use criticism of someones objectivity to make their point. That's when you know the conversation is futile to continue. - nicerobot
Rudy Giuliani and John McCain have both cheated on previous wives. - Robert Haas
For some reason the guy having an affair who is NOT a candidate seems to get the attention when McCain (who IS a candidate) cheated on his wife after he found out she was disfigured in a car crash, he dumped her for 800k a month Cindy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/fem... - ScottBourne
Thanks to Matt Rissell, CEO of Tsheets.com. I learned a lot (he's interviewing hundreds of CEOs to find out what makes them productive and successful). - Robert Scoble
Good interview, overall. I particularly liked the advice, "Choose 1 important thing each day, and come hell or high water ensure it's DONE today." - Brent Newhall
Hi, I think the changes you made to the show are a lot better. Good idea going with the Charlie Rose black background. I was one of the guys that posted some pretty direct feedback, but i quite enjoyed this show. :) - sergiooo (droffset) via NoiseRiver
Mr. Rissell reminds me a LOT of GaryVee. Healthy intensity. - Gerald Buckley
Hmmm, mildly NSFW, definitely inappropriate if pregnant ladies are in the workplace, clearly too true to life, and absolutely LOL; oh yes, I will continue to LOL - Pete Delucchi
"Recording the Birth" was my favorite, should have been captioned with a Qik video url. - Jody Carbone
I needed to be reminded to keep my top on ;-) - Kate Kapetanakis
I have been wanting to get back into the d&d stuff..anyone play here in the kc area? - (jeff)isageek via Bookmarklet
Jeff if WotC ever get off their butts and get done with DnDInsider they'll have a groovy setup where folks can play across the web. As soon as that's working well enough to use I intend on running a weekly game. Will be looking for players then. Wish I still had my 1st Edition books... my mom threw them away years ago - I had all the 1st edition stuff. *sniff* - Tad Donaghe
You'll have to roll a d20 against your Perception to find out! - Tad Donaghe
Growing up, all the computer geeks around me were into D&D, but never me. Maybe it was because my Pentecostal mother told me it was devil worship? - Anthony Citrano
We had a kid who's parents were like that, but they were really only concerned about all the dice rolling - that's SATANIC! So we made him a series of spinners - you know like the spinner for Twister. He had a s4, s6, s8, s10, s12 and an s20. Worked really well. His parents had no other problems with the game. - Tad Donaghe
Where did they get my old Player's handbook for the pic? - steplow
Mine looked the same... Almost the exact same wear on it. - Tad Donaghe
Tad that's awesome. I just loved the sheer senselessness of their collective dogma. I also remember they were like that about cards, too. You couldn't play CARDS cards - you know, the ones with the actual suits, but you could play other card games (Uno, Mille Bornes, whatever..) or games WITH cards (Monopoly, Sorry, Life, etc.) - Anthony Citrano
Well, it's like the guy I used to work with. He wouldn't let his kids have ANYTHING to do with Harry Potter, cause that's SATANIC, but he was all gung ho about Lords of the Ring, cause a Christian wrote it. - Tad Donaghe
I was one of the few girl's that played D&D in my school - Angie
My dear husband has these very tomes at home and in fact we just played last weekend with some friends. My ranger kicked some ass with a short sword. - Heidi Moon
My mother bought into that Michigan State student spin. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... . It didn't matter much, since it wasn't like millions of black kids in Mississippi were playing the game. I played the old console games without knowing their roots. Learned Magic: the Gathering after I moved away for grad school. When I was invited to play ADND and gave the "Eww, Satanism and drugs" response, I learned that I'd kinda been playing for about a decade. Decided to give it a try but be prepared to run like hell. I loved it, still do. I just won't play evil characters :) - MiniMage via NoiseRiver
MiniMage - I don't play evil characters either and when I run games i don't allow them. Kinda defeats the whole point of being "heroic." - Tad Donaghe
I think I have one of those original Players Handbooks buried somewhere in my (or my mom's) basement! - Les Zaldor
Evil Eye Galaxy - A collision of two galaxies has left a merged star system with an unusual appearance as well as bizarre internal motions. Messier 64 (M64) has a spectacular dark band of absorbing dust in front of the galaxy's bright nucleus, giving rise to its nicknames of the "Black Eye" or "Evil Eye" galaxy. - Mitchell Tsai
I love the name "Evil Eye Galaxy" :-) - Mitchell Tsai
I actually read the title as "The Silicon Valley VD Disease" ..and nearly jumped out of my seat !! :)- - Peter Dawson
I think the bigger issue is the fact that startups want to scale quickly. What happened to starting slow and small and letting the product naturally develop, grow a natural user base, before getting VC and super expanding? I guess it's not as sexy... - Johan Lieu
Johan: startups have this attitude forced on them by the VC's. The VC's only give you enough money to go a year or two. If you don't build a business by then you either have to convince more VCs to give you another two years of cash, or you have to have a business up and running and generating more revenues than expenses by then. And the VCs don't like it if you just sit on the cash. They are hoping you come up with some dramatic business success. - Robert Scoble
Good post - my phone is not used to connect to the web but to text message. I can't get a handle on the iPhone yet, though. My daughter loves it and that's good enough for me. - LPH
The other term for this: Short-sightedness. - Eric Florenzano
ok I jumped off the seat and now back w/beer. :)_ yeah but if you have the right product and appliations , you dot need to shop for VC funds in the first place. The issue is that too many startups are in the markets and nothing really is getting innovated. VS are in to make money. Show me the money and I'll show you my term sheet. Simple investment talk. DOnt waste our time - Peter Dawson
+1 for Peter's "Silicon Valley VD Disease" .... LOL - Mitchell Tsai
Unfortunately VCs are not the best investors. Most are running scared. Even with their efforts, 85% of their investments fail (50% for the top firms). Creates a me-too mentality evident also in the Pharmaceutical industry. Real break-throughs may have less than 1% success rate. That is too scary for most VCs and pharma companies. - Mitchell Tsai
And you can only imagine how frustrating this is for biotech (and explains the lack of funding). Takes 10 years to see some results, 3-5 if you are providing services) - Deepak
Thanks for writing this post, Robert. You're saying better than a lot of us what I'm sure some of us are thinking. It's unfortunate that this kind of thinking can actually prevent innovation and seems counter to the original American entrepreneurial spirit. We all lose when a good idea doesn't get funded to grow as well or as quickly as it could. - Cathryn Hrudicka
There's also the ROI and IRR disease in the VCs. Typical businesses have maybe a 50% success rate (where success is not the VC - 5X my money in 5 years, but includes I-just-want-to-pay-my-salary companies). The VC pressure to provide decent returns pushes many companies to failure. Rule of thumb: If you aren't willing to take out a loan at 40% annual interest (because your company's opportunity is so big & needs fast speed), don't ask VCs and smart angels. "Inexperienced" angels is ok. - Mitchell Tsai
P.S. I'm sitting on a lot of worthless pre-public stock. It's tough to be an investor too. - Mitchell Tsai
the home-run, quick-hit mentality is a disease, sorry ... softer, slower, wider is the way to grow the future we all want ... - gregory lent
basically VC are getting funding via the global Hedge Funds bowl, w/multi legged swap options. so they (VC's) need ROI's to ensure that they can pay back what they took and make a profit at the same time. They win some and lose some, its a gamble.. Follow the money trail for dynamics of this landscape - Peter Dawson
VCs want companies to make money so they can recoup their investment and it's called a disease? The sickness is that many of the companies that get funded get funded when there is no hint of a business/revenue plan in place or even on the horizon. If more VCs had a strategy to invest in companies destined to actually make money of course there would be less SV whiny minor millionaires and more real business. - Brian Sullivan
VC/Angel is the "lottery for the rich": (A) ~15-20% annual returns (B) lottery chance to make $25 million on your $25,000 if you hit a Netscape, Yahoo, or Google. Most mathematicians who make a profit at Vegas gambling move on to stock markets, futures/commodity trading, financial derivatives, hedge funds, etc... - Mitchell Tsai
+1 for Brian: In the VC biz, that's called "pressure to invest". Not enough good ideas & teams to invest in. Conservative VCs won't find enough investments, thus the "pack" disease of VCs all funding hard drives at the same time. Much more fun chasing pictures on the internet. :-) - Mitchell Tsai
Brian: the companies that get funded that have no obvious business model (PodTech and Twitter, for example) are part of the VC Disease of go for a home run. They were hoping that PodTech would turn into the next YouTube and that Twitter turns into the next Google. Remember, Google didn't make money for the first four years of its existence, and, in fact, were almost shut down because they weren't paying their bills at Exodus. - Robert Scoble
Liking mostly because you say not to listen to Dave Hornik. I think I might actually be starting to like you, Robert. - Cyndy
