David Semeria › Comments

"Cool idea and nice site. Good luck!" - David Semeria

"Good point Fred; perhaps an opportunity for the little guys to diffirentiate themselves?" - David Semeria

"I suspect this current lack of interoperability has less to do with technology and much more to do with commercial protectionism. Expect to see the kids fighting even more in the future..." - David Semeria

"Because capitalism and well-intentioned promises don't mix. Recent history abounds with startups back-tracking on both hard and soft commitments - with the likelihood increasing in-line with capital invested. Users are rapidly wising-up and so I think it's better to exclude conflicting interests a priori." - David Semeria

"Albert, I've already mentioned here on your on blog that I see space for a truly independent (not-for-profit) identity arbitrator. A service where you can link and manage mappings from your physical identifiers (real name, DOB, email & ip addresses, etc) to virtual logins. A bit like FB privacy settings, but simplified and applied to everything." - David Semeria

""Thought re-alignment". Very Orwellian." - David Semeria

"Great stuff Arnold! It may be just me, but the noise is getting ever louder. Starting a business nowadays is like trying to have a frank discussion at a heavy metal concert. One of my new year resolutions is: we're done talking, now let's start doing." - David Semeria

"Lives like jackets: try one on and see how it feels. Good stuff Arnaldo!" - David Semeria

"Sure, I understand. Here's a deal: if you can keep your code to json in / json out all the way down, I will commit to make it run in a massively parallel environment on any number of linux servers." - David Semeria

"Cool idea. You'll probably need a highly parallel architecture to mimic the brain's behaviour. If you need any help on that let me know. We developed our own multi-node system for internal use and plan to open source it when we have time. It takes less than an hour to learn and is based on json in / json out. Happy to let you have a copy." - David Semeria

"Albert is quality." - David Semeria

"I believe we discussed in another avc post how a timeline would give a good feel as to how USV's investment thesis has evolved over time. Mission accomplished!" - David Semeria

"Yes Fred, that's the elephant in the room. What are the chances of a new app today getting and staying on the mobile home screen? Or for a website to be visited daily? The prize, if anything, is getting bigger - but the odds of taking the cup home are shrinking every day the web matures. Hence the attraction of B2B: a smaller prize with better odds. In the cold light of day, a more sensible bet." - David Semeria

"That blank space is a great opportunity to randomly plug stuff that interests / inspires you." - David Semeria

"You're so right about thinking you know something only to find out that you don't the moment you try to explain it to someone else. Using a computer to play the role of the "someone else" is a great insight. Chapeau!" - David Semeria

"Ah, the checked-in baggage trick. Almost certainly the only upside to international terrorism." - David Semeria

"I once was so late for a flight with Lauda Air they had already closed the airplane door. I knocked really hard on the little round window and flashed my boarding pass at the astonished hostess. To my utter amazement she opened the door and let me in. Those were the days!" - David Semeria

"About a year ago my wife got me into "Modern Family". Watched one episode and I was hooked. Why? An ephemeral combination of newness/wittiness/direction/acting. Key point: I didn't know any of the actors when I first watched it. This is why you're right Mark: give talented people the means to create REALLY great output in a professionally produced context and the punters will lap it up. They don't give duck's arse who the actors are." - David Semeria

"People are grumpy here Carl, independent of any metrics...." - David Semeria

"Um, I'm going to disagree. I don't see anything wrong with metrics like ROCE as long as you have a good and clear idea of what your return will be and how much capital it will take to get that return. It's when you don't have a clear idea that these metrics become useless." - David Semeria

"There's much to say about this post Albert, but I'll focus on your phrase "look at out of the way geographies" because I may be able to add some value there. In Italy, where I live, the meetups and forums are full of entrepreneurs bemoaning all that's missing from the local ecosystem and looking longingly across the Atlantic. I find myself constantly repeating that the grass is not always greener elsewhere. Strangely for a country with population of 60m and G7 status, deal making in many Italian verticals is concentrated in two main cities: Milan and Rome. It has been surprisingly easy for us to reach key decision makers in both these cities through our network. If we play our cards right - and above all if our product is useful - it is feasible that we could rapidly reach a dominant position here in a short period of time. To do so in such a large and spread-out country like the States would require a lot more time and significantly more capital, and also leaves you vulnerable to the..." - David Semeria

"Excellent post Bijan, but you write from a position of strength. Only after a few wins could you risk being this open. You'll probably admit this yourself, but you wouldn't have written this post on the day you became a VC. It's easy for Zuck to admit now that he didn't know what he was doing at the beginning. In fact, he could still say that now and people will think "ok, but the dude's got a billion users..." An entrepreneur would only ever open up this way if they were 100% sure it wouldn't come back to bite them. It's to your great credit they are willing to be this frank with you." - David Semeria

"Problem: hurricane coming. Solution: organize a wine tasting. By George, I sense British blood running this man's veins! Hurricanes, however, are no excuse for sloppiness: do make sure the whites are correctly chilled and the reds have time to breathe. Good work Mr. Waldstein." - David Semeria

"Steve Martin, https://twitter.com/SteveMarti... Always a pleasure." - David Semeria

"I don't know if Google hangouts allows you to record two seperate video tracks so they can be edited into a single one later. We bought software from http://www.evaer.com/ for $20 which records the two video streams separately plus an additional audio track of both sides. I've seen the "rushes" and can say it worked liked a charm." - David Semeria

"Thanks JLM, people here are still commenting on various forums about how great the vibe was and how useful Fred's advice will be in the future. Happiness all round." - David Semeria

"Aw shucks..." - David Semeria

"Everyone in Milan was really energized by your talk Fred, it really brought home the difference in approach between US investors and the local ones. The video is being edited and will be available in a week or so..." - David Semeria

"You're assuming acqui-hires relate only to the team. But if you buy the whole company you also get the IP in addition to the people who built and know how to run it." - David Semeria

"Totally. I believe their control freak nature will ultimately be their downfall." - David Semeria