Taylor Davidson › Comments

"Meaning, a "practical VRM" manifesto? Today, aggregation pays (meaning, money flows to those that own lots of data). I think Doc is interested in a tomorrow where aggregation isn't the economically dominant strategy it is today. Perhaps if the econ of aggregation change, pulling from the same trends in niches (Umair's Nichepaper manifesto) and demonstrated by the hyperlocal stuff, perhaps aggregation won't pay like it does today, and instead of aggregation it's all about facilitation: routing through a market rather than accessing a warehouse. Not sure if that makes any sense :)" - Taylor Davidson

"Meaning, a "practical VRM" manifesto? Today, aggregation pays (meaning, money flows to those that own lots of data). I think Doc is interested in a tomorrow where aggregation isn't the economically dominant strategy it is today. Perhaps if the econ of aggregation change, pulling from the same trends in niches (Umair's Nichepaper manifesto) and demonstrated by the hyperlocal stuff,... more... - Taylor Davidson

"Cool. And once you've done it, please drop me a line, I'd love to hear about your experience..." - Taylor Davidson

"Seconding Ethan, I would also love to see more about funnels and analytics. Spot-on insights, btw.." - Taylor Davidson

"Culture is definitely what allows listening to scale. How? On a personal, social level, the bits of culture = heuristics, stereotypes, categories, "traditional wisdom" et. al., these predefined methods that are socially understood (i.e. everyone gets the context, the in-joke), these are what helps us "scale listening" because we don't have to process every bit of new information each time. We look at a couple bits of info, we look at the available context, and we process. Societies function because shared culture (or, an understanding and acceptance of different cultures) allows individuals to operate and fit in. On a corporate level, culture works the same way: reports, meetings, heirarchy, how we make and justify decisions, how our bosses and their bosses work, how a silo operates, etc., these are our work-defined sterotypes and heuristics that spread throughout companies. In effective companies, everybody knows the culture and knows how to fit in, how to function in teams, how to..." - Taylor Davidson

"I took 2nd class, but I'm not sure what the difference is between 1st and 2nd so can't gauge marginal value. 30 TL isn't that much money, but I was perfectly comfortable in 2nd class. Just note that my tolerance is pretty high these days, after spending 106 nights in hostels this year alone :)" - Taylor Davidson

"Marsh: this discussion is just part of a broader discussion: Mark, I, and many others that read his blog are very aware that VC funding is not necessary to succeed. These trends are fairly well known and are part of the deep context that we don't raise every time we talk about VC funding :) Shoot, I even led a conversation about it at SXSW last year: http://bit.ly/venture..." - Taylor Davidson

"Scott: Actually, Demand Media uses a mix of algorithms and people, crowd-sourcing people to do small, discrete tasks for very small amounts of money. Rob: Whether AOL executes their idea successfully is a separate question, but using a mixture of algorithms and people is without a question the key for managing content in the future: curating content to create context. 500 slides surely isn’t the right way (lulz), but that’s a sign their implementation is poor, not that algorithms can’t be successful." - Taylor Davidson

"“All of this preparation for one moment.” But perhaps the process of preparation has value far outside the application for that one moment. Preparing helps create those opportunities just as much as they prepare us to take advantage of them. Instead of “preparing”, perhaps it’s just “purposeful doing”; whatever happens from that “doing” is unknown, but it’s valuable in it’s own right." - Taylor Davidson

"Non-standardized activity feed publishing is like creating a high-way that only one brand of car can drive on, with one proscribed type of journey in mind." - Taylor Davidson

"Amen!" - Taylor Davidson

"Obviously, I loved this post and the decision. Re-reading this today, I’ve found this statement the most telling: “I’m moving to New Orleans ’cause I want to.” That’s the strength of character and determination that NOLA needs; the confidence that even though the future is unknown, that you’ll find a way to contribute, to thrive, to succeed. It’s not the obvious or easy choice of a place to live, because it’s doesn’t offer the same large hub or big spike of proven, established commercial and entrepreneurial activity. But it takes people like you to change that, to embrace the unknown and help create those success stories necessary for NOLA to grow. And that’s what NOLA is looking forward to you bringing. Looking forward to saying “welcome home”" - Taylor Davidson

"Do you remember MyRichUnkle? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... At its original core (which shifted over time), MyRichUnkle issued educational loans to students in return for a % of their lifetime income. “Investing in superstar” is more interesting because you have more information, have reduced a couple of risks (direction, ability), and give people the time and space to create at a point where they are ready to create." - Taylor Davidson

"To be clear: when Lloyd, I, and many other people I know talk about "doing cool stuff", we use the phrase to describe productive, possibly meaningful, interesting, thought-provoking activities that are not finished projects but part of an ongoing, evolving, sustainable effort, done simply because of its intrinsic benefits and because we want to find out if it can be done and if people care about it, without an expectation that it continue or grow. *** Every city was once built out of nothing. Almost all took far longer to attract the attention and $$ that Dubai gathered. But that rush to start created a bubble, and we're seeing the first hiccup in that approach. Building a sustainable ecosystem of businesses, talent, industry, takes far longer and is incredibly difficult to jumpstart in a few years. Dubai may indeed be recovered back to its current state, but that current state is not sustainable long-term. Exactly: Dubai needed to build infrastructure. But along the way, they didn't..." - Taylor Davidson

"lulz :)" - Taylor Davidson

"Understood that the value is in the future, in what Dubai could facilitate as a hub of business, culture, tech, finance, etc. Completely. But why spend all the money on real estate development rather than investing some in productive businesses? How much money was spent on developing R capacity, or bringing non-financial businesses into Dubai, or developing a better legal system? Why spend all the money and attention on activities that ultimately are based on allocating value rather than creating value? Why not follow the model of Singapore or other countries in how they developed into international hubs of business? related: http://www.unstructuredventures.com/uv...... Basically, I understand that Dubai could still be an international hub, and that there is value in what Dubai could be after the speculative real estate bubble passes. But Dubai didn't need to try to develop this way." - Taylor Davidson

"Almost arrested? :) And you get it: those are the stories I want to continue to create. And share. Trust that I'll be sharing and learning through sharing. Thank you, in advance, for your thoughts and ideas..." - Taylor Davidson

"Dubai is not "cool stuff". Dubai isn't about being over-extended, but about spending time and money on allocating and extracting profit rather than creating value. The real estate mania is just a small part of of the problem with the overall development and investment path behind Dubai. What is Dubai creating in terms of sustainable, meaningful value?" - Taylor Davidson

"But middlemen can create value and extract profits for a period of time in many markets; not forever, but for a period of time, surely. Sometimes it takes awhile for someone to build that 30 lines of code that displaces middlemen There are many markets where I’d love to be a middleman right now. Taylor Davidson´s last blog ..12 seconds from a 2 hour taxi ride in Mumbai, India" - Taylor Davidson

How about a visiting startup founder program in New Orleans? - Taylor Davidson

"I like the idea, and I love that you used tumblr for the mobile blog. Easy to use, easy to share." - Taylor Davidson

"I don’t think I have, unless it’s specifically about my dreams of the place. The real question: what is the bar of experience / time to be able to give our generalizations about a place justice and meaning? Taylor Davidson´s last blog ..12 seconds from a 2 hour taxi ride in Mumbai, India" - Taylor Davidson

"Chris: why not try both physical and virtual? Start with a physical, NOLA up-and-close immersion, and then continue the relationship using virtual tools. That’s really how we create, build and maintain powerful relationships these days. I’m not sure mentorship is really what a startup founder needs from NOLA, though; more powerful is access to talent, money, users and customers; a stronger relationship with another city would help on a couple of those fronts. And really, NOLA won’t grab you until you’ve been there. Chris: It’s like taking the Startup Founder Visa program to the local level, the Startup Founder Exchange. My guess is that the economics would be harder to sell to GNO/LED et. al., but that could be countered by keeping costs low, structuring the immersion experience differently, and focusing on the experience startup founders really want. Perhaps we could float the idea to the Hacker News community and see what they think / see what it would take to bring an early-stage..." - Taylor Davidson

"Good point; I just wanted to point out that we might look at that % as a bad result, when in fact it's an indicator of progress and the harsh truth, a harsh truth that you're right to point out that entrepreneurs should accept. It's also part of a broader point that most entrepreneurs underestimate the implications of taking outside capital and the impact it has on business strategy." - Taylor Davidson

"Yes, but: A) Wouldn't 100% of founding CEO's "lose their jobs" if they didn't raise funds anyway? (conveniently ignoring the % of entrepreneurs that choose to bootstrap instead of raising external capital). B) As a startup founder, if you're losing your job because the company is scaling and growing fast, even if you lose your job you're still getting paid (ownership % of a growing company). Not the worst result. C) But I understand the broader concern, that taking funding forces an entrepreneur down a route they may not be able to navigate successfully. I'm a big proponent of "lifestyle businesses", but I'd hazard that most entrepreneurs would like to see if they can lead a company through massive growth, to see if they could do that job. At least once :)" - Taylor Davidson

"A story from trying to take a taxi in Copenhagen: my buddy and I exited the train station and asked the taxi driver in the queue to take us to our hotel. We really didn't know where it was; in fact, we didn't even know if we got off at the right train station. The taxi driver looked at us and pointed across the square at our hotel, a short couple hundred yards walk. Too short a ride and too small a fare to justify him getting out of the taxi queue, and a demonstration of honesty. Awesome." - Taylor Davidson

""Fix a problem that angers you" was a bit of advice passed from @kareem, in all honesty :) The me-too v. something new debate is something I struggle with. Frankly, it's hard to come up with something radically differently, and only a small number of us are ever going to create something radically new. And as individuals we bear the full risk of our failures. Easy to tell others to "be awesome" and try radically new things, but hard to do it ourselves. Parents tend to be exhort conservative decision-making to their children, knowing that if their children fail, then as parents they bear some of the cost of failure, but if their children succeed, they won't share the reward as equally as the risk. I think it was Paul Graham that wrote about the externalities of startup ecosystems, of the benefits that failed startups and failed startup founders add to the system without capturing the full share of the benefit. Value flows to cores, not the edges, yet so many of us live in the edges...." - Taylor Davidson

"I know the feeling. But I have a hunch Umair's head explodes differently than everyone else's :)" - Taylor Davidson

"Watched, yo. :)" - Taylor Davidson

"It happens, I've received many "naivety kindness" gifts (and I'm sure you have also :) So here's the question: how can we shape how much we pay taxes or receive gifts as we explore? (perhaps you've written about it before?)" - Taylor Davidson

"I don't think of it as being cheated, I think of it as paying an "ignorance tax", or a "foreigner tax." We pay a price for ignorance for everything, everywhere, everytime :)" - Taylor Davidson