Topic: Fred Wilson

Y Combinator, TechStars: Investor Mentorship and Leverage Outweigh Capital

Has investor mentorship, leverage, and brand value become more important to start-ups than seed money?READ»

My Life as a CEO (and VC): Chief Psychologist

My primary role as a CEO was "chief psychologist," and as I've learned over the past few years, the same has been true as a VC. Both are basically people businesses.READ»

Serious Questions for Super Angels

In the beginning, there were angel investors. And it was good. As individual angel investors made more and more investments, they became super angels. One day a super angel woke up and thought to himself, "Gosh, I could do a lot more investments if I had a fund." And so the super angels became micro-VCs (or "institutionalized super angels").READ»

Rise of the European SuperAngel

We've been seeing Euro SuperAngels emerge for a while now. My question is: "Are we Europeans guilty again of beating ourselves over the head with a stick instead of focusing on, leveraging, and celebrating what's there?"READ»

iFive: HP's Jodie Fisher Problem, Apple's Ousted Engineer, Post-Plug BP Stats, Farrow Contradicts Campbell, VCs Muse Over Europe

While you were sleeping, innovation was not sitting in a sauna.1. Forty-eight hours after the shock resignation of Mark Hurd, the contractor who brought down the HP CEO has broken cover. Jodie Fisher, a former reality TV actress who ...READ»

How I Think About Seed Investing as a VC

Last week saw an explosion of discussion around seed investing, including plenty of negative comments around VCs as seed investors. While I agree that many VCs are crummy seed investors, I think there are some that are excellent seed ...READ»

iFive: BP's Photoshop Disaster, Apple Is Evil, Robot Car Trip to China, Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Freebie, Cow Wash!

While you were sleeping, innovation was reviewing its quality-control policy down at the factory, before jumping in a robot-controlled van and heading out to the car wash.1. What is it about BP and its ongoing relationship with the ...READ»

The Lack of Women in Tech

The meme of the lack of women in tech (or software, or entrepreneurship) appeared in several places today. I've been the chairman of the National Center for Women & Information Technology for a number of years and deeply involved in this issue. It's very satisfying for me to see a meme like this pick up speed.READ»

Amazon's Former Chief Scientist on Influence, Twitter's Fake Audience, and iPad Sex Appeal

Andreas Weigend knows how to influence people. As the former chief scientist at Amazon, Weigend helped implement a series of ingenious tools to help customers "make better decisions," from recommended purchases and one-click ...READ»

Venture Capitalists Explain Foursquare's Juiciness, Join Sharing Revolution They've Funded

Foursquare has, as rumored, raised a chunk of venture cash that'll let it expand its business significantly, and fast too. But what exactly is so hot about this hot-topic location-based game tech? Unusually we have VC insight on the ...READ»

The 10 Most Creative Small Businesses

Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business represent the best and the brightest in innovation and creation, but the companies they rep aren't all powerhouses--yet. Here are 10 of the most creative small business drawn ...READ»

Twitter Acquires Tweetie, the Best iPhone Twitter Client: What's Next?

This weekend, Twitter announced their biggest acquisition yet. No doubt about it--this is the start of a new era for Twitter.READ»

Wii Game "And Kensaku" Scores Players by Google Search Results

A new game for Wii (149,000,000 results) is launching in Japan at the end of the month that scores players based on their knowledge of Google's search engine results. And Kensaku (492,000 results) pits contestants against each other ...READ»

Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Inside the Check-In Wars

If you ever visit the downtown Manhattan offices of Foursquare, the popular location-based social game for smartphones, don't say the word Gowalla. When I made that mistake during a visit there last November, 27-year-old cofounder ...READ»

Why You Should Start a Company in... New York

In this series, we talk to leading figures in their communities about what makes them tick. Here, part two of our five-part series.READ»

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To Sell or Not to Sell: Silicon Valley Acquisitions Market Heats Up

That is the question in Silicon Valley as the acquisitions market heats up. And with it, another head scratcher: Are acquisitions good for anyone?READ»

Finding Your Social Media Curators: 11 People Who Could Make Your Twitter Experience More Interesting

One of the most redeeming qualities of the social media landscape revolves around the unique ability microblogging (eg. Twitter, Facebook status updates, Blog comments) offers in the creation of "Thought Viruses." Everyone knows you ...READ»

We Live in Public: Are We Surrendering Our Privacy--and Sanity--to the Internet?

Award-winning director Ondi Timoner's latest documentary is a captivating look at our growing dependence on the Internet.READ»

Twenty Tweets #13

I don't know if this developing into one of my bad habits or if it is techno-blessing, the mere fact that I am starting my day out this way is a fundamental change to my basic routine but more importantly outlook.  As I sat in ...READ»

Twenty Tweets #11

Allowed myself to drift in the sea of my own followings but this reckless abandonment did not disappoint - Guy Kawasaki and Jay Rosen featured heavily in providing interesting links and being it's a lazy Sunday afternoon - I can get ...READ»

Twenty Tweets #10

What a blitzkreig start to this new Sunday morning, the time is barely gone 10am and I my neurons are firing just OK, I have to keep remembering the whole point of this exercise is to examine thinking about thinking and not the pot of ...READ»

The Self-Prescribing Media Doctor #10

The power of the internet is how we share not how we get into each others trousers.  One of the people on the net I find particularly interesting is Fred Wilson, as a professional label he is a venture capitalist, but the only ...READ»

SPMD Index

Index of THE SELF-PRESCRIBING MEDIA DOCTORSPMD #17: Pink (Leave Me) & Pink (Family) & Pink (Trouble)SPMD #16: Elvis (My Way) & Elvis (Dream) & Elvis (Rain)SPMD #15: MLK & Malcolm XSPMD #14: Alanis on Perfect & ...READ»

Commentology #5

PREVIEWIt is easy to be enamoured by the sound of our own voice.  Yet it is far more difficult to hear that voice.  The content is not important at all, what is important as personal exploration is the transformational ...READ»

Twenty Tweets #3

Solved the TwentyTweet problem by creating a Twenty Tweet template.  It is so much easier and rapid and its amazing how much time even a little bit of sensible method saves.  This also means that the tweet numbering is ...READ»