The “I” Word

22.02.12 | HBSMax MartyPeter ThielUMass BostonVCangelgreenwichharvardhedgiesinnovationsciencestamfordstanfordtechnologyventureyaleblueseed

They’re everywhere- innovation labs. Is this America’s way to stimulate business amid a long recovery? Gone are the days when patent royalties were a bonus - universities seem to have no choice but to encourage “innovation” and thereby many big name schools are devoting space and money to new I labs. Many wealthy entrepreneurs and major cities are also committing funds with the hope that incubators will lead to revenue and job creation.

In the academic setting, it will be interesting to see how this plays out because some science genres are more conducive to commercialization while other lay the groundwork for future generations’ work, which may be deemed “innovation.”

Pop the top for info on various i labs. Who will win? Maybe we should ask the Broads to judge a contest with Thiel, Zuckerberg, and a few Silicon Valley and Alley directors and lawyers. But then we’d have a really tough decision to make: which coast would the contest be on?

Blueseed - Floating Incubator Leave it to Paypal Founder and Facebook Investor Peter Thiel to fund a boat-based incubator. Yes please! Thiel helped seed the idea developed by CEO and co-Founder Max Marty. I’m sure the INS is thrilled. I’m just wondering if they’ll take Americans.

Harvard i-lab It seems Faust is trying to bring the talent at the many Harvard schools together through the i-lab.

Y Combinator - Startup bootcamp if you’re lucky enough to get in. The advice is allegedly more valuable the financial investment b/c ~$17K for 6% equity seems a bit high. Their FAQ section is quite informative.  

Connecticut -not quite as storied as Mass., dreamy as Cali, or hip as NYC, this tri-state member sits in the shadows of NY but CT is home to plenty of suits from the bankers in Stamford to the hedgies in Greenwich. The NYTimes posted this piece on a new I lab. 

Stanford StartX, formerly SSE Labs The word “innovation” need not really be used in the Silicon Valley, land of the dreamers. It’s assumed, along with office attire that may = flip flops and tees.  

UMass Boston Venture Development Center As the school works to improve the image of the business school, they also tout the Venture Development Center, which offers space to budding science and technology entrepreneurs, among other perks.

I could go on but this handful is enough for now. Again I wonder is there room for Boston in this startup scene? Silicon Valley (CA), Silicon Alley (NY), and Silicon Harbor (MA)? Doesn’t have a ring to it but let’s keep the faith…

Facebook’s All Star Board

18.02.12 | facebooknycsocial mediaUNCpeter thielnetflixdonald grahamjim breyeraccel partnersobamamorgan stanleyAndreessen HorowitzMarc AndreessenZyngaMark ZuckerbergNingReed hastingsBill clinton

Facebook added a new member to its board in September and I missed the release. The cast of characters on the board of arguably the planet’s most powerful social media company is a bit scary because it implies the movies we watch and the sites on which we connect are controlled by a handful of men. 

Why do I think FB is more powerful than Twitter? Because FB already knows how to use our data and FB has the power of being a platform, for example, FB gets 30% of the revenue from Zynga (Mafia Wars, Farmville, Words with Friends…) much like Apple reportedly gets 30% of app revenue. 

According to the company Fact Sheet, these are the current board members: 

Mark Zuckerberg - needs no explanation

Marc Andreessen - co-Founder & General Partner of Andreessen Horowitz. You also may know a few companies he helped to start, namely Netscape and Ning.

Jim Breyer, partner, Accel Partners

Donald E. Graham, chairman and CEO, The Washington Post Company

Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix

Peter Thiel, founder of Paypal

Erskine Bowles, President emeritus of UNC and co-chair of Obama’s National Commisson on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. He is also on the board of Morgan Stanley. Under Clinton, he at different times served as chief of staff and administrator of the SBA. 

BTW, here’s a BusinessWeek piece on social media giants setting up shop in NYC’s Silicon Alley. This comes on the heels of a 12/2/11 FB announcement that it plans to open a NYC engineering office early this year. 

Everybody Wants to Rule the World…

03.02.12 | 1 note | Peter ThielNiall FergusonMohamed El-Erian'PIMCO

Britain’s own Niall Fergusonhas returned to Boston in time to push his latest book, what seems like a historical angle on a not-so-new topic: how the west will lose it’s #1 ranking to the developing world, the nations of the BRIC (Brazil Russia India China) group and possibly a frontier fund country.

Ferguson is prolific, egotistical and brilliant, but he was not the first to say that the West will not always be on top. In 2008, Bloomberg posted a great article on former Harvard endowment Chief and current PIMCO CEO and co-CIO Mohamed El-Erian’s book, “When Markets Collide: Investment Strategies for the Age of Global Economic Change.”  The Bloomberg article includes this copy: 

What we are witnessing, he says, is “a gradual hand-off to a set of countries that previously had little if any systemic influence.” Nations that were borrowers and are now creditors and investors. And the pipes of the financial system, though packed with fancy new structured products, are overflowing with new and old transactions,” he says.

Fast forward about three years and Ferguson is back in The Republik (of Cambridge that is). In fact, he is talking at Harvard’s Kennedy school with Paypal Founder Peter Thiel on Monday Feb. 6. Ferguson’s latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, according to The Gazette, touches on a similar theme, but from a historical angle. In a way Ferguson argues for a positive outlook, reflection, and focus. To quoteThe Gazette:

In “Civilization,” Ferguson dubs these Western advantages his six “killer apps,” which are competition, science, property rights, medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic. “The prescription must be to reinstall and update these apps, to take these six things and make sure we’re doing them as well as we can,” he argues.

I’ll leave you with this. The richest man in the world is no longer Bill Gates. The #1 richest man alive is not American. He’s not even from a first world country. Coincidence or is it a sign?