Josh Mendelsohn

Building Tech Jobs

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 07:49:27 -0700

Hattery engineer Clare Bayley has a great post up on her blog discussing how she built the Engine Advocacy Tech Jobs data visualization, including the source code, which she has made available via GitHub on a CC license. It’s a great read for any coder, but also provides insight into some of the easiest big data tools around, particularly Fusion Tables.

Engine's Letter re: STEM Immigration Reform

Fri, 21 Sep 2012 11:20:14 -0700

Today has been a busy day for Engine Advocacy. The team circulated a letter urging Congress to push through high-skilled, STEM-focused immigration reform urgently. The full text is below.

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

As a voice of the growing startup community across the United States, Engine Advocacy strongly supports legislation that would keep more highly-educated, skilled, and entrepreneurial immigrants here in the United States to create jobs. We support H.R. 6429, the STEM Jobs Act introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith; H.R. 6412, the Attracting the Best and Brightest Act introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren; and S. 3553, the BRAINS Act introduced by Sen. Chuck Schumer, and would urge Congress to pass bipartisan legislation as soon as possible. This issue is urgent to an industry that relies on cutting-edge ideas and individual creativity.

Students from across the globe attend and graduate from U.S. universities, which are some of the best public and private institutions in the world, particularly for intensive training and research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Every year, highly skilled students are forced to return to their country of origin, robbing the U.S. of skilled labor, a vital resource for economic growth.

These graduates aren’t only taking their own jobs overseas; More than 25 percent of engineering and tech startups launched between 1995 and 2005 were founded or cofounded by an immigrant, according to 2007 survey data collected by the Duke University and the University of California. Without STEM visas similar to those proposed in the above bills, we run the risk of the next Google or Intel or Yahoo launching outside the U.S., creating jobs and economic growth elsewhere.

Our organization is analyzing data which demonstrates that startups are growing in communities across America. The U.S. risks losing its competitive advantage over the next decade if we do not take steps to keep and grow the highly skilled labor force within our borders. This workforce is critical to job growth across the board. As University of California-Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti found in 2010, one high tech manufacturing job generates approximately five jobs in other sectors. At a time when job creation is critical to maintaining our economic strength, Congress must implement policies that maximize this beneficial cycle.

The way to ensure the strength of the economy is to support our startups. Highly skilled entrepreneurs and workers are essential to young, innovative firms. Many are educated in our public institutions and would prefer to start or work for a business here in America than overseas. We urge the Congress to work in a bipartisan, bicameral manner to maintain and increase American competitiveness in the global marketplace. Support the economy by passing legislation that empowers immigrant entrepreneurs to start businesses in the U.S. and strives to retain top technology graduates in our country.

Engine Advocacy

Let's remember Assange is no hero

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 13:18:00 -0700

A quick post derived from frustration.

Today, Holmes Wilson of Fight for the Future, curated TechDirt’s weekly highlights. He leads by noting the resisted extradition orders by New Zealand for Kim Dotcom and Ecuador for Julian Assange as victories. But let’s be clear: Assange is not being called to Stockholm to answer for his role in Wikileaks, his extradition is being requested by Sweden so Assange can answer charges of sexual assault. This is not a crime of ideology. This extradition request is not about the free and open spread of information through the web or good governance. This is about determining whether a man attacked two women. That should never be condoned.

Holmes is a friend and frequent collaborator. He has done spectacular work helping ensure the internet remains robust and free. Unfortunately, however, his views here, as shared by many activists, forget that this extradition is NOT about Wikileaks.

Uber Update -- Good news

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:48:30 -0700

As an update to my post yesterday, from our policy guru Ed Goodman on the ground in DC:

Early this morning, Council members Wells and Evans sponsored a counter amendment to the Uber Amendment. https://twitter.com/Uber_DC/status/222696603964813312

According to DCist, Council Woman Cheh dropped her initial amendment. http://dcist.com/2012/07/cheh_shelves_uber_amendment_after_b.php

A score for the good guys. Congrats, Uber.

DC City Council’s “Uber Amendment” Would Force Sedans To Charge 5x Taxi Prices (And Kill UberX) (techcrunch.com)
Online Campaign Stymies D.C.’s Plans To Regulate Smartphone-Based Car Service (techdailydose.nationaljournal.com)
Travis Kalanick Letter To DC City Council (uber.com)

DC Council going after Uber

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 14:04:00 -0700

Travis just sent out a quick call-to-action discussing the DC City Council amendment targeting UberX. The gist: the council is setting a price floor of 5 times a taxi’s minimum fare, which would make it illegal for Uber to have prices lower than that.

This is absurd and another case of DC targeting Uber on behalf of entrenched taxi interests. By the way, have we discussed how absolutely terrible taxis are in DC? No wonder they want to keep Uber out.

I’ve pasted the text of Travis’ email below, including what you can do to help.

Disclaimer: Uber is an Engine member. And, yes, I tweeted this weekend asking for an UberX invite. I didn’t get one.

——-

Un-Independence
On Independence Day, Uber announced a roll out of a lower cost service that we call UberX. A less expensive Uber option on an all-hybrid fleet. We’re pretty excited about it and think it’s a great idea for cities across the country. What some of you probably noticed is that there was no roll out of this service in the District. That is because, only days earlier, the DC City Council informed us that they intended to pass an amendment to the taxi modernization bill that would make it illegal for Uber to lower its prices or to offer a low cost service in any form.

The Council’s intention is to prevent Uber from being a viable alternative to taxis by enacting a price floor to set Uber’s minimum fare at today’s rates and no less than 5 times a taxi’s minimum fare. Consequently they are handicapping a reliable, high quality transportation alternative so that Uber cannot offer a high quality service at the best possible price. It was hard for us to believe that an elected body would choose to keep prices of a transportation service artificially high - but the goal is essentially to protect a taxi industry that has significant experience in influencing local politicians. They want to make sure there is no viable alternative to a taxi in Washington DC, and so on Tuesday (tomorrow!), the DC City Council is going to formalize that principle into law.

For obvious reasons, Uber is seriously concerned about punitive government intervention in a well functioning marketplace. Because of this we felt it was our responsibility to let our riders know about the issues at hand.

Take Action

THE COUNCIL VOTES ON THE UBER AMENDMENT TOMORROW!

If each of us writes or calls our DC Council people, we could make an impact on this law. What are we asking for?

Strike down the MINIMUM FARE language from the Uber Amendment.

Here are the City Council members’ contact info. Call/write as many of them as possible!

Phil Mendelson (Chairman), (202) 724-8064, pmendelson@dccouncil.us

Mary Cheh, Ward 3, (Chairperson of Committee on the Environment, Public Works and Transportation), (202) 724-8062, mcheh@dccouncil.us, @marycheh

Michael Brown, at-large, (202) 724-8105, mbrown@dccouncil.us,
@cmmichaelabrown

Jim Graham, Ward 1, (202) 724-8181, jgraham@dccouncil.us, @jimgrahamward1

Jack Evans, Ward 2, (202) 724-8058, jevans@dccouncil.us, @jackevansward2

Muriel Bowser, Ward 4, (202) 724-8052, mbowser@dccouncil.us, @murielbowser

Kenyan McDuffie, Ward 5, (202) 724-8028, kmcduffie@dccouncil.us, @kenyanmcduffie

Tommy Wells, Ward 6, (202) 724-8072, twells@dccouncil.us, @tommywells

Yvette Alexander, Ward 7, (202) 724-8068, yalexander@dccouncil.us, @cmyma

Marion Barry, Ward 8, (202) 724-8045, mbarry@dccouncil.us, @marionbarryjr

David Catania, at-large, (202) 724-7772, dcatania@dccouncil.us, @cataniapress

Vincent Orange, at-large, (202) 724-8174, vorange@dccouncil.us, @vincentorangedc

Keep the #UberDCLove alive. See full blog post here.

Sincerely,
Travis Kalanick, Uber Co-Founder and CEO

To join the #UberDCLove activism team, click here.

Brogramming's externalities: one personal tale

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 13:01:00 -0700

Just read Clare’s latest blog post on her experience last week at the jQuery Conference. A well-done, cautionary tale of the harmful consequences of the brogrammer culture: http://clarebayley.com/2012/07/no-line-at-the-womens-room-jquery-con-12/ It’s incumbent upon leaders in the tech community to really take a stand against this damaging and pervasive attitude. Though should they choose to ignore the problem, they do so at their own peril.

Joshua To: Hattery Welcomes General Assembly

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:57:10 -0700

Joshua To: Hattery Welcomes General Assembly:

joshto:

We’re excited to announce that Hattery will be the home of General Assembly’s San Francisco based classes, the first of which begins tonight in our SOMA office and collaborative space.

GA is a natural partner for Hattery, and we’re excited to be participating in as well as teaching UX,…

BSA proves they are out of touch

Tue, 15 May 2012 14:19:11 -0700

Today the Business Software Alliance (Wikipedia) released their 2011 ‘Piracy Report’. What a doozy. Their methodology alone really speaks to why they are less and less legit.

The industry association’s annual report — supported by large software companies including Microsoft, Symantec, and Intuit — focuses on global anti-piracy efforts. As many media outlets explain today, this report is used by the organization as a piece to encourage policymakers to take dramatic steps to reign in software piracy. There’s no question software piracy is widespread, but the BSA’s approach does far more harm than good. Over correcting the piracy problem stifles innovation and competition by raising barriers to entry for startups.

The report today uses almost entirely self-reported data. Obtaining a statistically reliable sample from a self-selected group of participants across the developing world seems unlikely and raises questions about BSA’s method. Further, in their definition of piracy they included software that is not fully licensed. How is an average user going to have any idea whether or not an application they downloaded is fully licensed or not?

The numbers seem rigged to overstate the BSA’s point; this is clearly not an academic report, but something far closer to political propaganda. Nevertheless, we should be able to expect a level of intelligent data analysis that is completely missing here. Almost every year BSA’s total “commercial value” estimate grows, generating headlines about piracy and fostering wrongheaded policies like those we saw in SOPA and PIPA. What’s missing from this conversation is unbiased, statistically sound research that shows the true nature of online piracy. My suspicion is that this kind of data would be much less useful tool to wield in a fight for drastic policy legislation

Well Over Half the World’s Computer Users Admit Pirating Software, BSA Study Finds (prnewswire.com)

Patent Pop

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 18:03:19 -0700

Bubbles and their subsequent bursts are part of the landscape of our economy, our culture; our lives. Silicon Valley is no stranger to this cycle — first the dot com, now the much-talked-of second tech bubble. But the bubble we’re in right now is undeniably focussed around patents.

Let me start off by stating baldly that I believe patent litigation — like the “patent wars” that have been exploding over the tech news recently — is absolutely horrible for innovation. Perversely, the standard counter-argument of those accused of trollery is that patents, and protecting them with litigation, are good for innovation.

That may have been the original aim of patents, but it seems pretty clear that the spirit of the law has been severely compromised when companies exist exclusively to license patents and on taking a cut of the damages awarded in patent lawsuits. The patent wars have been in the news a lot recently (Yahoo’s litigation against Facebook, Facebook licensing AOL patents from Microsoft who bought from AOL, Google buying Motorola as a defensive bulwark), and I recently sat on an entreprenuership panel at Stanford with a representative from Intellectual Ventures and a partner at Morrison Forrester’s patent litigation group, in which they stated that startups would need to spend $300 thousand in legal expenses in their first two years in order to protect their intellectual property. If that video is ever made public, you’ll see two things: what my poorly contained (for the sake of decorum) frustration looks like, and an example of the insidious scare tactics used by patent trolls.

Startups don’t need to be worrying about spending $300K on lawyers in their first two years; they need to worry about building a great product. That money would be much better spent on hiring 3 or 4 developers. Unfortunately, the current system — which Intellectual Ventures profits from — leaves startups (and potential entrepreneurs) in fear of legal battles and thus deterred from building great products and services. That’s not to say legal counsel isn’t important for startups. I believe firmly that good attorneys can be one of a startups greatest assets — but I would be extremely hesitant to trust counsel that advocated for spending that much money on what amounts to patent warfare at such an early stage in a company’s growth.

Intellectual Ventures is happy enough to accept the status quo, but it doesn’t make sense for the vast majority of companies to follow their lead. The (justified) anger that has been mounting from the startup community toward patent trolls indicates that the system is unsustainable — this bubble is set to burst. The cracks are already beginning to appear — Twitter’s commitment to use patents only for defensive purposes may well turn out to be practically meaningless, unless other large patent holders follow suit. But the stand was taken nonetheless, and a step taken in the process of getting real, useful patent reform.

We need to explore better ways to protect intellectual property reasonably, but not so much that we can’t improve on and innovate basic frameworks. Patent reform should end the current system in which patents are assets. One way to do this is to revoke patents from owners who do not actively use it after a period of time, to ensure that patents are actually available for use and to cut down on patents granted that are not useful. We need to have a clear system of transferability of patents. We need to build an international framework for filing patents, so that patent holders don’t have to file for a patent in every country. We need a system that encourages innovation, not stagnation and cumbersome litigation.

The best way for tech companies to innovate is to continue to build great products and remain ahead of any competition by continuing to innovate. There’s a famous Samuel Sass quote — actually a misquote — that says “everything that can be invented has been invented”. I don’t believe this is true. But it might be if we don’t change the framework for patents.

Patent Bubble

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:12:26 -0700

I’ve been working on a longer-form piece on what I believe is the new bubble in the tech community: patents. Hopefully I’ll find time to finish and post that this week. But in the interim, the news of Facebook licensing AOL patents from Microsoft is just so ironic and dismaying at the same time, it can’t be ignored. A smart move by Facebook, but demonstrates how far down a bad path we are getting. Those of us that are actively building companies know this is a dangerous and sad road.

JOBS Update, as promised

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 09:39:00 -0700

Last night Engine Advocacy sent out the first of its hopefully frequent Legislative Updates, addressing the JOBS Act and Startup Act. Mike Masnick of TechDirt also posted his latest thoughts, which include discussion of the amendments announced yesterday by Senator Wyden that would add a number of trade-related provisions to the bill. Here’s the NYT’s coverage.

Some have argued this is the Senate Democrats’ way of bringing attention to the bill. Others see it as a way to kill it off by adding in very controversial issues that would force a Presidential veto.

Whoa, let’s talk about the JOBS Act

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 22:31:00 -0700

UPDATE: replaced an incorrect link (h/t Craig)

For most of last week, the Hattery team has been hotly debating the merits and risks of the JOBS Act. We’ve had a lot of trouble figuring out how assiduously we can support this legislative package.

All of us very much support the ability for entrepreneurs to raise funds for their businesses by asking for small investments from “non-qualified” investors — the general public. Think of it as Kickstarter with equity. Such activity is currently illegal, which disadvantages entrepreneurs who don’t have access to traditional capital sources. We believe it will spawn many great products and companies while also letting the entire U.S. population join in not just using these products but also sponsoring them and sharing in the upside.

However, the current bills, which have passed through the House with resounding support, will likely do the same in the Senate, and have the White House’s strong endorsement, also have a poison pill of sorts. Ill-intentioned entities could exploit this legislation to mislead investors in both public and private markets. In making it easier to use diversified sources of capital without the regulatory overhead, there are new vulnerabilities.

My concern is that the tech community — spurred by a petition hosted by AngelList — has rallied behind this election-year legislation. But I think that the AngelList team, and most of the people who have signed their petition, believe this legislative package is narrowly targeted toward startups as we know them: well meaning organizations with inventive ideas that just need some cash to get started. Even Engine Advocacy, an organization with which I am closely affiliated, has come out in relatively strong support, albeit before the full text of the bill was released. And while I think the bill is directionally correct, I also want to make sure we’re taking careful steps towards creating policy, especially with regard to financial regulation. We need to make be certain that we as a community cannot be accused of helping railroad a bill through the Congress which, in a few months or years, yields scandal. And as citizens, we need to be certain we are advocating for legislation that supports and protects us all; as entrepreneurs and as investors.

Let’s take a pause. Tomorrow the Senate will begin debate and two amendments that strengthen protections in the bill are brought to a vote. When we know more, we’ll see where to go. I’ll also likely post some additional thoughts. Nevertheless, it is great Congress is focused on issues of importance to startups and I hope this is a trend that continues.

Want to know more?

Christian Science Monitor JOBS Q&A
WSJ debate on Crowdfunding
Bloomberg editorial

Codes were meant to be broken

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 19:09:00 -0800

No encryption method is ever unbreakable. Advancements simply require more computational power to crack. Privacy is time-dependent, and the ways in which we deal with data security and data privacy should reflect this.

The other day, I was casually told “AES is unbreakable.” Which is pretty intriguing to me. I want to believe that there is a universal encryption standard that can really protect my data, and yet, this also sounds a lot like saying the Titanic is unsinkable. So I started wondering out loud to the Hattery team whether or not we can ever really have an unbreakable encryption scheme.

I’m no mathematician, but I believe that by the very nature of cryptography, you can never build a scheme that can’t be broken. And that only partially has to do with the math itself. There’s also the element of human creativity and tenacity — if we built it, we can take it apart. The data you retain now and believe to be private because it is encrypted is not a reality that will last forever.

AES, the Advanced Encryption Standard, was first published in 1998, which is to say, the algorithm that powers the standard was published then. You can read more on Wikipedia if you are interested in the details, but the core idea here is that AES is based on an algorithm like all cyphers. And it is single-key encryption, which means the same key you use to encrypt is used to decrypt. For AES, this means 128, 192, or 256 bit keys.

Typically you break codes in one of two ways. Either through brute force — trying all the possible key permutations — or by essentially reverse-engineering the algorithm to find weaknesses. AES keys would take millions of years under current computational conditions (processor efficiency) to brute force attack. While pretty much all widely-used encryption schemes have been broken using a variety of methods, AES remains the gold standard. 192 bit keys have the National Security Agency’s seal of approval for Top Secret data. AES has been broken through side attacks that exploit flaws and vulnerabilities in the system running the encryption scheme, but never directly.

Nevertheless, the notion that it is unbreakable just seems immensely foolish. As processor computational output improves — which inevitably it will continue to do — the potential for a brute-force attack becomes more and more credible. Nevermind that we are still human and it is only a matter of time before other mathematicians figure out the vulnerabilities in AES and crack that or reverse-engineer the algorithm. So those embarrassing emails you thought you had protected? Forget it. Your grandchildren will almost certainly be reading them.

Whatever is built by man can be taken apart by man — it’s just a matter of time. If the data that we protect is valuable enough, then people will always be hacking at it. Conceiving of everything on the internet as breakable will change how we deal with data security and data privacy. Like everything we do, encryption should be creative and constantly reinvented.

We have some time. Just don’t get too comfortable. And let’s keep building better algorithms.

The Scene is a Distraction

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:09:00 -0800

The focus should be on building great products. Everything else, like attending events and conferences, should be secondary.

Recently the question came up as to whether my partners and I are part of the “startup scene”. The easy answer is yes, since our firm is focused on investing in and helping to grow startups. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I found the phrase and the thinking behind it troublesome.

When I think about what we do at Hattery it’s pretty clear: we help build great companies that want to create products and services that will serve millions. We want our investments to be accessible and useful. Whether they are medical devices or micropayments, the objective is the same: we invest so that companies can grow and have significant impact, and so that we can be a part of that growth.

But what we do is not a scene; it’s a serious business. There are stakes; not just the obvious financial stakes, but also the resources, talent, and time spent by the entrepreneur and the startup’s team in pursuing one opportunity over another. I want to hope it is obvious, but building great companies doesn’t come from being in the scene; it’s the result of innovative entrepreneurship that builds with a heads-down focus on the product and the user. But that seems to be missed in practice.

I’m still not sure what the scene really is, but my hunch is that we use it to refer to events like launch parties and hot conferences, maybe even demo days. In essence, who you know, not what you know. The scene might also refer to those of us on the “inside” of the startup world who trade on the latest gossip of who’s in and who’s out, and which company is about to drop a massive C round.

That’s not to say entrepreneurs shouldn’t attend events and conferences. Making connections is always going to be critical to a startup’s survival, especially where that includes meeting investors and potential employees, and even gaining some earned media exposure. That makes sense. But the main focus should be on building a great product. The startup scene may be a gateway to getting the product out there, but a lot of time and resources that are used to attend events would be much better invested in creating truly great products. Far too often that math is miscalculated.

At Hattery, our raison d’etre is not the scene. That said, you will find us at events from time to time. But any member of our team at any event we attend will be able to explain their purpose there with ease — because being there helps our entrepreneurs and their companies or our investors. Any other reason and we are losing focus.

I’ll be going to SXSW this year, but I’ll be keeping my focus: I am going to speak on a panel to raise awareness and get more entrepreneurs involved in Engine Advocacy. More to come.

Engine Advocacy: Honeywell, Nest, and the Next Wave of IP Protection

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:33:00 -0800

Engine Advocacy: Honeywell, Nest, and the Next Wave of IP Protection:

engineadvocacy:

Intellectual property is vitally important to innovation, but there comes a point where patents are so broad that they stifle new products and technologies. So seems the case when large, long running companies can quash younger innovators with costly, time-consuming patent lawsuits.

There’s been…

Economics of a Daily Deal

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:28:00 -0800

The future of the so-called ‘daily deals’ space emerged in a significant way today.

This morning Groupon published a daily deal for $39 toward $100 in-flight credit on Virgin America for flights to Chicago from San Francisco or Los Angeles. That flight needed to be taken before March. At first blush, the Hattery team was pretty excited — a lot of us are from Chicago. And given going to Chicago between now and March isn’t really ideal weather, it seems like a good way for Virgin to fill empty seats. Win-win.

But the deal was just for flight credit, not for any specific fare. So immediately, as the deal was purchased, buyers began booking flights to Chicago. And as every individual booked (or perhaps as blocks of bookings were made, depending on how Virgin handles demand pricing) the ticket price went up. And before you knew it, Virgin had helped fill a lot of empty seats at a relatively low cost to them. In this case Groupon provided some marketing power to Virgin, but more importantly, helped Virgin with a very real supply problem.

Which means that ultimately, Groupon found a customer for their client’s product — not for a small business client that could barely afford to offer the deal (and only did so in the name of marketing and customer acquisition), but rather a company looking to optimize its operations. I’d like to imagine this is the future of the deals space. In a lot of ways, it is a game for users: get there first to get the best deal; and a service to providers: get access to users who will help fill underutilized inventory and capacity. I believe this is part of the future for this space.

Of course the users who lose are those who bought the deal at the end of the day. They could probably have taken a cheaper flight to enjoy a beautiful July weekend in the Windy City.

UPDATE: It was pointed out to me that depending on how much demand there ends up being for flights between now and March from non-Groupon coupon holders, Virgin could stand to actually profit from this deal via demand pricing. Which would make the strongest argument for why daily deals should move out of the marketing-cost category.

Chasing markets, not ideas

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:51:00 -0800

I recently attended a handful of incubator demo days during demo day season. I was really taken aback by how few companies even remotely struck my interest. In fact, there was only one exception. Far too many of these startups are focused on chasing markets. Typical story: The wedding industry is a big business…great, let’s somehow bring some part of it to the web. And then claim the entire wedding market is the market opportunity for said startup.

Put simply, that’s not how it works.

Good companies change the market, they change how it is defined. The rules do not apply. They are not features. The market number in these cases is interesting, but perhaps the least compelling. Show me a product, show me why it changes a market; show me how it grows a market, redefines a market, or eliminates a market and creates a new one. Case-in-point: if Etsy pitched on the market for handmade and vintage goods, investors would have balked. Instead, they built a community that changed a market, redefined it, and built a new one. And that made them a brand we know and love and have welcomed into our homes.

Why we've gone dark

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 11:29:11 -0800

Starting today, we’ve decided to blacken out the Hattery homepage and ask visitors to visit StoptheWall.us and call their Senators. As you probably know, the United States Senate is currently slated to vote on PIPA — the so-called Protect IP Act — on January 23rd. This bill has been accelerated through the legislative process at incredible speed, with the technology community for the most part excluded in any part of helping shape it. This has only changed in recent days.

We plan to leave our homepage dark for at least the next day, if not longer, along with many other great tech companies, to raise awareness of what is happening and what can continue to happen if all of us in the tech community do not step up and get more involved.

There are many great resources to learn more about PIPA and its equivalent bill in the House of Representatives, SOPA, including Engine Advocacy’s site. At its core, we believe PIPA threatens to change the Internet as we know it for the worse; threatening innovation and the rapid transfer of ideas and creations.

To that end, the entire Hattery team has been working to combat this legislation. Our partners have travelled to Washington — where I am now — and elsewhere to meet with lawmakers and speak on panels educating them and their staff on the issues and consequences. Our creative team has helped put together sites and tools, including StoptheWall. And yet another member of our team has been a substantial part of getting Engine Advocacy going, an organization that will — going forward — work to educate policymakers on the issues impacting the startup community and educate those in the startup community about issues in Washington, our state capitols, and our cities. Our dark page is in many ways a tribute to the team’s ongoing efforts and we are glad we can be part of so many other great companies doing the same.

To really make a difference, please visit http://stopthewall.us and call your Senators asking them to take a hard look at PIPA and recognize the inherent costs of this legislation.

Real estate agents & disruption

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:10:00 -0800

What makes a good real estate agent? From the client’s perspective, surely, a good agent is one who finds you what you want at the right price-point. Unfortunately, the agent’s objectives are often not in line with the client’s. Financial incentives suggest that real estate agents should try to talk clients into homes, condos, office buildings, etc., as quickly as possible and at the highest asking price possible. Speed improves the bandwidth they have for additional clients and higher prices increase their commissions, which are calculated as a percentage of signing price. Neither make for a good client experience — in fact, the current system actively discourages an honest and mutually beneficial agent/client relationship.

As one who is fresh from the real estate ring — our firm recently signed a lease for our new space in the SOMA district of San Francisco — the need for more informational resources for the consumer seems obvious. Although we were fortunate to find a great agent and had a positive experience, the industry is a minefield for many a consumer. Rents in our area are out-of-control, largely driven up by the crush of startups trying to move into the South Park area. A good realtor in a market like this is vital, especially for a start-up business without major capital to spend on rent.

So why can’t we find a way to align how realtors work with incentives that are on the side of the client? Why not a system that rewards realtors that find or negotiate for their clients the best deal?

This seems like the sort of dilemma the web (and a little data analysis) can finally solve. For the home purchase market this should be easy. If we compare asking prices to actual sale prices, normalizing economically and geographically, we can then aggregate this data by realtor and start to get a pretty good idea of which realtors are helping their clients negotiate the best purchase prices. There’s no reason we can’t do the same for the commercial lease market. Of course, this requires some time spent gathering a certain amount of relevant data, which is not always that easy to get. Deal data is not typically made public, and bad agents are never going to be enthusiastic to share those numbers. Good agents will, though, and simply having that data available will allow for consumers to see whether there is a disparity between the deal they got and the best deals being given.

Ultimately, this will make the best better as they attract more and higher spending clients, improving their economic position and incentives — but in a way that is far more in line with client objectives.

One liner pearls

Thu, 14 Jul 2011 18:13:00 -0700

I’m a fan of Twitter. Reviewing my feed gives me a really quick snapshot of what is going on and what is truly trending and among my interests. It helps me feel like I have my finger on the pulse of the world (or what passes for my world).

But I find the one liner pearls of ‘wisdom’ from prominent figures, particularly VCs and celebrity entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley absolutely maddening. They are usually stating the obvious in 140 characters or less. They are terse, but neither pithy nor insightful. And yet when I look at the stats, they are retweeted with reckless abandon. It makes Twitter less relevant to me. But it sure puts into perspective who to take advice from, and how little self-awareness these folks have. If I had less of an ego about my career, I would post a few examples here, but I won’t. You know what I am talking about.