Silicon Bowery

02, July, 2009

Email newsletters are all the rage right now. I’m involved with a few companies in the space and always get asked what is the fastest growing hybrid newsletter [newsletter is primary distribution platform and how company was founded] ever. Can you guess? While we don’t have a lengthy data set, it’s not Thrillist or Daily Candy [roughly ~35k users at close of year 1] as many think, but rather GOOP, the Gwenyth Paltrow creation that already has over 500,000 users after about 10 months.

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18, June, 2009

Epic. I know people like this…kind of sad.

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VC Regulation

thegongshow:

Just read in the WSJ (no point in linking since I’m sure it will be behind a paywall in a short period of time) that the VC industry’s likely getting regulated. Comments from the Obama administration indicated that any private pool of capital-under-management in excess of $30M will have to register with the SEC and be subject to regulations and inspections accordingly.

I can see the need for increased regulation of private capital, but I disagree that the threshold for regulation should be an arbitrary capital-under-management number. The common theme amongst all the financial train wrecks we’ve encountered over the past year have been due to debt leverage, not capital under management. Lehman Brothers was leveraged 40-1 according to their final balance sheet, the average American took out (or was duped into) mortgages larger than he/she could afford, even the US Government debt is so high that each citizen’s share is a shocking $37,247.58, which isn’t helped by the fact that in 2007 the average American annual rate of saving dipped negative.

So, instead of regulating private pools of capital in excess of $30M, we should be regulating private pools of capital that are leveraged up past 3-1 (or some other low, arbitrary threshold). I don’t know how leveraged the venture capital industry is on the whole, but a rough guess would be about 1.1-1 or even 1.05-1. Venture debt is a very tiny portion of an early stage startup’s financing plans; typically 95% of capital (if not more) in an early stage startup is raised via equity sale.

Barack, I know you follow my tumblr :) So take a kind word of advice and focus on debt leverage, not capital under management.

I couldn’t agree more - arbitrary numbers here make no sense. The risk profile changes significantly when debt is added to the fund structure - not when more equity is infused. Kind of silly…

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11, June, 2009

» Zip Car Going Public...

Awesome business [we were interested in getting into it] but really difficult to get profitable. Good for them.

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10, June, 2009

Glowlab opening tomorrow. Drift, featuring Matthew Lusk, Santiago Mostyn, Javier Pinon, Alex Lukas [above] and Swoon!

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02, June, 2009

“ Ultimately, I decided to commit $1 billion to the Peter G. Peterson foundation—the vast majority of my net proceeds from Blackstone. Why so much? Kurt Vonnegut once told a story about seeing Joseph Heller at a wealthy hedge-fund manager’s party at a beach house in the Hamptons. Casting his eye around the luxurious setting, Vonnegut said, “Joe, doesn’t it bother you that this guy makes more in a day than you ever made from Catch-22?” “No, not really,” Heller said. “I have something that he doesn’t have: I know the meaning of enough.” I have far more than enough. „

Pete Peterson talks. I listen.

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01, June, 2009

Yoga at the MoMa. Pretty awesome event that Flavorpill threw this past weekend. I’m always impressed by Mark and Sascha’s ability to innovate and keep the brand fresh to consumers.

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27, May, 2009

100 Best Movie Lines in 200 Seconds…

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20, May, 2009

I don’t get it - why are the ads not streaming directly in the emails?

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19, May, 2009

America commuting habits. Global Warming in full effect.

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