Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

After not seeing the word patent in my daily information routine for a few weeks, I saw it twice today – first in an article titled Turning Patents Into ‘Invention Capital’ (in the NY Times) and then in Region Sustains Robust Patent Production in the WSJ. Both stirred me up early this morning, but for different reasons. If you are interested in patents, I encourage you to read Turning Patents Into ‘Invention Capital’ as I’m very interested in your reaction.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 17, 2010

I’ve been obsessed with the notion of email as the ultimate social network for a while. I wrote a post in 2007 titled Social Networks In Obvious Places that catalyzed me to thing harder about this as an investor. I eventually decided that the email address is the ultimate reference id for one’s current online identity and that it was ludicrous to ignore this notion.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Innovation happens all over the place. While I typically write about innovation in software and the Internet (which are the two areas I invest in), it’s useful to occasionally step back and tell a story about innovation in a different area that I’ve been exposed to. Peter Frykman was 15 years old when Muhammad Yunus proposed alleviating poverty through the innovation of the social-objective-driven entrepreneur , one who “competes in the marketplace with all other competitors but is inspired by a

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

If there is one thing you read today, go read Brad Burnham at Union Square Ventures excellent essay titled Software patents are the problem not the answer. Several years ago when I first started saying things like “software patents are invalid constructs” or “software shouldn’t be able to be patented” or “software patents are a huge drag on innovation”, I was told by many people (lawyers, journalists, patent trolls, and other VCs) that while I might be right, no other venture capitalist would ag

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

If you are a long time reader of this blog, you know that I’m a huge believer that the way we interact with computers in 20 years will be radically different than how we interact with them today. I’ve put my money where my mouth is as Foundry Group has invested in a number of companies around human computer interaction , including Oblong. For the past few years, every time someone talks about next generation user interfaces, a reference to the movie Minority Report pops up.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

Megan Sweeney , the awesome person who put together the TechStars Founders video series , put up a beautiful video of her golden retriever Owen explaining his Rules of Love. Owen’s rules of love are (1) Don’t limit your love, (2) Let yourself be loved, and (3) Never give up. Good lessons for all human beings. Now, while I know it’s Valentine’s Day (and I’ll behave appropriately), I am very much looking forward to Valentine’s Day for Guys which happens in a month.

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Feld Thoughts

FEBRUARY 13, 2010

After spending the last seven hours in front of my computer, a phrase came to mind that my brother Daniel recently said to me in response to reading The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Daniel said: “What if we we are already working for the computers?”. While The Matrix and Horton Hears a Who! come immediately to mind, his comment was subtler than that.

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