Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 5, 2010

My dad’s father fled Jewish oppression in Eastern Europe as a teenager and ended up in South America. So I was intrigued when I read Thomas Friedmans’s Op Ed in December 2008 about the need to Reboot America. Immigration and multiculturalism were always top of mind in my household.

Technical Review 282

Technical Review Canada Green South Carolina 282

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2010

In America being in this type of job means that you get 2 (maybe 3) weeks of vacation per year. Getting Your Work Schedule on Your Terms – Many people in America sit at their desk much of the day and have email open. And so it was that I pushed to get jobs in LA, Miami, Rome, Barcelona, the South of France, London and Tokyo.

France 295

France Spain Technical Review Hungary 295

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 30, 2011

And I believe that strength of the Y Combinator movement in America has been exactly this: take incredibly talented technologist who have a passion for an idea, let them launch it and let’s see what they produce and what the market reaction to this product will be.

Development Team Review 374

Development Team Review Technical Review Bulgaria Lean 374

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 3, 2018

As a Jewish person I know something about this scapegoating because it is the history of my people for 2,000+ years including the Pogroms in Eastern Europe that cause my family to escape using fake passports and wind up in South America (Colombia) in search of a better life. She arrived in America when she was 3.

Los Angeles 174

Los Angeles Mexico United States South America 174

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 28, 2012

My wife (and it seems every woman in America) is now addicted to Pinterest. I’ve been saying this “Web Second” privately for long enough to not feel like I’m just getting on the bandwagon of Pinterest’s success (just ask any team at a company in which I’ve invested). It’s the new magazine.

Mobile 334

Mobile Web Software Review San Francisco 334

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2014

And of course many of you know this is near and dear to me because my own father is from Medellín, Colombia so I grew up in a household with the music, food, culture and language of South America. Example of these collaboration include Enchufe TV, the largest Spanish-language sketch company channel on YouTube. Why Double Down on YouTube.

South America 291

South America Colombia Mexico Vertical 291

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 5, 2010

He was from South America but living in Switzerland and had launched a startup while holding down a day job at a consulting firm (McKinsey if memory serves). I know it sounds trite to say that entrepreneurs are risk takers so let me describe the normal, rational person who I meet on a regular basis. He wanted to raise angel money.

Entrepreneur 293

Entrepreneur CTO Hire South America Salary 293

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 29, 2013

One of most fascinating & enjoyable books on the topic is Bill Bryson’s “ Made in America ,” which demystifies the origins of the English language and why Americans speak more traditional English than the English do. (I I listen not only for the country but the region. I know, I know … just read the book).

Italy 391

Italy California Mexico Los Angeles 391

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 2, 2017

I wrote up the background of her company Imbellus here  — essentially she’s building world simulations to assess human potential with the short-term goal of helping the most advanced companies have break-throughs on recruiting top talent but her longer term goal is to help use this rubric to help change how we teach children in America.

Founder 150

Founder Technology America Video 150

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 19, 2019

His father, my grandfather, ended up in South America after fleeing Jewish oppression in Romania. They called the partner in America responsible for the project, Grieg Coppe, put him on the phone and he said, “what the hell are you doing there?” That’s an amazing statistic and reminded me of my family’s journey. My grandfather.

Japan 253

Japan Chicago Europe South America 253

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2009

For example, a recent phone call I had with a young entrepreneur straight out of one of the most prestigious engineering schools in America he asked, “I have an offer for $400,000 in seed money but the VC wants me to agree now to bring in a new CEO.&# This company is doing its SEED round and they already want to bring someone new in.

Pakistan 297

Pakistan India Technical Review Software Review 297

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 1, 2011

I’d like to start by asking each of you to consider helping under-privileged children in America get a little bit more than they have today. DonorsChoose let’s you “ hack their data &# in creative ways to create offerings that may be relevant to helping with education projects in America. It’s better than zero.

America 295

America API Matching Programming 295

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 27, 2011

At one company I work with it’s clear that our target user today is youth-oriented and middle America as opposed to 20-something and Silicon Valley or New York. I talked about that in detail on this post about how to blog as a startup. But whom you’re marketing to is not always an easy topic.

Early Stage 380

Early Stage Stealth Marketing Startup 380

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 22, 2015

So if you’re selling a service to Virgin America you might start by carving out just Southwest Airlines and JetBlue in your negotiation but be willing to add names as required while avoiding “cannot sell to any US airline.” ” 3.

PR 150

PR Early Stage Software Naming 150

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 5, 2010

MySpace was: scantily dressed, teenaged, middle-America, design chaos and on ad steroids. Facebook had grown stratospherically from 2004-2007 to 100 million users and was everything that MySpace wasn’t. It was: up-market, exclusive, urban, elite, aesthetically pleasing, ad-free and users were verified.

Social Network 297

Social Network Networking Internet EC2 297

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 1, 2014

TrueCar had to spend nearly 2 years working with state legislatures in nearly every state in America to prove that its business model – again, to be clear “price transparency so you know how much others paid for cars” – was legal.

Turkey 338

Turkey Cloud Startup China 338

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 10, 2014

Virgin America. Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a few brands & media properties that I truly love and for which I have huge loyalty. Jon Stewart. Fareed Zakaria. David Brooks. NPR has been a part of my life for 25 years.

Los Angeles 299

Los Angeles Angel Investor Hosting Media 299

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 27, 2013

If you’re an app for “normals” targeting middle America it might be good to target the USA Today or if you’re a B2B site you might target industrial rags. If you’re a fashion product you obviously care about having way more products featured in the vertical trade mags or niche blogs for that sector.

PR 309

PR Campaign Vertical B2B 309

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 10, 2021

I had just gotten used to the artificial things we do to our foods in America that my brain was out of whack. A pear, grapes, avocado, eggs, tomatoes, salmon with lemon, chicken without bbq sauce or even a high-quality salads from Sweetgreen?—?all all amazing. Sure, all of these things taste good (ok, amazing!)

Venture Capital 538

Venture Capital America Portfolio Metrics 538

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 6, 2017

It is literally the gateway to the United States or as Mayor Garcetti points out we are “the capital of the pacific rim” We are the only city in America with 3 of the top 25 universities in the country and we graduate more engineers now in LA than anywhere else in the country.

IPO 191

IPO Los Angeles South Korea Armenia 191

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 19, 2017

After a stint as the President of North America at BBC Worldwide, Herb is returning to his roots in both digital and Latino. We = my father is from Colombia, South America, immigrated to the U.S. This isn’t your grandmother’s Univision or telenovelas. His son then went on to raise more than $1.1 billion to finance US startups.)

United States 269

United States North America South America Los Angeles 269

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2012

Let my try those for Los Angeles as an example: Second largest city in America with 13 million people. ReachLocal, founded by Zorik Gordon, publicly traded company helping small businesses across America use the Internet for marketing [Woodland Hills. Third most powerful economic city in the world after NYC & Tokyo.

Community 304

Community Los Angeles Startup Silicon Valley 304

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Her mission was vast: She wanted to change the way we teach children in America. When I first met with Rebecca Kantar I was stunned with the wide scope of her vision for building a company. But she had such concrete plans for the 10+ years that it would take to build towards her goal.

Early Stage 150

Early Stage Differentiation Design America 150

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 25, 2014

People of middle or lower income families protesting the concentration of wealth in America is the same as a political party in Germany instituting a policy of systematically killing 6 million Jews and countless more who didn’t fit the model Aryan citizen?

San Francisco 417

San Francisco Silicon Valley Germany Sacramento 417

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

It takes on many of the lessons MBA programs and Corporate America have been teaching about business for the past 50+ years and questions whether lessons from Apple might be more applicable in thinking about the future. If you haven’t read Adam Lashinsky’s awesome new book about Apple , you should.

Startup 319

Startup Early Stage Sales Cofounder 319

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2013

8% of every dollar spent in America is spent at Walmart – astounding, I know. You need to think like a producer of any kind and think about distribution more broadly. It’s why I like to simplify and talk about candy bars. They have more than 4,000 locations and sell more than $34 billion / month.

Networking 366

Networking Media Distribution Video 366

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 15, 2013

” He grew up in South America. so you already know that I didn’t get my height from Dad. I’m 5 foot 10 when there’s a strong wind. He grew up in Colombia. Not South Carolina – that’s Columbia with a “u.” In Medellín, actually. Although his father was raised in Romania. Jewish Emigrants.

San Francisco 407

San Francisco South Carolina South America Colombia 407

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 14, 2014

It’s no accident that 1 out of every 25 employees in America work in call centers. When you listen to Tony Hsieh talk about his Zappos customer reps in “ Delivering Happiness ” you get a sense of the effectiveness of call center relationships. The broader market knows businesses want calls and people want to make them.

Mobile 339

Mobile Email Social Media Global 339

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 23, 2012

But in 2012 a visit to any major college in America will show you the massive increase in aspirations of our young talent to become the next Mark Zuckerberg and build a future Facebook. billion, with 275 million in North America alone (source: Internet World Stats) and an astounding global penetration of 33% of the world’s population.

Venture Capital 347

Venture Capital Technical Review LP Mobile 347

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 1, 2014

It’s Amazon, Virgin America, Netflix, Tesla, DropBox, iPhone, Uber, Lyft or any one of the other great brands that exist because they do things significantly better than what came before. ” That’s what we’ve set out to build at MakeSpace. 10x the experience.

Technical Review 380

Technical Review Software Review Cofounder CTO Hire 380

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 15, 2010

I have often argued that case and paralleled it to America itself – we often don’t know what “can’t be done&# so we just plow on and do it. But while I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders I can’t see the logic that this extends to angel investors.

Angel Investor 284

Angel Investor Early Stage Cap Table Deal Flow 284

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 17, 2011

I went to undergrad at UCSD, which is not a place known for its Greek institutions and my father grew up in South America and had know idea what a fraternity was. So I went to college with no expectation that I would ever join a fraternity let alone aspire to become president one day.

South America 365

South America Leadership Audience Retention 365

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

I told you not to worry about their move into Latin America. They are forwarding you set another mother f **g link to an article about your competitors. And wondering why the hell are we not doing THIS like they are. Enough already!?! I promise you that won’t be a bit market for us. They’re paying for traffic.

Monaco 420

Monaco Cofounder Chicago Mexico 420

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

And his venture capital philosophy of CrossCulture VC , “You have a huge demographic shift that’s happening in America. . “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it” So inspiration plays a large role in encouraging others in the community to know they can do it as well. Or even three weeks ago.”

Los Angeles 150

Los Angeles West Virginia Venture Capital Silicon Valley 150

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 3, 2009

There was the usual cogent presentation by Brian Solis on the future of PR in which he implored us to get beyond the echo chamber of Silicon Valley and Techmeme and focus on staying on the radar screen of real America. In the afternoon we had a corker of panel.

Silicon Valley 228

Silicon Valley Cofounder Hawaii Semantic 228

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 5, 2011

Who will step up the way that Steve Case (founder of AOL) has done with Startup America to promote this initiative to politicians, business leaders and the press. It’s clear that America has a vested interest in promoting entrepreneurship in many regions in the country to stimulate innovation & job creation.

Seattle 317

Seattle Silicon Valley Technical Review Los Angeles 317

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 14, 2010

I have often argued that case and paralleled it to America itself – we often don’t know what “can’t be done&# so we just plow on and do it. But I prefer a certain naive optimism in founders but I can’t see that this extends to angel investors.

Angel Investor 152

Angel Investor Cap Table Early Stage Deal Flow 152