First blog on Ruminations on Russian Tech. Not that it is limited to Russian tech, more the thoughts that strike me as we wade our way through the myriad of investment opportunities available. We, Mint Capital, are investing in tech and media opportunities either in Russia or made available and fundable because the quality of Russian programming provides vastly superior price / performance or finally, but unfortunately, less frequently due to brilliant Russian inventions that are available to the rest of the world.
Just to prove that this is really more of tech thoughts with a Russian flavour first thought relates to the closure of Red Herring. Can't remember when I first signed up, and I am not sure how relevant that is, however the last 2 editions sit only partially read in my briefcase along with a pile of other partially interesting material. That is relevant. It was expressed well by Glenn Fleischmann on his 802.11b Yahoo Group - I shamelessly quote "The author now provides an example of why listening to the company you're interviewing too closely causes you to drink the blue zombie soup and repeat their tropes.". Some of the thoughts were insightful, the editorial frequently was. The principal pieces were too often, especially recently the usual repeats of the main line views being espoused.
As an example; surely there could have been few magazines closer to the VC community than RH. Why then mindlessly repeat the quarter-by-quarter performance type analysis of the VC industry repeated in the mainstream press? Surely it was incumbent on RH to point out the crap investments that have been made by all of us and then go on to point out that in mainstream VC investing, early stage can take and usually take 5+ years to come to fruition. Portfolios valuations will generally look lousy during the first couple of years and then, assuming you did not invest in 1999, pick up.
The same basic lack of analysis plagued the recent piece on Cometa; suggesting that Boingo builds out infrastruture as opposed to aggregrating what is there. Its rubbish and we were expected to pay for it. The same is true for far too much that poses as tech journalism - it just reports without insight, or far too frequently, knowledge. Celebrity bloggers may be nice but they generally don't say anything.
The last shot at journalists is fired at Dan Gillmour; petty cheap shots may be amusing but as you are an employee not an at risk owner serve to make you look small not clever.
03 March 2003
First blog on Ruminations on Russian Tech. Not that it is limited to Russian tech, more the thoughts that strike me as we wade our way through the myriad of investment opportunities available. We, Mint Capital, are investing in tech and media opportunities either in Russia or made available and fundable because the quality of Russian programming provides vastly superior price / performance or finally, but unfortunately, less frequently due to brilliant Russian inventions that are available to the rest of the world.
Just to prove that this is really more of tech thoughts with a Russian flavour first thought relates to the closure of Red Herring. Can't remember when I first signed up, and I am not sure how relevant that is, however the last 2 editions sit only partially read in my briefcase along with a pile of other partially interesting material. That is relevant. It was expressed well by Glenn Fleischmann on his 802.11b Yahoo Group - I shamelessly quote "The author now provides an example of why listening to the company you're interviewing too closely causes you to drink the blue zombie soup and repeat their tropes.". Some of the thoughts were insightful, the editorial frequently was. The principal pieces were too often, especially recently the usual repeats of the main line views being espoused.
As an example; surely there could have been few magazines closer to the VC community than RH. Why then mindlessly repeat the quarter-by-quarter performance type analysis of the VC industry repeated in the mainstream press? Surely it was incumbent on RH to point out the crap investments that have been made by all of us and then go on to point out that in mainstream VC investing, early stage can take and usually take 5+ years to come to fruition. Portfolios valuations will generally look lousy during the first couple of years and then, assuming you did not invest in 1999, pick up.
The same basic lack of analysis plagued the recent piece on Cometa; suggesting that Boingo builds out infrastruture as opposed to aggregrating what is there. Its rubbish and we were expected to pay for it. The same is true for far too much that poses as tech journalism - it just reports without insight, or far too frequently, knowledge. Celebrity bloggers may be nice but they generally don't say anything.
The last shot at journalists is fired at Dan Gillmour; petty cheap shots may be amusing but as you are an employee not an at risk owner serve to make you look small not clever.
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