Fabrice Grinda

I have not seen the deck or met the entrepreneur. I have no idea what the gross margins are and how big this can get, but the launch video is brilliant!

Clear, simple and funny!

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The economist in me could not help laughing at the graphs!

Enjoy them at: http://fosslien.com/heart/

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Sounds about right:)

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I posted the video when it first came out in 2007 and watched it again this morning and it feels much more relevant today than it did then. It might not be a bubble yet, but the environment is definitely getting frothy. Most of the larger companies going public or being acquired are clear leaders with revenues and profits, albeit with dizzying valuations. However, at the seed stage seemingly anyone with an idea can get funded. Moreover, the terms have worsened significantly for investors as “uncapped convertibles”* have become more common for the best deals. This frothiness at the seed stage is making the war for talent insanely competitive resulting in failed or marginally successful startups being acquired only for their teams! This won’t become a full blown bubble until marginal companies start going public or getting exits based on hope rather than real success, but it sure is getting hot in here! Now is definitely a good time to be starting or selling a company.

By the way, if you have not seen this video of the Ricther Scales at the 2010 Crunchies, it’s well worth checking out as well!

* An uncapped convertible means the seed investors invest in a note that will convert to equity at a discount to a Series A deal at whatever that price is done. This is as opposed to a priced deal where there is a valuation that is defined and we are buying equity or a capped convertible where the note will convert, but the price of the conversion has a ceiling. As I explained in my angel investment guide, Jose and I don’t like convertibles because we don’t feel they properly reward us for the risks of investing in a seed round, especially since a Series A is far from guaranteed to happen.

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Probably not real, but still funny :)

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Courtesy of my friend Linda Kang who moved from NY to SF a few years ago.

• Everything is earlier here. Most bars close at 2. People eat dinner early. They get up early and do their workouts. By 9 or 10pm many places will be raucous.
• Almost no one smokes.
• Hobbies and sports are a big deal: running, cycling, softball, hiking, dodgeball. They are also how young folks meet each other. Instead of spending weeknights in bars, you’ll spend them in the park in softball league or doing your Team in Training workouts.
• You’ll feel some pressure to have “interesting” hobbies (cooking, endurance sports, surfing, etc) since everyone else does.
• Often people here who have money here often go incognito about it…they drive a prius, wear a hoodie, etc.
• No one pays attention to where you spend your summer…SF is nice enough, and there are enough nice places close by, that there is no need to escape the city all summer.
• You can almost wear almost the same clothes year round. And you don’t need summery stuff since it rarely cracks 75.
• Everyone is a Democrat. (OK, that is an exaggeration. I met someone last year who isn’t.)
• You will be blown away by the homeless problem. SF is 10 years behind NYC with this problem (we haven’t had our Giuliani yet). Also our Board of Supervisors is somewhat of a joke.
• If someone asks where you work, you can give them a nonsense name of a company they have never heard of, and they will be impressed since they will think it must be some kind of “hot” startup.
• Be nice. Polite. Listen. That New York abrasiveness doesn’t work here.
• You’ll be tempted for the first year to tell people all about how things were back in New York (often, how they were better)…resist!

Now someone needs to prepare tips for people moving from SF to NY :)

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Courtesy of C-Section Comics.

This is how smartphone users see each other:

And this is how smartphone users see 2G users:

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I just came across this amazing post by Christoph Niemann on the NY Times site at:
http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/unpopular-science/

I reproduce it here for your viewing pleasure:

Whether we like it or not, human life is subject to the universal laws of physics.

My day, for example, starts with a demonstration of Newton’s First Law of Motion.

It states, “Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line…”

“…unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.”

Based on supercomplicated physical observations, Einstein concluded that two objects may perceive time differently.

Based on simple life experience, I have concluded that this is true.

Newton?s Cradle shows how energy travels through a series of objects.

In our particular arrangement, kinetic energy is ultimately converted into a compression of the forehead.

The forehead can be uncrumpled by a downward movement of the jaw.

Excessive mechanical strain will compromise the elasticity of most materials, though.

The human body functions like a combustion engine. To produce energy, we need two things:
- Oxygen, supplied through the nostrils (once the toy car is removed, that is).
- Carbohydrates, which come in various forms (vanilla, chocolate, dulce de leche).

By the by: I had an idea for a carb-neutral ice cream.
All you need is to freeze a pint of ice cream to -3706 F.
The energy it will take your system to bring the ice cream up to a digestible temperature is roughly 1,000 calories, neatly burning away all those carbohydrates from the fat and sugar.
The only snag is the Third Law of Thermodynamics, which says it’s impossible to go below -459 F.
Bummer.

But back to Newton: he discovered that any two objects in the universe attract each other, and that this force is proportional to their mass.

The Earth is heavier than the Moon, and therefore attracts our bodies with a much greater force.

This explains why an empty refrigerator administrates a much smaller gravitational pull than, say, one that?s stacked with 50 pounds of delicious leftovers. Great: that means we can blame the leftovers.

(Fig. A): Let?s examine the behavior of particles in a closed container.

(Fig. B): The more particles we squeeze into the container, the testier they will become, especially if the container happens to be a rush-hour downtown local at 86th and Lex.

(Fig. C): Usually the particles will distribute evenly, unless there is a weird-looking puddle on the floor.

The probability of finding a seat on the subway is inversely proportional to the number of people on the platform.

Even worse, the utter absence of people is 100 percent proportional to just having missed the train.

To describe different phenomena, physicists use various units.

PASCALS, for example, measure the pressure applied to a certain area.

COULOMBS measure electric charge (that can occur if said area is a synthetic carpet)

DECIBELS measure the intensity of the trouble the physicist gets into because he didn?t take off his shoes first.

Often those units are named after people to recognize historic contributions to their field of expertise. One NEWTON, for example, describes the force that is necessary to accelerate 1 kilogram of mass by one meter per second squared.

This is not to be confused with one NIEMANN, which describes the force necessary to make a three-year-old put on his shoes and jacket when we?re already late for kindergarten.

Once the child is ready to go, I search for my keys. I start spinning around to scan my surroundings. This rotation exposes my head and all its contents to centrifugal forces, resulting in loss of hair and elongated eyeballs. That’s why I need to wear prescription glasses, which are yet another thing I constantly misplace.

Obviously, the hair loss theory I just presented is bogus. Hair can?t be “lost.” Since Antoine Lavoisier, we all know that “matter can be neither created nor destroyed, though it can be rearranged,” which, sadly, it eventually will.

Not everything can be explained through physics, though. I’ve spent years searching for a rational explanation for the weight of my wife?s luggage. There is none. It is just a cruel joke of nature.

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