Fabrice Grinda

I had the great pleasure of being invited to give a keynote at LeWeb 2011 on angel investing in Brazil, Russia and around the world! I really enjoyed the fireside chat I had with Loic Lemeur at LeWeb in 2009 and was really looking forward to the opportunity to share all the lessons learned over the course of the past few years and explain why Brazil and Russia have been such an important part of my professional life in the recent past.

I hope you enjoy it and avoid all the mistakes I made!

I am also attaching the PDF of the presentation for your reading pleasure.

You can read Techcrunch’s take on the speech at:
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/09/serial-entrepreneur-fabrice-grinda-on-angel-investing-brazil-and-russia/

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For the French speakers among you:
http://www.itespresso.fr/fievre-de-start-up-fabrice-grinda-toujours-essayer-jusqua-trouver-ce-qui-marche-le-mieux-44612.html

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The last few months have been difficult for Netflix. Ignoring the Qwikster disaster, the world seems to have realized that Netflix’ business model has fundamentally changed for the worse in the move to online video distribution.

Netflix went from being a distributor of exhaustive content (all old + new) with great economics (because they did not have to do deals with the studios) to being a distributor of a subset of content with mediocre economics.

In effect they are now just an on demand cable company with direct distribution and billing to the customer. The positioning they seem to be taking is “we’re great value for the money at $7.99 per month with good, but not exhaustive, old content (especially TV shows) with some exclusive new content”. In effect, they are kind of an on demand TBS mixed with a little bit of HBO, but without the home grown content.

The company is not in a death spiral. It’s just not an amazing business anymore. Having a cost structure dependent on a few large, often illogical, suppliers makes for a bad business model. These suppliers reverse engineer your margin structure and keep pushing prices up. This is why one of my nine business selection criteria is never to be in a business where you have a risk of margin compression and/or disintermediation by your suppliers and/or customers.

What is ironic is that in the long run the “windows” will compress and largely disappear and we’ll probably have every movie and TV show imaginable available for $29.99 / month or something to that extent (potentially with a more expensive tier for the very latest content). However, that may be in a long enough time (10 years?) that Netflix won’t engineer that future. Amazon is arguably better poised to make it happen.

The ultimate irony might be that Reed Hastings realizes the challenges faced by Netflix and pushed fast and early for the move from DVD to on demand to avoid becoming irrelevant as consumer behavior shifted. He also realizes the direction of history is for all content to be available on demand in one location and that it’s the best potential response to piracy. However, the studios’ business model is not ready to support such a move and they are unlikely to want Netflix to bring about this future.

It will be interesting to see in what form this future arrives and when and what role Netflix ultimately ends up playing…

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For the past few weeks I was pondering what could explain the viscerally emotional response I felt when I heard Steve Jobs died. I felt a profound feeling of loss and cried as I would have had close friend, family member or beloved dog passed away. Somehow, Steve Jobs, whom I had unfortunately never met, elicited a similar emotional response.

Upon reflection, I suspect that in a way I felt that he was part of the family. His unique understanding of the human psyche and of what we truly wanted, even if we did not voice our needs, allowed him to build products which we welcomed into our homes and transformed our lives. Through our connection with his delightful products, we felt we had a connection with Steve. In that sense, even though he was exceptional, he was one of us.

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I just came across this very well thought through article on everything that could go wrong for the US in the 21st century should we continue down the current path.

It covers all aspects of the problem: consumer debt, government debt, tax policy, education policy, immigration policy, political dysfunction, etc.

It should be required reading for all politicians, policy makers and voters!

Read it at: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-a-22nd-century-textbook-will-describe-the-collapse-of-america-2011-10?op=1

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Ready Player One takes place in the mid-21st century. The world has essentially gone to hell and most of humanity spends its time working, playing and essentially living in OASIS which is an immersive massively multiplayer game.

On his death, James Halliday, the founder of the video game and the wealthiest man in the world, organizes a virtual treasure hunt giving away his fortune to the first individual lucky enough to find the “egg” he hid somewhere in OASIS. The catch is that each devilishly complex clue is rooted in an intimate knowledge of 1980s pop culture.

We follow Wade Watts (known by his handle Parzival) on an epic adventure where he faces powerful villains, has to overcome insurmountable obstacles and find his destiny.

As I was a teenager in the 1980s and played most of the games and saw most of the movies referenced in the book, Ready Player One was an amazing trip down memory lane wrapped in an epic quest.

If video games and 1980s pop culture speak to you in any way you owe it to yourself to check out this book!

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Despite the 93% on rottentomatoes, I should have seen the telltale sign. Whenever an audience likes a movie less than the critics do it’s typically the sign that a movie is stylistically interesting but not necessarily entertaining.

I did not like the silent Steve McQueen-type character played by Ryan Gosling. His silence just made the movie unbearably slow and boring. Moreover, for a hyper violent thriller, it was lacking in thrills. I also felt the movie was trying to do too much and lacked courage, best illustrated by its underwhelming ending.

I should have watched Moneyball instead!

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Contagion makes great points about how civil order would fall apart in supposedly “civilized” societies like our own should a virulent deadly disease spread. The movie makes a compelling case that its depiction of both the public and government reactions is realistic. However, as this is a Hollywood movie with a stellar cast, I was expecting much more. There are so many undeveloped characters that you don’t really care about any of them when they die. Moreover, the movie lacks entertainment value. In other words, it’s interesting but that’s about it…

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Padel is a racquet sport played extensively in Spain and Argentina. I have been obsessed with the sport ever since I was first exposed to it as a kid. It’s easier to pick up than tennis and the points are spectacular. In many ways over the past few years the main reason I would go home to Nice on vacation was just to play with my family and friends.

As I mentioned a few years ago, I always wanted to play in New York, and knew there were enough Argentine, Spanish and French practitioners to organize games, but there were no courts. I am happy to report that New York is now complete! I decided to take matters in my own hand and built a padel court at my house in Bedford just outside of the city.

Reach out to me if you want to play whether you are an old hand at padel or a good tennis or squash player looking for something new!

As you can see below, the court is ready for some action!

In the meantime enjoy this video of some great padel points.

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