Musings of an Entrepreneur

                                                 

Paul Graham wrote another great article on the future of startup funding.

Read it at: www.paulgraham.com/future.html

Comments(1)

Paul Graham just wrote another fantastic article, this time covering what happened to Yahoo.

Read it at: www.paulgraham.com/yahoo.html

Comments(1)

In a way, I don’t have too much to report. Living on nothing but lemonade with maple syrup and pepper for 6 days has not been as miserable as many predicted it would be. On the other hand, it has not led to a newfound clarity or the spiritual nirvana others predicted. In other words, I don’t feel like much has changed.

The diet has not been that hard to keep and my willpower has not really been tested. I am constantly a little hungry, but not so hungry that it is distracting. I was rather light headed and a bit dizzy for the past few days, but this too seems to have subsided especially since I amped the maple syrup dosage to two thirds the recommended dose (up from half) and drink a table spoon of maple syrup if I feel too light headed.

I have found a few ways to make the diet much easier. I substituted the lemons for limes which I found have much more taste. I really hated the taste of the cayenne pepper and decreased the dose of that and now really like the drink (I would love it if it had no cayenne pepper at all).

On a daily basis, I drink around 2-3 liters of the lemonade (half a gallon to three quarters of a gallon) (8 to 12 250 ml glasses). I also drink about a liter of water. I always drank 3-4 liters per day so this is not exceptional. I can’t be bothered to prepare the drink every time I am thirsty or hungry so I prepare a 4 liter (a bit more than a gallon) pitcher in the morning and carry around a two liter bottle with me during the day. To prepare the lemonade for 4 liters, the dosage that works best for me is as follows:

• Squeeze 8 lemons or lime with a juicer
• Put 24 table spoons of maple syrup (32 is the recommended dose, but that tasted too sweet and 16 left me too dizzy
• Put half a tea spoon of cayenne pepper (the “correct” does would be one and a half a tea spoon)
• Fill the rest of the pitcher with tap water

That’s it! I don’t feel very different physically and was able to play tennis without difficulty. I don’t think I look very different, but according to the scale, I have been losing around two pounds per day and am now 10 pounds lighter than when I started. I am sure a lot of that is water weight I will regain once I start eating normally again.

I assume a lot of the benefits of the cleanse come from completely avoiding alcohol, caffeine and junk food, while becoming well hydrated rather than the elimination of “toxins”, but regardless of how it works, as long as it works, I can’t complain.

Some people got disgusted by food while on the diet, but I can tell you there is no chance of that happening to me. I looked in envy while my friends were eating delicious looking grilled tuna steaks, pear and gorgonzola salads and a huge selection of amazing looking fruits. The amazing smell of super thin crust truffle and mushroom pizza and barbequed cheeseburgers and hotdogs also left my mouth watering. After 6 days of the bland monotony of the lemonade, I cherish the thought of giving my palate sensory diversity.

To avoid losing too much weight or becoming unhealthy, I will probably stop my cleanse after 10 or 11 days, this Monday or Tuesday, and slowly transition to fruits, soups and salads before making my way to more consistent food. As I am in Buenos Aires, I am looking forward to my first grilled lomo next Thursday or Friday!

Comments(20)

I usually don’t follow faddy diets, especially since I don’t really need to lose weight and if I did eating less and exercising more would be the first thing I would try. That said after my good friend and fellow Internet entrepreneur and angel investor Stephan Paternot raved about it, I decided to try the Master Cleanse.

The Master Cleanse is also called the lemonade diet. Basically, you drink fresh lemon juice with maple syrup, cayenne pepper and water and that’s it. You start by easing yourself into it by eating only fresh fruits and soup for a day or two. You then forgo all food and liquids except for the lemonade and water for a week or two. You then you ease yourself out of it. You can find out the details at www.themastercleanse.org.

I am on day 2 of the diet and so far I don’t have much to report. I feel no different than usual – I have my usual good mood and high energy level. I do feel a bit hungry. Hopefully that will subside in a few days. I will keep you posted in the coming days on the progress!

Comments(20)

William, my best friend and VP of Marketing at OLX, is in the market for a used Ferrari 360 Spider. As a good friend, I decided to help him through the ordeal of car shopping by tagging along to the Ferrari dealer :)

The new Ferrari 458 Italia is so gorgeous I considered letting myself be tempted. After many attempts by the desperate dealer to get me to fit into it (and every other Ferrari in the showroom), we came to a definite conclusion: Ferraris are not made for tall people! And at 6’3” I am not even that tall!

Look at the photos below William took of me in a 360 Spider. My head was sticking out so much it was actually hilarious :)

Comments(18)

Given my itinerant lifestyle I end up working from many different computers. I was looking for a solution to move everything to the Cloud but only had imperfect solutions. Thanks to Microsoft Exchange I already have access to all my emails from any computer and many mobile devices. Carbonite gave me a good backup of all my files and remote access to them, but keeping files in sync between all my computers was always a pain. I would change some files in some folders at home, different files in the same folder at work and keeping it all straight was messy and complicated. I would use a mix of emailing myself the files and copying them on a USB stick, but it was manual, annoying and error prone.

I just installed Live Sync Beta and it’s amazing. It’s easy to setup and keep files in sync between many computers and on the cloud. Best of all it’s free! In the screenshot below you can see I setup syncing between my notebook and my work computer for three folders. If both computers are on, the sync is instantaneous.

The software is not without flaws:

• The interface is clunkier than it should be – I should be able to go on any folder in Explorer and right mouse click “Keep this folder in Synch with Live Sync” instead of having to manually select folders from within Live Sync.
• In Explorer there should be a little sync icon next to a folder to show that it is being synced.
• The focus on peer to peer syncing is annoying. I can see why it’s cheaper from a bandwidth perspective, but many of my computers are not on the same network. You can use the SkyDrive to sync through the cloud, but it’s limited to 2Gb and I can’t find a way to buy more storage. I would be more than happy to pay for cloud syncing.

Hopefully those will be solved in the full product release. In the meantime, if you need to keep files in sync between multiple computers, you owe it to yourself to check out the free beta!

Partial non sequitur: It’s hard to believe Microsoft had a gem like this and I had never heard of it until Daniel Rasmus mentioned it to me over breakfast a week ago. I wonder what similar products are lost somewhere in the Microsoft matrix! I also wonder what weird Microsoft politics infected this project. It seems to have had many different owners over time given the many very different blogs on Sync/SkyDrive/Live Mesh within Microsoft (all of which have been discontinued except for the official Inside Windows Live blog). Also, the product used to be focused on syncing through the cloud when it was called Live Mesh instead of through peers. I hope it becomes the focus again soon!

Comments(12)

I am fan of all of Chris Nolan’s movies. I loved Memento, The Prestige and both Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. He always brings thought provoking concepts to his movies including blockbusters. For instance, the concept of anarchy promoted by The Joker was truly frightening and novel. In a summer movie landscape where movies have been dumbed down to the extreme, his movies have always a beacon of hope for the thoughtful moviegoer also looking for massive explosions and fantastic special effects.

In other words, I went to see Inception with high expectations. I was not disappointed! The movie’s plot is very intricate (but logical), the special effects are dazzling and the concept of dreams within dreams is innovative. The movie is not without flaws. The various parts don’t quite neatly tie perfectly together. Somehow, I did not feel emotionally attached to the characters. I was also disappointed by the deliberate gimmick of leaving the movie open ended.

That said, go see the movie! It’s very good, well-acted, visually stunning and thought provoking.

SPOILER ALERT – DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE

Was it all a dream? The totem not falling at the end made every moviegoer wonder whether Cobb was still dreaming. Nolan actually left it open to interpretation and you can make convincing arguments either way. The totem wobbles and if you listen carefully you actually hear it fall after it goes out of view suggesting that he is in the real world. However, there are a number of elements suggesting he’s still dreaming: the kids have not aged and are still wearing exactly the same clothes as in every sequence where he dreams of them. The ending has a dream like quality. Moreover, he’s actually not using his own totem, he’s using his wife’s totem. He very well might have learned to manipulate it and make it fall or not. The polls I have seen suggest that viewers seem evenly split on this one, probably as Nolan intended.

Comments(3)

I love Amazon for having the creativity to do this and all the nerds of the world for their wonderful imagination!

Read the reviews at: http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Ore/dp/B000796XXM/

Comments(5)

Comments(0)

I prefer backpacks to carry my notebook to keep the weight balanced on both my shoulders. After I downsized notebook, it made sense to downsize backpack.

The Booq Boa Squeeze is great. It is super light – 2.9 pounds – and very compact in addition to being well built, ergonomic and comfortable. It’s not very big, but can definitely hold a few magazines and a book in addition to the notebook and charger.

If you are trying to carry a lighter load, you can’t go wrong with this backpack!

Comments(9)