Disqus - Latest Comments for SteveKane

Re: Explaining the Research: What Will It Take To Cure Diabetes?

Steve Kane — Wed, 10 Aug 2022 13:32:14 -0000

Sorry this article is a joke, or a paid shill for cell replacement companies. I mean, no mention at ALL of Dr Denise Faustman's amazing work towards a cure for T1D?? Her lab is in Phase II trials! Sheesh, I do love and respect your publication... until stuff like this. Don't be a partisan! Report ALL promising work for heaven's sake!

https://www.faustmanlab.org/

Re: To the Editor: In Response to ‘In Support of Boycott, Divest, Sanctions and a Free Palestine’

Steve Kane — Wed, 04 May 2022 11:12:44 -0000

Amen.

Re: Is There a Diabetes Cure?

Steve Kane — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 17:05:41 -0000

Why do you just ignore the amazing, exciting work being done by Diane Faustman? Sheesh, are you on the payroll of the ADA and JDRF and everyone who has treated her like crap for so long? They wrote her off years ago and despite all her astounding progress, can't admit they were hasty, and hopefully, wrong.

https://www.bostonglobe.com...

Re: Climate and Crypto

Steve Kane — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 08:34:42 -0000

Very helpful piece, Albert, thank you. I've been torn on this subject, but between you, Fred and Nick, I'm now convinced these two issues are not irreconcilable.

Re: The Majdi Wali I know doesn’t match the social media monster

Steve Kane — Sat, 20 Jun 2020 11:56:10 -0000

She apologized. I forgive her. No one's life should be judged, let alone ruined, by things said and done as a teenager. Period.

Re: Woman with Type 1 Diabetes Recovers from COVID-19 After 17 Days

Steve Kane — Thu, 07 May 2020 11:42:02 -0000

Thank you for the article, and to Ms. Bolt. I am Type 1 and got so much reassurance and understanding from hearing of Ms Bolt's experience. I agree the media focuses too obsessively on diabetes COVID-19 risks and not at all on health management and survivability. Bless you.

Re: Ads in the deep hole of the Internet

Steve Kane — Tue, 10 Mar 2020 10:31:02 -0000

Working on it. :)

Re: Front Stage/Back Stage

Steve Kane — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 19:41:53 -0000

I read Goffman way back when in college.

I remember just enough to ruin me for the rest of my life.

😃

Re: Is There a Diabetes Cure?

Steve Kane — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 14:56:03 -0000

The search for a cure for T1D is a much bigger world than that revealed by the narrow prejudices of the JDRF. Does Diabetes Daily really have only one source for info about T1D research -- the JDRF? I mean, I love the JDRF anmd the work they sponsor, but they have some pretty awful biases and politics and they do not show us the whole picture. Not even close. Case in point, The Faustman Lab, and the amazing work of Dr Denise Faustman, into possible cures and vaccines for T1D that do not involved cell transplants or bionic pancreases -- just a cure. If you care at all about T1D, you owe it to yourself to look well beyond the narrow confines the of the research supported by the JDRF. https://www.faustmanlab.org/

Re: 2020

Steve Kane — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 15:52:06 -0000

Amen. (And Happy New Year!)

Re: Pressure

Steve Kane — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 11:49:38 -0000

Maybe it's downstream pressure from investors who need their portfolio companies to have rapidly escalating valuations? And eyeballs, traffic or even negative-margin transactions is a path to rapidly escalating valuations?

Most VCs raise new funds every 18-24 months now, a big change in the last 20 years (when partnerships used to raise new funds every 2-4 years.) Fundraising that rapidly themselves, VCs need to show quickly sharply rising portfolio company valuations. And cynical VCs know that the actual portfolio results will only be known many years after the newer vintage funds are raised, so if these pumped up valuations prove to be ephemeral or even grossly wrong, well, that's not desirable but whatever -- their management fees and AUM are secure.

Not to say the entire issue is this! But particularly in the early years the investors have humongous influence on the companies and founders and teams -- and in any case, illusory as it we curmudgeonly grayhaired folks know it can be, rapidly rising valuations are the intoxicating brew served at the startup ball.

Re: Electricity and the Climate Crisis: Moving to EVs

Steve Kane — Mon, 16 Dec 2019 10:44:36 -0000

Thank you sir.

Re: Quantum Computing’s “Hello World” Moment

Steve Kane — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 10:12:27 -0000

What he said!

Re: The Access Act

Steve Kane — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 10:10:45 -0000

Generally in agreement with all this (though I loathe Sen. Blumenthal, but I'll save that for another day.)

But why any minimal usage thresholds at all?

That is, why 10MM MAU? Why not 0MM MAU?

I don't think this will create a barrier to entry for startups. These type features/attributes/system specs will just be par for the course, like building a site to be optimized for browsers or an app for a mobile app store or an email client for TCP/IP. Using minimum thresholds just seems to me to be dodging the issue in some way, and an open invitation to the type of regulatory rent seeking and manipulation that we are trying to avoid in the first place

Re: Smart Home Data Aggregator?

Steve Kane — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 10:28:34 -0000

Ping the NSA? They have it all. :)

Re: The Great Public Market Reckoning

Steve Kane — Sun, 29 Sep 2019 16:37:50 -0000

Fred, do you sense any agitation in the VC LP community because of all this? How many new VC funds got raised based on what now seem like bogus valuations of portfolio companies in existing funds? Or do you think the number of paper unicorns is small enough that LPs feel that little if any arguably deceptive marketing took place?

Re: Staying Focused

Steve Kane — Wed, 25 Sep 2019 13:35:45 -0000

In a famous story by the great Ray Bradbury (the name of which escapes my elderly brain at the moment) the main character compulsively and exhaustively reads all the daily newspapers... except not on the day they come out. No, this character only reads the newspapers one day after they are published, because even just one day later, all that head spinning stuff already seems a bit silly and distant.

Re: The Hit Rate

Steve Kane — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 16:52:38 -0000

👍🙏🏻😃

Re: The Hit Rate

Steve Kane — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 13:17:24 -0000

Um, ok. But I've been an LP in dozens of VC funds over the last 20 years and I respectfully submit, that still doesn't address my question. How can a fund that delivers "2-2.5X" also have "returns" in the "high teens and low 20s"...? (If it matters, I think my disconnect from Fred's conclusion is the "ten years" part. I have never invested in a VC fund that was so cashed out in 10 years that one could reasonably conclude what the return was. 15 years, 17 years, more accurate. For example, Fred mentions his 2004 vintage fund. That fund is sufficiently harvested that final determinations can be made. That was true a couple years ago, soonest, so maybe 12-13 years. But USV's 2008 fund is still in late mid life...)

Re: The Hit Rate

Steve Kane — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 12:19:15 -0000

Yes I understand and agree with your points. But doesn't all that further my argument, not refute it?

Re: The Hit Rate

Steve Kane — Sun, 15 Sep 2019 10:43:39 -0000

Yup.

But can you help me with your math Fred?

I was taught "The Rule of 72" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... - that the rate of return is equal to 72 divided by the number of years to double the investment. (Or, the number of years to double the investment is equal to 72 divided by the rate of return.)

To wit, an investment generating 7.2% per year returns will double in 10 years (72/7.2=10). So how do you figure that funds that are 2X or even 2.5X are generating returns in the high teens/low 20s?

(Btw, my understanding is that, on a broad Cambridge Associates industry wide type view, VC funds aas an asset class do generate 2X-2.5X or so -- but that's a poor showing, as the S&P500 has beat that for last decade.)

Re: The Privilege Walk

Steve Kane — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 11:42:29 -0000

True dat! 🙏🏻😜

Re: The Privilege Walk

Steve Kane — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 10:24:12 -0000

I applaud the good intentions with these type things. But then I worry about the road to hell. I mean, don't things like this seem a little too... Robespierre? A little too ... Cultural Revolution? I know I'm embarrassingly old fashioned and out of touch, but these type things strike me as very divisive, literally by design. When I keep praying for movements and methods that stimulate unity and a sense of shared purpose. The ol' melting pot ideal - is that just utterly unacceptable now? Isn't the alternative worse?

Re: Parenting

Steve Kane — Sun, 21 Jul 2019 10:37:45 -0000

My dad passed on 25 years ago but now that I am the parent of teenagers i apologize to him frequently. 🙂

Re: Joining the Libra Association

Steve Kane — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 10:32:12 -0000

Three quick responses:

1) I'm glad USV is part of the consortium. USV can and hopefully will be a force for positive direction in the group. And in any case, it's happening with or without USV.

2) The MSFT Internet Explorer analog doesn't cut it for me. That chart would have looked the same without Explorer. Maybe a little more slow adoption in the short term. MSFT was jumping on the bandwagon, not pulling it, IMO.

3) That quote is a good one but is not from Mark Twain. https://quoteinvestigator.c...