Disqus - Latest Comments for kidmercury

Re: Conferences (continued)

kidmercury — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:58:35 -0000

we're in agreement on this issue, prokofy. i have literally sang my heart out about how mikey is not a journalist. you can get that track in itunes, btw.

but just because we agree on this does not mean that our previous beef on open vs closed systems is resolved. i still won that beef and as previously noted i do look better than you. you may have deleted your avatar, but we all know the truth.

Re: Conferences (continued)

kidmercury — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:53:35 -0000

you nailed it andy! a new world order of fiat currencies! but this time around it's going to be very easy to switch from one fiat currency to another. gone are the days of consumers being locked in to a perpetually depreciating currency. now, in our new world order of fiat currencies, the central bankers compete for us.

Re: Conferences (continued)

kidmercury — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:59:05 -0000

personally i think mikey is doing a good job overall with his crusade on this issue. i mean it is funny that he is portraying himself as a crusader against evildoers, but i actually have to give him props on this, as i think he is showing some real journalistic integrity/courage in a way, which i must admire. that's especially sad for me because you can't really beef with and make fun of a person you have to give props to. so i'm foregoing a lot of jokes here, which is quite unfortunate. hopefully mikey will do something stupid and cowardly in the near future so i can go back to pouncing on him.

Re: Conferences (continued)

kidmercury — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:38:09 -0000

hahaha the shukla vs arrington beef has gotten tons of publicity, loads of fun for the spectators.

regarding the techcrunch/zynga beef check pincus' blog, his blog has basically become a response blog of late to mikey, lol

Re: Achieving Excess Returns

kidmercury — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 09:41:24 -0000

as you know albert i am a virtual hedge fund manager in one of the worlds i live in, and in our current economic climate, i measure excess return against the performance gold. i view gold as the risk-free asset, and so i look for traders i think can outperform gold on a six month basis. although that introduces two points which i think are making big changes in the investment arena, which is (1) there is no more risk-free asset (IMHO gold is the closest, but still, who knows for sure, what if govt puts a bigger tax on gold sales) and (2) shorter timeframes, due to increased in volatility in the prices of everything.

but, with regards to your point about how to capture excess returns, i think it is useful to establish a benchmark to measure things against. previously folks just measured it against the US dollar, although i think that will increasingly prove to be ineffective. perhaps a basket of diversified assets could serve as a benchmark.

Re: Covestor Launches Investment Management

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:24:35 -0000

launched the first phase today on informedtrades.com. as you may expect i am rolling up with "the dude in his apartment on a bulletin board" approach, obviously not as high quality as covestor. but as my strategy does not involve a sale of "real world" securities and thus is exempt from "real world" securities regulation, it opens up other possibilities, which are more conducive to "the dude in his apartment on a bulletin board" approach.

also, are you familiar with the company currensee? here is my affiliate link, they are a sponsor over at informedtrades. they are like the forex version of covestor, although they did not appreciate it when i made that analogy. :) same idea though. they are also kicking it facebook style by acting as a platform you can build an app on, and they have a virtual currency and game play.

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:48:21 -0000

IMHO israel's economic success is attributable largely in part to its alliance with US and UK; this provides the economic foundation to do high tech investments. unpopular as it may be, the truth is that global monetary policy is deeply connected to all international war. peace in the middle east, like peace everywhere else, is most easily attained through revision of global monetary policy, which IMHO is most easily attained through virtual currencies.

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:36:27 -0000

Is 'becoming a company' about forming the infrastructure to coordinate teams ?

yes! i think that's a very useful way to think about it IMHO.

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:31:40 -0000

there may be no substitute for the energy you speak of....but there is also no alternative to the costless awesomeness of wikipedia.

and death of distance does not mean death of team spirit; we can just do meetups from time to time. just like the central bankers do to create the alliance they need to wage war against the people!

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:30:16 -0000

perhaps, but CL is a prime example. does it really matter where they are located? if it does, perhaps they need to be located in a hot area for accountants, lawyers, tax advisors and international law, rather than engineers or ad networks. in fact they may even find it advantageous to be geographically dispersed, so that they can more easily switch operations to favorable jurisdictions as necessary. many online forex brokers basically pursue this strategy, seeking to play regulatory bodies against each other. in a way this keeps regulatory bodies in check.

i also wonder what the implications of the larger options pools you recently discussed are. if all the employees are shareholders, are there really any employees? i think at that point the "company" is more like an economy owned by a cartel. much like economies in the real world.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:15:17 -0000

ouch!

fred wilson 1, steve ballmer 0

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:12:24 -0000

i know, USV is where go yearbook photo and federal reserve notes, AVC is where we go cartoon avatars and fredbucks. i know it's necessary (i have to do something analogous with my trading site and my kook blog) but IMHO the great promise of the social gaming revolution is that the game becomes real. so cartoon avatars and fredbucks ftw!

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:08:55 -0000

lol good point :)

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:34:25 -0000

oh damn, nadex looks interesting. thanks for alerting me to it

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:00:26 -0000

and the bull market in unemployment is just getting started! unemployment ftw!!!!

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:58:17 -0000

damn boss i didn't expect you to go all incumbent on me, i thought you were down with how the digital underdogs roll: small teams, immense scalability due to leveraging the crowd/edge, swapping employees for business deals that can be facilitated due to API development.....this ain't microsoft, this is craigslist and disqus!!!

but most everyone i talk to agrees with your points here and disses me on this issue, so perhaps i am being a bit too idealistic here. i suppose we'll all get to find out over the next few years.

Re: Startup Ecosystems Take Time

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:47:23 -0000

i'm still not a believer that ecosystems are tied to geography; i think increasingly ecosystems will be tied to niche knowledge. for instance the iphone/android/facebook/twitter/etc ecosystems are IMHO more important than nyc, silicon valley, etc. the implication of this is i think the "death of distance" argument, in which knowledge networks disrupt geographical networks.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:10:59 -0000

that was a real disappointment last night. as usual andy reid blew it by going for a 52 yard field goal instead of going for it on fourth down, and the foolish challenge, especially the first one. but with that said hindsight is 20/20 and i thought they played pretty well against a team that knows them very well.

Re: Launching a New Site for Union Square Ventures

kidmercury — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:18:22 -0000

congrats on the site revamp. i'm glad you guys did the aggregator thing, you know that is where it's at. my big beef with magnify and the other aggregator services though is that they don't really centralize the conversation; for instance your posts on continuations are pulled in, but they link to the post here, so this is where the conversation happens. where the conversation happens is where the community happens; where the community happens is where the transaction happens, IMHO.

but i guess since it is your VC firm and your blog i guess it does not make too much of a difference where things happen. :)

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:10:10 -0000

oh hey i just noticed new pictures of everyone! lol, that is always the most fun.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:00:56 -0000

well, looks pretty and all, but as we know, the real USV sales site is AVC. i mean that's where all the cool people hang out to keep their ear to the street. perfect spot to broker a deal!

congrats on the site revamp, i'm sure a large portion of the AVC community is familiar with all the hassles involved in redoing a site and the corresponding good feeling of finally getting it out there.

Re: The AVC Reader Census

kidmercury — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:20:44 -0000

it's worth it boss! i recommend vegetarianism to everyone, i think at least for me it makes me feel more mentally alert and healthier. i prefer to focus my doom and gloom on 9/11 but if you want some bad news on this subject netflix has some great documentaries on the meat manufacturing process here in the US.

although i should note i eat seafood every few months, which some of my hardcore vegetarian friends diss me for and say wipes away all my vegetarian street cred. damn.

Re: The AVC Reader Census: A Day Later

kidmercury — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:13:52 -0000

IMHO it's a biological issue, plain and simple. you have kids you know how it is, especially that first year, it is more than a full time job, especially for the mother -- at least that is what i have seen across cultures and generations. and being an entrepreneur is still an unfortunately large challenge in our current world. i think lots of women realize this and choose maternity or a maternity and a stable job rather than the high risk self-imposed torture known as entrepreneurialism. i don't think that's sexist, i could care less what folks want to do, but i think the biological issue is a big factor and barring drastic cultural and physiological changes i don't see how this issue can be modified so that the female entrepreneurial situation is different.

but don't get it twisted, i'm all for female tech babes, so keep it up ladies!

Re: The AVC Reader Census: A Day Later

kidmercury — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:33:09 -0000

YEAH YEAH!!!!

Re: The AVC Reader Census

kidmercury — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:10:56 -0000

i agree. i also like the human recommendation engine approach some companies are working on (less automated), which i think is simpler and perhaps more feasible until some tech whiz creates the killer app to learn from social media usage, as you suggest.

although i participated in the AVC reader hunch poll as a "peer pressure" type of thing -- everyone else in the community was doing it, fred the resident blog star said it was cool, so i got curious and wanted to see how i stacked up. i made it through the first 25 questions, although i feel like if you are going to ask me 25 questions, i should get some type of reward at the end. now i just feel like an outcast for being a vegetarian :)