Ariel Seidman

"Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness,..."

Sun, 27 May 2012 12:43:32 -0700

“Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we’re going to make it happen. As God is my bloody witness, I’m hell-bent on making it work. - E. Musk”

- Elon Musk interview with Wired Magazine

The notion that we’ll carry a tablet and a PC is absurd....

Wed, 23 May 2012 00:04:00 -0700

The notion that we’ll carry a tablet and a PC is absurd. Do people carry an iPhone and iPod anymore? The tablet and PC will converge, and while it’s still early for Windows 8 they are thinking along the right lines as Daringfireball notes…

Microsoft clearly sees why the iPad has been so successful, and they’re being smart: they’re learning from iOS and adapting, not copying.

Gigwalk Blog: Real Time is Right Now - Avoid Becoming Obsolete

Wed, 09 May 2012 21:14:16 -0700

Gigwalk Blog: Real Time is Right Now - Avoid Becoming Obsolete:

gigwalk:

Last week Gigwalk had a brief European adventure. One of our clients invited us to fly out and present Gigwalk’s mobile work technology to their executive team. I am happy to report that we had a pat-ourselves-on-the-back moment thanks in large part to a few great people using Gigwalk out in the…

Mobile is Eating the PC

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:44:00 -0700

A few years back Zynga reached massive levels of users on the Facebook platform. Today, “Draw Something” (a mobile only game) daily active users (DAU) is nearly the combined size of Zynga’s two most popular games (CityVille and Texas Hold’em) on Facebook (PC).

Poke Life

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 22:21:00 -0700

The one thing I hope I can share with my son and daughter.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. - Steve Jobs

Today, we are using the mainframes of tablets.

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 16:28:09 -0800

Today, we are using the mainframes of tablets.

Finding people who want to build a company is getting harder

Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:13:00 -0800

It is easy to start a startup. It is getting significantly harder to build a company. The reward is not hoodies and parties. The reward is building something sustainable, and people who want to work at startups sometimes confuse the reward they are chasing.

I’m worried that in all the hype, in all the “we launched our company” events, and “we changed our name again” parties, and “we redid our website – come celebrate!” shindigs, and the SXSW parties, and the hoodies, and everyone who is “killing it!”, that we’re losing sight a bit of the really hard work that is creating and building a business. by Seth Levine “I’m Getting Tired of this Bullshit”

littlebigdetails: Mixcloud - The favicon indicates whether the...

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:32:58 -0800

littlebigdetails:

Mixcloud - The favicon indicates whether the music is playing or paused.

/via Victor A. Leão

Where software bits meet the nature to create. Love it.

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 19:38:31 -0800

Where software bits meet the nature to create. Love it.

Want to join a startup? 4 myths you should know before joining a startup

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 17:39:00 -0800

The tech investment landscape has changed dramatically creating confusion for folks contemplating a career move into startups. Startups and more precisely the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem is what gives me tremendous hope and excitement for the future of America. Unfortunately, a set of four startup myths have been born leading the wrong people into a career in startups.

Every tech company that has not IPO’ed is a startup via @hunterwalk. We made an offer to somebody and they were contrasting it to other “startup” offers from Dropbox and ZenDesk. Companies like Dropbox. AirBnB, Dropbox, ZenDesk, and Box.net are not “startups.” In many cases they are 5+ yrs old and very profitable. These companies fancy themselves startups to attract talent, but they have well established business models with revenues to protect and existing processes to work within. Don’t confuse a startup with a later stage growth company.
Everybody loves startups. If you are working on something disruptive people will call you silly, look at you strange, or say things like “interesting concept” (i.e. you are smoking something). Most people don’t want to want to go home feeling that way and don’t have the mental fortitude to push through.
It’s a big party: If you read TechCrunch, follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, or watch movies like the Social Network you’ll understandably form this idea that people at startups party a lot. Hate to break it to you, that’s not true. Most people at startups work really hard.
It’s very safe, they raised $14M so they have lots of money - Companies that raise tons of cash also tend to burn through it, quickly.

In my next post, I’ll address why you should join a startup.

Beautiful. Microsoft should hire this designer.

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 15:50:00 -0800

Beautiful. Microsoft should hire this designer.

10 Good Reasons for Joining a Startup

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 15:46:00 -0800

Some myths have led people to join startups for the wrong reasons. There are also lot of really good reasons to join a startup. The startup ecosystem in Silicon Valley is a national treasure and will save America from becoming a stagnant European economy. So, if you to join a startup here are some good reasons to…

Become an entrepreneur yourself.
Destroy the status quo.
Put your fingerprints on changing an industry or creating a new category.
Build a business, not just more features.
Grow beyond your current specialty.
Prove to yourself you can do something really really hard.
Expand your network beyond <insert big company>.
Be part of a team that accomplished the nearly impossible.
Create something immensely valuable out of almost nothing.
You are a caged honey badger.

BTW - we are hiring

museumofusefulthings: Old maps, repurposed as paper globes for...

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:21:52 -0800

museumofusefulthings:

Old maps, repurposed as paper globes for decoration. Saw this here. See more here.

Photo

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:42:51 -0800

Mobile Stats

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:31:18 -0800

AT&T: 56.8% of its 69.3 million postpaid subscribers have smartphones, up from 42.7% a year earlier and 32.8% two years ago. [source]

Verizon: 44.5% of its postpaid customers have smartphones. That’s up from 39% in the third quarter of 2011. [source]

Market Share vs. Profit Share

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:22:47 -0800

This entire article ignores the many ways to monetize mobile over the next ten years. What would you rather have?

Sell 200M devices/yr earning profits of $150 per device.*
Power 2 billion devices earning $60/device/year.

Apple is optimizing for the former scenario and Google for the later. For Google’s strategy to work they need market share (eye balls) which can translate into plenty of profits.

6 Billion mobile phone subscriptions: If you are Microsoft,...

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 23:00:00 -0800

6 Billion mobile phone subscriptions: If you are Microsoft, Google, or Apple you simply cannot afford to lose the mobile platform war.

Digging Deeper for Simplicty

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:00:00 -0800

When you start looking at a problem, it seems really simple—because you don’t understand its complexity. And your solutions are way too oversimplified, and they don’t work. Then you get into the problem and you see it’s really complicated. And you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s where most people stop, and the solutions tend to work for a while. But the really great person will keep going and find the key underlying principle of the problem and sort of come full circle with a beautiful, elegant solution that works. - Steve Jobs

Exclusive Content

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:14:25 -0800

With so many distribution platforms content becomes king - again.

Exclusive content is what makes HBO worthwhile, and Netflix is smart to follow. How long until Apple and Amazon follow. - Daring Fireball

It's Not Easy

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 10:05:10 -0800

It’s not easy, of course. People forget that the Apple Store encountered some bumps along the way. No one came to the Genius Bar during the first years. We even had Evian water in refrigerators for customers to try to get them to sit down and spend time at the bar. But we stuck with it because we knew that face-to-face support was the very best way to help customers. Three years after the Genius Bar launched, it was so popular we had to set up a reservation system.

Ron Johnson on Building the Apple Store