Current Water Use of California’s 800 Commercial Computer Data Centers

June 29, 2015 / / No Comments

Interesting analysis in the Wall Street Journal of the current water use of California’s 800 commercial computer data centers:

California’s data centers consume 158,000 Olympic sized swimming pools of water per year, or 104,280,000,000 gallons of water per year. That sounds like a lot. Enough, in fact, that one might wonder what else might consume that much water every year.

It turns out that a single day’s supply of newspaper newsprint requires about 300,000,000 gallons of water. Multiply by 365 days per year, producing the US’s annual consumption of newsprint consumes 109,500,000,000 gallons of water per year.

109,500,000,000 gallons per year for US newsprint > 104,280,000,000 gallons for California data centers. Interesting! Of course newsprint consumption is falling due to substitution by online media! And we know online news is a very small % of online use.

So, for a small fraction of the water use by data centers, over time we can likely eliminate nearly all of the water use for newsprint, not to mention reducing the deforestation caused by newsprint production. Less tree use, less water use = environmental win/win! It’s interesting to consider what other current environmental resource uses will be reduced or eliminated by data centers and online media!

Source – Tweets: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

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VC is the Most Aligned Capital for Companies that Want to do Something Big

March 24, 2015 / / No Comments

A common trope in discussions about startups and venture capital is a potential misalignment of incentives between startup team and investors. I don’t think this perceived misalignment actually exists in most, maybe all cases — and I want to explain why.

The argument goes, “When you take VC, you have to shoot for the moon; smaller outcomes that may be great for the team are precluded.”

First, obvious but important: No startup is forced to take venture capital. In fact, vast majority of successful new businesses do not. The main reason TO TAKE venture capital is in pursuit of a bigger outcome than the startup team believes it could achieve on its own. Hence, taking venture capital ALIGNS interest in a big outcome between the venture investors and the team.

Most non-VC investors are more risk averse than VCs; a startup shooting for a big outcome that raises money from non-VCs ends up MISALIGNED.

The argument continued: “VCs can tolerate higher risk of failure due to portfolio of bets, whereas founders and employees have only one bet.” In the modern era, that’s also untrue. Founders and employees generally make multiple bets as well, in two dimensions:

Founders and employees often have running room to try multiple products within a single startup; hence popularity of the term “pivot”. And, founders and employees often start or join multiple startups throughout their multi-decade careers = a personal portfolio of bets. In fact, some of today’s most successful startups are founded by entrepreneurs whose previous ventures didn’t work nearly as well.

In short: VC is very much not for every company. But for companies that want to do something big, VC = the most aligned capital there is.

Source: Tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13

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16 Less-Obvious Ideas for How to Expand the Number of “Unicorn” Great Tech Startups

February 16, 2015 / / No Comments

Sixteen somewhat-less obvious ideas for how to expand the number of “unicorn” great tech startups over time — per query by @trengriffin:

  1. More Montessori and Montessori-style, free-form, and/or project-based K-8 public and private schools.
  2. Entrepreneurship magnet/charter schools — specifically designed to produce enterpreneurs, vs cogs in the industrial machine.
  3. Significantly expanded summer tech, science, math, entrepreneurship programs/camps for grades 5-12.
  4. Significantly expanded internship programs at tech companies of all sizes for both high school and college students.
  5. More interdisciplinary college programs — particularly engineering + business, and liberal arts + engineering.
  6. Comprehensive inclusion programs for underrepresented groups for each of the preceding five ideas.
  7. More public research universities should pursue the Stanford/Berkeley mentality/model; also, repeal Bayh-Dole.
  8. Comprehensive legal and regulatory reform to open access to federally-funded research; also, pass Aaron’s Law.
  9. Reform, or better yet eliminate, software and business method patents. Redefine patent trolling as a form of felony extortion.
  10. Fully portable economy-wide benefits, including health care, retirement savings, and immigration status.
  11. Eliminate tax credits for home ownership, and implement tax credits for renters.
  12. Implement tax credits for child care services for working parents.
  13. “Opt in” innovation zones with regulatory relief for various categories of new technology.
  14. More long-lockup capital at all levels of corporate capital structure.
  15. Eliminate tax credits for corporate debt, and implement tax credits for corporate equity.
  16. Zero capital gains tax for equity held for 5+ years, paid for by higher capital gains tax for equity held for <2 years.

Source – Tweets: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16

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Lessons from the Secular Stagnation Theory

December 30, 2014 / / No Comments

Wrapping up my series on the secular stagnation theory with some more things I learned along the way. Again, filter on #stag as desired.

Glaeser: 72.7% of US college grads ages 25+ are employed, vs 39.4% of high school dropouts in same cohort. I’d like to quote Mokyr’s entire essay in the Vox ebook but that would be rude, so read the whole thing here.

Olivier Blanchard: Post-crisis reforms require financial institutions to hold another $3 trillion in safe assets. (!) #stat

Reference for all of the above: http://www.voxeu.org/article/secular-stagnation-facts-causes-and-cures-new-vox-ebook

Source Tweets: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14

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The Second Industrial Revolution Offers Insight Into Technology-Driven Economic Change

December 22, 2014 / / No Comments

Over the last 2 days I’ve been tweetshotting excerpts from David Wells, “Recent Economic Changes“, 1890. For background reading on the economic period of ~1870-1890: Second Industrial Revolution.

This period is not a direct historical analog to ours, but it’s probably as close an analog as there is, along with the 1920s-1930s. Each of the three periods struggled with serious macroeconomic crises, albeit substantially different natures. It’s hard to compare those.

People of that time did wonder the same questions that are being so frequently asked today: What is the nature of technology-driven economic change and creative disruption? What is the future of income and wealth distribution and returns from progress — for labor and for capital? How do present changes compare to those in the past, and what can be forecast about the changes yet to come? What kind of world are we building, and what kind of world will we leave for our children and grandchildren?

Wells, writing in 1890, would have been wholly gobsmacked at the widely distributed gains of the next 100 years! It may not surprise you that I think we are going to repeat what Brad describes in Slouching Towards Utopia? in this century again. But, we actually have to prove it, and do it.

Source Tweets: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

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New Inside Growth Round for Mixpanel

December 19, 2014 / / No Comments

Today, we @a16z are proud to announce we are leading a new inside growth round for Mixpanel. Mixpanel, led by Suhail Doshi, is one of our fastest-revenue-growth companies, and has been profitable since we invested 3 yrs ago.

In fact, Mixpanel is unusual in that the new investment round will not go to accelerating growth, opening international offices, or the like. Mixpanel generates cash internally to fully fund continued expansion of its current business. Rather, Suhail has more ambitious goals.

We originally invested in Mixpanel because it makes state-of-the-art mobile/web analytics easy for every company in the world. Mixpanel lets you track actions not just pageviews (The smartest entrepreneurs pitching us were showing us their data thru a MP dashboard).

The broader goal: Help the world learn from its data – to bring data science to every domain, to fundamentally improve how things work. Mixpanel will use the new financing to build new products, acquire, break into new markets – and take crazy risks that may work or fail. Mixpanel will go straight after the goal of predicting the future with data – what we think is the next phase of analytics.

And always, Mixpanel will be about merging the best of what machines can do with the best of what people can do: processing + judgment. We’re thrilled to double down on our support of Suhail and the Mixpanel team. Follow them at @Mixpanel and @Suhail!

Source: Tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11

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Net Neutrality

November 12, 2014 / / No Comments

Enough people asking what I think of net neutrality so I will attempt to answer, but warning, I do not have a clean and simple answer!

I think the permissionless innovation, nondiscriminatory nature of Internet is of critical importance and must be maintained or strengthened. I also think telco/cable companies need incentives to build far more/better net infrastructure than we have now and be able to make money on it. Due to the economics of network businesses, I think these are extremely difficult principles to reconcile and I don’t envy the regulators.

I further worry about the simplistic and politicized nature of much of the debate, which I think is not conducive to navigating complexity. And I further still worry about the sausage-making of any regulatory process and the likelihood of unanticipated and undesirable outcomes.

And generally, I try to spend my time trying to figure out how to bring more/better/faster Internet to more people in new/different ways.

Source Tweets: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7

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Title II FCC Regulations Were Created in 1934, Based on 125+ Year Old Railroad Regulations

November 11, 2014 / / No Comments

Title II FCC regulations were created in 1934, based directly on railroad regulations from 1887, 125+ years ago. Here are some other things that happened in 1887, same year railroad regulations, that then became telecom regulations, were designed:

  • In 1887, Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective character Sherlock Holmes makes his first appearance, in the novel A Study in Scarlet.
  • 1887, the earliest constituent of the U.S. National Institutes of Health is established in Staten Island as the Laboratory of Hygiene.
  • In 1887, construction of the iron structure of the Eiffel Tower starts in Paris, France.
  • In 1887, Gottlieb Daimler, the cofounder of the company that now makes Mercedes cars, unveils his first automobile.
  • In 1887, the cornerstone of the new Stanford University, in northern California, is laid (the college opens in 1891).
  • In 1887, the Giuseppe Verdi opera Otello premieres at La Scala. In 1887, Emile Berliner is granted a patent for his Gramophone, the flat-disc phonograph.
  • Finally, in 1887, Chester Greenwood patents earmuffs.

These and many more described here.

Source Tweets: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10, 11

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Next Generation Movie Theaters

September 1, 2014 / / No Comments

Next generation movie theaters could be so much better, charge a premium and dominate financially (like ArcLight Hollywood).

Convenience: Reserved seating, valet parking, warm embrace of Lyft and Uber including ride-pooling, on-site daycare.

Experience: No commercials before movie; super-comfortable chairs and sofas; food delivery directly to seats; sparkling clean bathrooms.

Food and drink: High-quality food with healthy options; sit-down dining on site; full bars (Lyft and Uber make more practical and safe now).

Variety of screening experiences: Silent, or noisy, or use of phones allowed, or families + kids, or all kids, or dining + movie together.

Use of crowdsourcing and crowdfunding for special screenings; full embrace of group and corporate events; all-you-can-view subscriptions…

Source: 1,2,3,4,5,6

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The Difference Between Technical-Founder/CEO vs Professional CEO

September 1, 2014 / / No Comments

In tech, we talk about difference between technical-founder/CEO (product/eng background) vs professional CEO (sales/marketing background).

Our general theory is: It’s easier to teach product innovator how to manage, than it is to teach sales/marketing operator how to innovate. There are many exceptions in both directions, of course. The mountain is hard to climb either way. There’s lots of work/learning/adaptation required.

I propose another lens on the dynamic: The difference between knowing What and Who, vs knowing How, Where, and When. Bear with me… Great tech founder/CEOs tend to focus on What and Who: What product to build, and Who to hire/train/retain/motivate to build it. Great pro CEOs tend to focus on How, Where, & When: How = processes; Where = geographic expansion; When = optimizing business across time.

To succeed at scale, each needs to learn the other skills and hire people who have them: Founder/CEO -> How/Where/When; Pro CEO -> What/Who. The challenge: It’s usually easier to hire skilled business professionals who know How/Where/When than What/Who. This is fishing from unbalanced pool. The trap: Only nailing What/Who can carry startup a long way, but only nailing How/Where/When = slow road to zombieland and company death. Ultimately = team-building for both paths. But dynamic different and differently challenging in each direction; requires open discussion.

Addendum: The Why = the mission, ideally beyond just “the company’s success.” This is increasingly important for all paths.

Addendum: The truly great tech CEOs have mastered all of these: What, Who, How, Where, and When… and Why.

Source: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12

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