Meeting Fred Wilson In Person

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So I got to meet Fred Wilson in person for the first time. I showed up for the AVC MeetUp at 29 Union Square West around 3 PM. It took me a while to find the location. A Broadway or Park Avenue address would have been easier for me to find, and the MeetUp site had listed the address as 29 Union Square East. It was West.

I did 1,000 crunches before I showed up, and here was Fred Wilson trying to impress me and a few Indians with yoga talk. There is a Bruce Lee school of thought. Your tummy muscles are the most important. If you want to feel the strength, do your crunches.

I did my 1,000 crunches, had my lunch. I was sweating like Mark Zuckerberg by the time I headed towards the train station. Zuck has proven beyond doubt genius is 99% perspiration. (The Hoodie)

I thought I was running a little late. The place was downstairs, in the basement. It was dark. When Fred showed up half an hour later, he was like, "Ugh, this place is so dark, I needed to be here at 2 AM instead."

It took you about five minutes to get your eyes adjusted to the light. I caught both Fred Wilson and Scott Heiferman during their first minutes. I had the advantage of well adjusted to the dark eyes.

"Are you coming Tuesday"? Scott asked me.

"Of course I am coming. Absolutely," I said.

Internet Week: Going To Three Events So Far

I briefly talked about Reshma 2010: Reshma 2010, Square, And Pro.Act.Ly.

"The Scotts in the Bay Area are behind her," I said: Jack Dorsey, Randi Zuckerberg. "We need to get behind her here too."

Scott is one of the earliest people I got to know after I moved to New York City. Every time we meet, we meet like old friends, but I have never been able to get him to reply to my emails, most of which have been FYI emails anyways. I have long made peace with that as a productivity issue for him. The circle he maintains email communication with must be tied to his work. And I am glad. Look at the distance MeetUp.com has covered in five years. Scott in many ways is the original tech entrepreneur in town. The NY Tech MeetUp he launched has been a major platform. If no longer saying hello to me will mean MeetUp.com goes to ever newer heights, I will happily swallow that pill too. Scott is one of those people who can make it sound like "change the world" is not a cliche phrase.

This was a few years back. A friend told me Scott was number five on the list of the top people in tech in New York City, as put together by the Silicon Alley Insider. I was like, no way. But I know the guy!

Today I told Scott I had applied for a MeetUp.com job, but Greg told me it was an entry level position.

"It does not have to be," Scott said. "Good luck."

That is Scottspeak for MeetUp.com has a department that handles the hiring decisions, I hope they like your application. I liked the spirit in which it was said.

"Honored to be meeting you for the first time," I said to Fred. "I watched your debate online. You won easy. But you did have a hometown advantage."

disrupt on livestream.com. Broadcast Live Free

He was as gracious as possible before, during and after the debate. He has been the exact opposite of Mike Tyson after a victorious championship fight. He maintained that mode in his response.

"It was not much of a debate," he said. Talking to a group of Republicans about tax cuts is not hard, he has insisted.

He got hold of his name card as if anyone there needed to know what his name was or what he looked like, then he went to the bar to grab a soda, walked back to me and said, "Who put this together? Who organized this?"

He sounded puzzled as much as curious. I could have burst out laughing right there. I did not know. I took a guess and pointed at two important looking guys. Maybe them? Then I spotted Shana. I motioned her and asked her. She took him to the guy who had organized the MeetUp.

People got together in small groups. People moved around. Fred moved from group to group. I mostly wanted to listen to what he had to say. He was relaxed, and he was making insightful comments about some of his portfolio companies, and some of their founders.

The Gotham Gal did not show up because she was busy cooking for a party they are throwing Tuesday evening, Fred said. I have not visited her blog nearly as often as I have visited Fred's whose blog I visit almost daily, but when I have visited her blog I have learned a lot, perhaps more than from Fred's blog because she touches upon topics I know very little about, stuff like the local non profit scene, for example.

At one point I found myself with these three other Indians, two business partners, the leader of the team was married to this young woman who had made it to the interview phase of the two job openings at Fred's VC firm.

I got to meet the Columbus, Ohio, woman who is now in the Analyst position. Fred said one of the new hires is going to be bi-coastal, maintaining apartments in both the Bay Area and in New York.

So Fred walks over. He says he just wanted some water. I pass on the message. I get a glass of water in my hand, I pass it on to him. He sits down. A small crowd forms around him, about 10 people.

There is this discussion about the entrepreneurship scene in India. There is some frank talk. Some of the Indians volunteer to say things can get rough. The bureaucracy can be a nightmare sometimes. Society is more hierarchical. The culture is more sexist. The venture capital industry is not there yet. It can prove hard to pay your electric bill. They don't want your money. And if you don't pay, they cut off your electricity. But there are rewards to being able to navigate the culture. Labor is cheap and top quality. I said a high school friend of mine tried it in the US, that did not work, now he works his dot com based out of Kathmandu, and it has been working wonders, making him a lot of money. The guy gets on national television there, I said. That would be Kathmandu.

He talked at length about Twitter and David Karp of Tumblr. Twitter is set to do $100 million in revenue, but could they do a billion, he asked. He said Karp had that personality type that is the entrepreneur personality type. Every conversation he has with you he is trying to sell you something, either he wants you to invest in him, or he wants you to partner with him, or he wants to sell some idea.

He also pointed out New York is not there yet when it comes to the tech startup culture that the Bay Area has. Culture is really the word.

Fred said he was making an effort to get more software engineer graduates from the top schools to end up in New York City. That is another thing I really like about Fred. He loves this city. Look at the names of his current and former venture capital firms.

Then he walked over to the next group of people before he walked away. With that final group, there was a spirited discussion about "gold." I was feeling a little lost. Da what? Ends up Fred's blog post for the day that I had not yet read was about gold.

Fred Wilson: Gold Vs Real Assets

These were people who were fond of Fred Wilson. Fond is the word. It was a nice gathering. The gathering was proof a blog is a very real, social entity. It can bring together people. But if Fred had showed up at the San Francisco AVC MeetUp instead, the 100 plus RSVPs would not have been in New York, they would have been in San Francisco.

Fred has his standing in the tech community for work he has done, companies he has invested in. A few years back Geocities had been the best deal he ever did. By now it is between Twitter and Zynga, although the Twitter story is more compelling, and FourSquare could be doing really well in a few years. A Twitter IPO will get the Twitter story into the mainstream. Jack Dorsey talks about Fred Wilson every chance he gets.

I have a feeling after a Twitter IPO he and his firm might reach new heights.

Meeting Fred in person was not dramatic, as in, now I know what he looks like, what he sounds like. After months of reading his blog, I have a fairly good idea of his thought processes. I have watched hours of Fred Wilson videos on YouTube. So I had a fairly good idea of what he looks like, what he sounds like. But there is something about meeting in person. It feels real. Not that he ever felt unreal to me. He is down to earth, normal, pleasant, curious about things, passionate about his work. It is just that his accomplishments are outsize.

During the event I felt a certain tension. I can't be a full fledged tech startup guy right now. That is a year or two away for me. But I advise one startup - PayCheckr - and am in talks to become a full timer with another: TeaSpiller. I am itching to get into the scene.

Larry Ellison's 1995 Network Computer Vision
Lady Liberty Whispers

After the event, around 5:30, I walked over to the Apple store on 14th and 9th. The iPad felt a little heavy in my hand. The virtual keyboard sucks. The thing had to heat up if held long enough. I think the world of Steve Jobs but I don't seem to relate to his products. It is as if he is a great president of a country on a planet I don't live on, or at least a country on a continent very, very far away. I found myself gravitating to a large screen Apple computer with a regular keyboard. I just wanted a browser, a big screen, and a physical keyboard. My fear is they might make the Chrome OS netbooks too small. Got to keep the screen big enough.

From there I walked over to the Chelsea Piers to take in the Hudson. There is something about that smell of water that can collapse time. That water can smell like some of the water from a long time ago.

I walked back to Union Square and went into the McDonald's there. I eat healthy for the most part. But I think it is important to eat one bad meal once in a while.

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My Talk On Social Media At The Science House MeetUp

http://twitter.com/paramendra/status/5487265144
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I gave a talk last night at the Science House MeetUp. The NY Tech MeetUp is the best big MeetUp in town. I like to say the Science House MeetUp is the best small MeetUp in town. After my talk was over I learned from James (@ScienceHouse) that Esther Dyson will also be talking in a few weeks. I was floored. I think so very highly of Dyson. I can't believe I got to talk in the same setting. That is what I was thinking.

@gabidewit @habiteer @chrisharwood @BrainiacDating were some of the people in attendance. Two Indians showed up, one a doctor, another a software guy who said he quit a 150K job to get started with his startup. His idea had oomph, but he came across as in the very early stages of gelling the idea. When you start out, you end up thinking at an industry rather than a company level. Not a bad place to start. But then you have to whittle it down so you can have a starting point.They went to MeetUp.com, did a search on "social media" and showed up.

Facebook Album: Science House: My Social Media Talk

I showed up earlier than usual, and the event did not start right at 7 PM. We take the first 10-15 minutes to kind of warm up. That is the Science House way. I got to meet the guy who is doing the iPhone app for Science House. What I liked best was the back end. Gabi (@gabidewit) gets to add new info to a Google Spreadsheet and it shows up in the app. 






I started with a survey. If you are on Twitter, raise your hand.

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Blog
• YouTube
• Ustream
• Any other

 Most hands in the room went up most times and I said I was not particularly qualified to be talking about social media to the group, but that I was going to share my personal social media story. There were a dozen people in the room, roughly.

Then I introduced myself. I said my name. I passed out my business card. All it has is my first name: Paramendra. Because that is my name on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Gmail. And you can look me up on Google. My parents must have seen Google coming. I never met anyone who shares my first name. I said I was a tech entrepreneur and a social media guy on the side.

• JyotiConnect, Founder
  
• PayCheckr, Member, Board of Advisors
  
• A social networking startup in stealth mode, Board Member 

For social media some of the income streams are as follows.

• Sponsored Tweets
• Ad.ly
• Sponsored Reviews
  
• Having corporate clients that need help with social media

I talked briefly about JyotiConnect Inc. The IC - Internet Computer - vision is that it is the meeting ground between the so-called First World and Third World. The rich countries have to move beyond the PC to the IC: the Netbook is half way there. The poor countries have to come online in large numbers.

I gave out some personal story. I moved to NYC in 2005 to work on my startup but got sucked into working full time for the democracy movement in Nepal for over two years. My primary work was my blog and sending it out across the largest Nepali mailing list in the world I had created. The list had penetrated all the leading political parties in Nepal, the media, all the top human rights NGOs. Like they said about Arkansas when Bill Clinton was Governor, if you knew 1500 people you pretty much knew everyone who mattered.

I got to meet the Prime Minister of Nepal in person for the first time a few weeks back, but he has been calling me a friend for a few years now. It is because of my Nepal blog. And Nepal is the poorest country outside of Africa. And this was in 2005 and 2006. Social media mattered back there, then.

• Lilamani Pokharel For Continuous Movement November 2005  
• "Robin Hood Im Internet" February 2006

 That Nepal work spilled over into giving some time to Obama as well: Barackfae.  (The French Revolution And DFNYC January 2006) (And this on Barack in February 2007: Jupiter And Obama)

• Long Walk To Freedom: Just A Third World Guy Dazzled By The City April 2007
• Long Walk To Freedom May 2007
• Barack Has To Talk Much About His Mother
• Barack's Mother Makes An Appearance
• Give Me A Huge Rally In This City Before Summer Is Over September 2007
• The Largest Rally In US Presidential Campaign History September 2007

While giving time to Obama as one of his earliest supporters in NYC, I also started raising money for my startup. The goal was to raise 100K and I did raise that. But most of the investors walked away with most of the money en masse in February this year reacting to the bad economy: "We still believe in you, we still believe in the vision, but we have to go!" I relayed the story of how I raised that 100K in the first place and the role my tech blog played in that. Also, if I sit on the Board Of Advisors of PayCheckr, it is because of this particular blog post: New York Times, Don't Die, Live. The founder of PayCheckr first met me in the comments section of this blog post. I have met him in person only once.

Twitter

I said one site had me number 12 on the NYC Twitter elite list. Wycleaf Jean is number 11. That guy has more than one million followers. I have about 30,000. To be right behind him, they must be measuring my influence some other way. Maybe they like the quality of my stream. And I am number 90 in NYC in terms of those with the most followers, Donald Trump is number 50. Globally my rank there is 1960. After I hit the top 100 in NYC, I sent out my first tweet from the phone. Otherwise before that Twitter was an all-web thing for me. (My First Tweet From My Phone)

Work on creating a good stream, I said. TwitterFeed.com can be helpful. More than 600,000 people use it. I also tweet when I am out and about in town because I know NYC fascinates the people out there, out in the country, out in the world.

Follow people you know. That includes friends, but also famous people you know and admire but who don't know you back. I have exchanged quite a few tweets with Craig Newmark.

When you are not famous, the way you end up with a lot of followers is what I call the politician model. You shake 1,000 hands hoping maybe 200 of them will vote for you. But for that to happen you need to have a really compelling stream.

A tweet is an atom, I said. Then I tried to put Twitter in the big scheme of things: Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter.

Facebook

I used to use Facebook the way I use Twitter. I ended up with 1400 friends and then Facebook went ahead and deleted my account. I started again and now have 700 friends, but these are now people I know. Either they are friends from a while back, or online only people who feel like friends.

My privacy setting is to Everyone. You don't have to be my friend to see my Facebook page. I already have 130 outstanding friend requests I have not accepted.

I have refused to integrate my Twitter stream into Facebook. I like to keep the two separate. They serve different purposes.

LinkedIn

I signed up for LinkedIn not long after the site got launched because I read about it in the news, but then I kind of forgot about it. And then I met James and Gabi at a NY Tech MeetUp for the first time only a few months back, and the following day Gabi sent me a connect request on LinkedIn, of all places. That is when I rediscovered the site. I went ahead redid my LinkedIn page. LinkedIn is really the unsung hero of social networking. It is extremely valuable but we don't talk about it as much as Twitter and Facebook. Now I am working to get 500 contacts. I have 415. And the news is they are about to revamp the site.

Blogging

I said blogging was my personal favorite platform. A blog to me is like a blank canvass to an artist. You get to write a few paragraphs, insert tens of links, embed a YouTube video perhaps. And, boom, you have a blog post.

In February 2006 Madhav Nepal, then leader of the largest political party in the country, was put under house arrest by the royal regime. A month later he managed to come online wireless. His brother lived in the house next to his. The first person he contacted was me. We chatted on Google Talk. Here's the transcript: Madhav Nepal. A few months back Nepal became Prime Minister. Nobody in the Nepali diaspora put as much time, effort and talent into the democracy movement in Nepal as I did.

April 2006 saw the democracy movement, but January-February 2007 and February 2008 saw the Madhesi Movement. I am a Madhesi. This was like our own civil rights movement. Upendra Yadav has been the face of that movement in Nepal. When Upendra Yadav, now leader of the largest Madhesi party and fourth largest party overall after the April 10, 2008 elections to the constituent assembly in Nepal, landed in Los Angeles in July 2007 for the annual conference of Nepalis in America, his first words were "Where is Paramendra Bhagat?" They took him to the hotel. He again asked, "Where is Paramendra Bhagat?" They had to fly him over to NYC to meet me. We had never met before. He went on to become Foreign Minister.

Both of them got to know me through my blog long before they finally met me in person. That's social media for you.

YouTube

I said I had uploaded a total of two videos so far on YouTube, but I forgot to mention I have uploaded hundreds on Google Video, now defunct. About 700, to be precise. But I do habitually embed YouTube videos into my blog posts. My blogs are multi-media.

Ustream

I was at a Nepali poetry festival in Jackson Heights a few months back. There were 40 people in the room and 2400 online, and that was before the event started.

Josephine Ancelle, French Singer, Songwriter

I met @josephinea at a social media event. The old media way was she needed to hit big and that was it. But the social media way is she can gradually expand her fan base from a few hundred to a few thousand to tens of thousands to more, and she will feel the fan love and have the music sales every step of the way.

Q & A

With that I concluded and opened the floor. By the way, I announced in the very beginning anyone could just interrupt me at any point in my talk. That was the social media way. And many did.

After some floor talk on social media, the topics shifted. One of the Indians present talked about his business idea.

@BrainiacDating  said he had managed to get 13,000 people on Brainiac Dating primarily through AdWords. How could he hit the big leagues? Could social media help? Today I sent him an email. Mashable beat TechCrunch and became the most visited tech blog a few months back: Twitter was their primary marketing tool. I also signed up at the site. It is really good. I sent out emails to about 20 beautiful women with a message that said something like this:

Hello. I met the founder Lawrence yesterday at an event where I gave a talk on social media. That is when I first heard about the site. I wanted to try it out because I realized I am interested in dating someone smart. Smarts turn me on. So I signed up today and did a search and you showed up. I looked at your picture and read your profile top to bottom and really liked what I saw. I am interested in you and would like to get to know you better. I feel like I connect to you at a few different levels. I would love to hear from you and meet you in person because I feel that is the only way to really figure out if someone is the right person for you.

For the next three hours or more @habiteer and @chrisharwood had a rather animated discussion on if or not some day virtual reality will get so good that the "real" reality will become unnecessary. My position was that virtual reality does not have to get that good, but even if it gets close, that would be great for my workspace, but face time will always be necessary. There are emotional needs to be met.

There was also a lot of talk about physics, about singularity, about the possibilities of intelligent life out there.

When the group dispersed it was close to one in the morning. I walked over to Grand Central. @habiteer kept walking.

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Tim O'Reilly Mentions Scott Heiferman On TechCrunch

Image by

Meetup

via CrunchBase

Scott 2.0, MeetUp.com 2.0
Social Networking: Where The Internet Comes Down From The Clouds

I just met Scott Tuesday evening: NY Tech MeetUp: Gravitas.

And now I read this gushing mention of him by Tim O'Reilly in TechCrunch: Gov 2.0: It’s All About The Platform. Makes me feel good. Scott started what I call a 5.0 company, one about face time. (Netizen: Web 5.0: Face Time) And he has executed well. And he has a sound business model. He charges organizers, organizers charge those who show up: everyone is happy. Wishing the guy all the best.

It’s important for the idea of “government as platform” to reach well beyond the world of IT. It was Scott Heiferman, the founder of meetup.com who hammered this point home to me. Meetup is a platform for people to do whatever they want with. A lot of them are using it for citizen engagement: cleaning up parks, beaches, and roads; identifying and fixing local problems.

In this regard, there’s a CNN story from last April that I like to tell: a

Image via CrunchBase

road into a state park in Kauai was washed out, and the state government said it didn’t have the money to fix it. The park would be closed. Understanding the impact on the local economy, a group of businesses chipped in, organized a group of volunteers, and fixed the road themselves. I called this DIY on a civic scale. Scott Heiferman corrected me: “It’s DIO: Not ‘Do it Yourself’ but ‘Do it Ourselves.’”

Image by

Tim O’Reilly / Flickr

via CrunchBase

Imagine if the state government were to reimagine itself not as a vending machine but an organizing engine for civic action. Might DIO help us tackle other problems that bedevil us? Can we imagine a new compact between government and the public, in which government puts in place mechanisms for services that are delivered not by government, but by private citizens? In other words, can government become a platform?

Twitter Top 0.1%
The PayCheckr Promise

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Diller Country, Month 2

So this was going to be the second time for the NY Tech MeetUp to be in Barry Diller's fancy building on 18th street by the Hudson. And this was going to be the 50th tech meetup. And Scott's first time presenting himself. Scott comes along in the long line of successful entrepreneurs who are not engineers themselves, but who provide the leadership and the vision and make it all happen. He is a guy with plenty of soft skills. And by now he knows several of the top names in tech today, and not just on this coast. He has been tallied number five in this city, number one being Bloomberg. That is quite an achievement. I remember the first time meeting Scott. It was at a bar. The tech meetup. Less than a dozen people. Now it is so big, he can't provide room for all who want to show.

NY Tech Meetup July Meetup

Scott's presentation was the highlight of the evening. The MeetUp Alliance is quite a concept. I like Scott personally, but I think I am being fairly objective when I claim Facebook is a 2.0 company, MeetUp is a 5.0 company. (Web 5.0: Face Time) Unlike so many of those dot coms before the nuclear winter, MeetUp actually is a profit making venture for a simple concept, a "mid-sized company," as Scott puts it. If you are going to organize a MeetUp, pay $15. And then go around and charge people who show up, $1, $2, $5.

I know a few organizers for whom this is brisk business. Like this Prospect Park Soccer group. It is so popular, the slots for RSVP open up at midnight Thursday for the Sunday game. Within minutes, they are gone. That success story is also something to take note of. How do you scale that success so people don't have to be turned away? Don't tell me MeetUp has become too successful. Existing organizers train new organizers to start new soccer groups?



With a company like MeetUp, there is only so much you can do in terms of tech. Facebook does not have that constriction, because that is meant to be a screen time experience. You can keep enriching it infinitum. But with MeetUp, the action is not at its site. The action is when people meet in person.

And so what will give MeetUp its edge is a program to keep training its thousands of Organizers fairly continuously to make them do better and better and better. How do you improve the quality of the experience for those who show up? MeetUp needs to hire engineers, but also group dynamics specialists, team psychology specialists.

Like my advice to this particular Organizer, Scott himself, the founder, CEO of MeetUp, dear friend.

1. Would it be possible to make people make a mock presentation to the Organizer or a rep before they are approved to get on stage? Perhaps days ahead? One guy on stage fast forwarded his entire presentation because "the clock is ticking." It was hard to follow.
   
2. The idea that people must have their full name and company name when they RSVP is a great one. I find it a waste that this MeetUp brings together the top tech talent in the city, but there is very little opportunity to actually go ahead and mingle and get to know each other. At least with the full name and the company name, you can go visit their sites.
   
3. To Scott's credit, he does suggest a bar to go to after. I have skipped that part the last two times.
4. How about letting people add a link to their Facebook profile page on their MeetUp profile page?
   
5. The stretch break half way through was a good idea, a few minutes to say hello to people sitting next to you.
   

Microsoft, Google, Facebook: NY Tech MeetUp Has Arrived

The Meetup Alliance is such a cool idea, but I guess it is in beta because I was not able to add a few groups I wanted to add to the Obama alliance just a while back. I think at some level Scott wishes Obama 2008 would use MeetUp.com like Dean 2004 did but hasn't. I am fairly active with Obama 2008, that has been a decision for the Chicago people to make. They have turned BarackObama.com into a Facebook/MeetUp mashup. It is not as good as either, but they feel it seems to work good enough.

I think that's where MeetUp Alliance comes into the picture. It will expose MeetUp to people who otherwise have not been exposed to the MeetUp concept.

Silicon Alley Insider

Startups 101: Make Sure Your Pitch Doesn't Suck
Zuckerberg: I'm Sorry. Go Ahead And Turn Beacon Off*
NY Tech Meetup Review: The Meta Meetup The monthly NY Tech Meetup packed the lobby of Barry Diller's IAC building Tuesday night. ........ Ignighter ..... Evolvist .... The Funded ..... Kaltura ..... Unype ..... Meetup Alliance .... Peter Kamali, co-founder and former CTO of Meetup ..... soft-launched as a pure Facebook app play; Peter mentioned plans to extend the app to other platforms (i.e. Google's Open Social) ....... a typical Ruby on Rails application mashed up with Google Maps; I think they could have used Ning and accomplished the same thing. ...... This online group video making startup won the "people's choice" award at TechCrunch40 past summer. It's a complete video editing application that allows multiple people to collaborate. It boasts a very rich (and complex) user interface. ........ After hosting more than 50 tech meetups Scott Heifferman finally gets to demo his own product. It's the Meetup Alliance, (previously announced here) ...... allow Meetup, Facebook, Google, Yahoo and MySpace groups to interoperate, creating large alliances. ..... Scott Heiferman (SA 100 list #5) ..... platform-agnostic, open to not just Meetup groups, but to Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, Facebook Groups, MySpace Groups ..... the International Tech Meetup Alliance, Barack Obama for President Alliance

December's NY New Tech Meetup Review

Nic Is Back

Open Coffee MeetUp: New Location
Web 5.0: Face Time
Nic Butterworth's Open Coffee MeetUp
Scott 2.0, MeetUp.com 2.0

I was running a little late. I got up late. I dillydallied. So instead of at 9:15, I show up around 9:30. I got lost a little. Is the place on 17th or 18th? I went into another coffeee store and asked. I was off mark by one block.

Before that I had bought a 50 cent doughnut. I am a big fan of street food. Gyro, falafel: those can make your day any day. Street food makes you street smart.

The meeting had already started around the same table as last week. Half the introductions had been made. Curiously there was an empty chair that I took, and one person spoke before me. Right time, right place.

Right after I sat down, I noticed Andrea at the other end. We met on Facebook, and are Facebook friends. This was our first time seeing in person. She is substance. She got the ingredients. The confidence. I don't want to be just be a face in fashion, I want to be a power. I dig that. She came across as knowledgeable and daring. She has a promising startup. Only since it is fashion and not tech, to most people present it did not feel concrete. They did not follow. So she talked some banking stuff, "structural" this and that, "Is anyone following?" to which the formerly Goldman guy Scott said he is the only one in the room close to following.

"I want to take over fashion." (She corrected me over email that her startup is "tech.")

"Hi, I am Paramendra, and I am here primarily because I consider it a great learning experience to interact with entrepreneurs at different stages of their growth."

"Tell about your company," Nic said.

"I did that last week." Nic was absent last week.

I proceeded to sum up my venture in two sentences. I talked about my IC as "the frying pan."

It is between the fire and frying pan.

Some interesting ideas were circulated.

Amy sounded real early stage. She got a slight sexist hit from what looked like the biggest name in the room, a guy who later Nic was courting for business. Young guy dabbling in some big bucks. That you need a partner, a boyfriend, husband. It did not sound evil, just mischievous. Tough. In this city, people love presenting tough. Tough is permanent fashion.

If you invest half a mil in a company you value at two mil, that can make you feel powerful, but you stand to make more investing 100K in a company valued at five mil, if it is a promising vision.

Rohit is a transplant from the West Coast. He has a pretty interesting startup. It could be a great application on Facebook, or a stand-alone entity. It will allow you to keep up with the news on your clients, customers. So you can send them quick notes when stuff happens in their life.



When the formal meeting ended, people just stood up. There was much noise, much mingling.

The store manager had to walk over and remind us we were scaring some of her customers away. We needed to stay sitting around one table. You would not run into that problem at the previous Starbucks venue. My favorite MeetUp venue is a living room. The Obama MeetUp does that. (Jeff Kurzon's Living Room, Union Sqaure, Times Square, King Arthur)

Soon thereafter, the meeting ended.

Lefty was back. It was a nice meet and greet.

Scott and I walked over to Union Square. He used to be with Goldman. He taught himself Java. Now he has a startup.

After that I walked over to the Strand bookstore that I got told about last week but did not have the time to go to. I read one chapter in Alan Greenspan's new book, his much talked about autobiography. He is going gungho about Adam Smith and "the invisible hand."

Then a train ride back home. I thought of going to the library near Times Square but decided against it. I bought a small bag of roasted huts, and headed home.

There were follow up emails I needed to send out.

The place Taralucci reminds me of lychee, hence the lychee in the picture.

Before I parted ways, Scott suggested it would be great if the larger NY Tech MeetUp would hold a second MeetUp each month which would be a place to mingle and socialize and network. MeetUp CEO Scott I guess did something along those lines which he called the UnMeetUp during summer when the attendance was low.

I am friends with Scott. I said I would pass on the word. This second Scott was so impressed that I am friends with the CEO Scott. "NY Tech MeetUp is the most impressive collection of techies in the city I know," he said. "But that is not used as well as it can be."

There is Justin Krebs at Drinking Liberally, and there is Scott at MeeUp. Knowing those guys is like status symbol. I got the Scott reaction also at the soccer MeetUp I am part of.

"Oh, you are friends with the CEO?"

He is a very unassuming guy. But very well networked in the industry. Steve Case, Esther Dyson, Marc Andreessen are some of his Facebook friends.

The idea sounded like I wish there were a way to let the Open Coffee MeetUp tap into the human collection of the NY Tech MeetUp. Maybe that is an idea for MeetUp.com: make cross pollination possible across MeetUps. They have a picnic in Prospect Park on the 29th of this month. That is going to be some major cross pollination.

Maybe Scott can add a feature for the MeetUp organizers. If you liked this MeetUp, you will also like, fill in the blank. So Nic could recommend Scott's MeetUp, and he would try to get Scott to recommend his MeetUp to people. Granted the site already has search.

Heck, MeetUp could build an application for Facebook like so many others are doing. It would allow users to search for and schedule their MeetUps without leaving the Facebook interface.

And the members' profile pages should also allow the members to link to their Facebook profile page. That might be better than trying to copy elements of Facebook. Definitely quicker.

Andrea said she wanted to bring along a MTV crew to a future Open Coffee MeetUp. I have a feeling I am going to get famous.

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In The News

Goldman's Golden Quarter BusinessWeek While rival investment banks struggled, Goldman used its global reach and subprime savvy to increase profits sharply ..... the undisputed leader of the investment banking sector. ..... Goldman's performance was stellar during a period marked by crisis in the U.S. and European credit markets. ..... Citing a global revenue base and savvy bets on subprime mortgage .... the second-highest in the firm's history. ... included $1.5 billion in losses stemming from the reduced value of assets such as leveraged buyout loans ..... all but sailed through one of the most painful and abrupt financial crises in memory. ...... worse than the stock market crash of 1987 or the credit crisis of 1998 .... Goldman reported record revenue in investment banking, equities, and even fixed-income investments. ...... even though Goldman made some bad bets on the subprime mortgage market, they were offset by others wagering that the subprime mortgage market would fall. Its net position was a bet on falling asset prices ....... clever and swift in exploiting volatility in the mortgage market .... Goldman has benefited tremendously from its globalization. In 2006 it derived 52% of its revenue from outside the U.S. ..... Goldman has one of only two domestic securities licenses in China, allowing it to sell securities on the local exchange, and to "try to capture some of the $3 trillion in domestic savings…and win additional investment banking and trading with a portion of the 250,000 state-owned enterprises that may ultimately go public on the local exchange." ...... China…It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest focus we have ..... Beyond China, Goldman has extensive business in other "hot spots" such as India, Russia and the Middle East ..... a market cap of $83 billion .... $16.7 billion Bear Stearns .... Bear reported Thursday that its third quarter profit fell 62%. ... smallest of the top-five investment banks ... will be able to outpay any of its peers in competition to hire top talent.
Dear Ben: Please Fix the Housing Mess Oversight of the lending industry leaves much to be desired. Whether the markets should continue to work out the excesses or the government should step in with more aid—either through monetary or fiscal policies—is very much an open question and one that the experts are debating vigorously. ..... Years of lax lending standards and aggressive practices by Wall Street banks to fund risky loans have touched off a housing crisis that spans not only the U.S., but the globe. ...... The worst operators have gone out of business and the lenders still standing have seriously reined in bad practices. Big banks and institutional investors, such as hedge funds and foreign pension funds, have taken billion-dollar hits and reassessed their appetite for risk. ..... Some compromises are already on the table
Nasdaq, Dubai, OMX in Tieup A far-reaching deal involving Sweden's OMX Group as well as the London Stock Exchange alters the dynamics in financial markets ..... the fast-growing and rapidly consolidating universe of financial exchanges. ..... This deal is a snapshot of how fast the world is changing. .... The money piling up in the Gulf has to go somewhere ..... the two exchanges figured out that their interests were "parallel; they did not intersect." ... Dubai, meanwhile, wanted to use OMX technology to take a leadership role in emerging markets. ...... one of the world's fastest-growing regions—one that has amassed trillions (BusinessWeek, 3/13/06) in petrodollar wealth over the last few years. ..... Dubai's so-far-successful effort to be the financial center of the Gulf region and beyond ...... Dubai as a kind of New York or London of the Gulf. ..... become the center of capital-markets activities in the emerging markets ....... Borse Dubai .. its new 28% ownership stake in the London Stock Exchange. ....... Qatar on its own acquired 20% of the LSE .... the exchange wars are far from over.
The Debt Market: Signs of Life parts of the debt markets that nearly shut down in August are coming back to life. ..... The rapidity of the recovery in some hard-hit sectors is impressive. .... investors fled to ultra-safe U.S. Treasury bills. ...... investors are making sharper distinctions between risky and less risky securities instead of trashing them all equally
Is Jaguar Facing Extinction? Critics say the design isn't radical enough .... 18 years of failed attempts to revive Jaguar ..... eight full clay models for management to consider
Barry Diller's Web Gaming Play
IAC/InterActiveCorp's gaming foray could revolutionize online games and hurt console makers—if it succeeds .... Web-based gaming ..... Web gaming, which is already the third most popular online activity after e-mail and chat .... sector attracted 28% of the total worldwide online population in May ..... revenue of $3.4 billion in 2005 to more than $13 billion in 2011. ..... launch InstantAction.com, a Web site offering first-person shooter, real-time strategy, and action games of the quality currently found on Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo's Wii. ...... users won't need to invest in additional hardware: They'll be able to play through any device with a browser, be it a low-end personal computer, a Web appliance, a gaming console, or even a mobile phone. ..... browser-based games won't require users to download software or install it from a disk ..... InstantAction.com will offer some games free if users view ads. ...... easier, more robust Web offerings would likely bring a flux of new players.
SAP's Down-Market Gamble The German giant's new, Web-based software targets smaller outfits than its usual corporate clients. ....... software, called Business By Design ..... Sept. 19 press conference in New York ..... A company with 100 users could license it for less than $180,000 year ..... SAP's traditional software for managing companies' manufacturing and back-office operations. ...... a computer industry that's shifting quickly toward software delivered online. ...... SAP software's notorious complexity ..... SAP's shares are up just 10% in 2007, while arch-rival Oracle's (ORCL) stock has jumped 21% on growth from a string of acquisitions. ...... SAP's engineering, marketing, distribution, and sales are tuned to reach big accounts (BusinessWeek, 9/14/07), not the fragmented small-business market. ..... Business By Design's price—$149 a month per user— ..... Business By Design will aim for companies that have outgrown Intuit's (INTU) QuickBooks or Microsoft's (MSFT) Great Plains accounting software—plus offer them supply-chain management, customer relationship management, and human resource features. ..... Salesforce.com (CRM) on Sept. 17 introduced programming tools called Force.com that would let independent software developers use its technology to create new software products ...... "I don't know what their slogan will be. Maybe 'the world's most complex software for small business'"
The Maestro Speaks His Mind his willingness to say straight out that "the Iraq war is largely about oil." ....... the leading practical economist of our era .... The liveliest personal anecdote describes his first date with future wife and NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. "At the restaurant we ended up discussing monopolies," writes Greenspan. "I told her I'd written an essay on the subject and invited her back to my apartment to read it." High romance indeed! ...... praises Ronald Reagan for "the clarity of his conservatism." ...... Bill Clinton, whom he calls "as far from the classic tax-and-spend liberal as you could get and still be a Democrat." ..... compliments Clinton for having, unlike most politicians, "a preference for dealing in facts." ...... He refused to join the Nixon Administration in 1969 because of the dark side of the newly elected President's personality. ......... George H.W. Bush, in Greenspan's view, did not have a "thoughtful view" about interest rates. And he is upset about George W. Bush's approach to economic policy: "Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences," writes Greenspan. "'Deficits don't matter,' to my chagrin, became part of Republicans' rhetoric." ...... reserves his maximum scorn for the congressional Republicans who voted for budgets that were almost guaranteed to produce big deficits. ..... Greenspan's disdain for academic economics. "As elegant as modern-day econometrics has become, it is not up to the task of delivering policy prescriptions," Greenspan writes. "The world economy has become too complex and interlinked." ...... "while politics had not been my intent, I'd misjudged the emotions of the moment." ..... acknowledged that he didn't understand how deep the subprime problem was until very late in his term at the Fed. ..... he gives globalization and financial markets far more attention than technology, despite his identification with the 1990s New Economy (a term, incidentally, that he mostly avoids). ..... "sometime before 2030 the world is likely to be trading ten-year U.S. treasuries at a rate of at least 8 percent."
China's Rising Leaders Beijing's next cadre is market-smart, business-savvy—and perhaps even open to change .... once every five years .. 2,000-plus bureaucrats ... they'll listen to hours and hours of turgid speeches and then cast near-unanimous votes. ..... President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao will almost certainly rule for another five years. But below them, a new generation of leaders will likely be promoted into key positions. ...... Many of these up-and-comers have fought in the trenches of China's reform wars, have the skills needed to run complex economies, and have shed earlier generations' mistrust of foreigners. They certainly won't turn China into a replica of the U.S. system. But the dialogue they start with the West may be the most sophisticated yet. ..... they will be more progressive, pragmatic, and forward-thinking ..... many in this generation speak English and have traveled widely. Some have studied at Western universities, and most have advanced degrees in social sciences, economics, and law. ...... Zhou Xiaochuan, currently head of the People's Bank of China. ..... a strong contender for vice-premier in charge of finance. .... He shares major responsibility for opening China's financial sector to big Western banks and brokerages. ..... Commerce Minister Bo Xilai, for instance, may become vice-premier and take over as China's top trade official. Bo would be at home in Washington or New York: "He's stylistically very un-Chinese, a Mayor Ed Koch type ....... his rhetoric is matched by his mastery of the issues. .... Li Yuancho, 56, is a contender for Hu's job. ..... took a backwater northeast town, Dalian, and turned it into an outsourcing center for Japanese business. That made it one of the hottest urban economies in China. ..... these new leaders, once they take over the top positions, might even start to dabble in democracy. ..... Li Keqiang, the 52-year-old ... Wang Yang, 52, who runs China's largest city, Chongqing. ..... local officials who often ignore Beijing's edicts and focus on economic growth, no matter the cost.
Selling Computers to India For years the world's computer manufacturers focused the bulk of their energy in Asia on China. ..... This year, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), Lenovo (LNVGY), and Acer (ACEFF) have all announced major initiatives there, making India one of their key battlegrounds. ....... "All three segments of the market will grow at 25% to 30%," says Rajan Anandan, Dell's general manager for India. ..... India's economy is booming, with growth running at above 9% annually. .... Over the past three years, the average cost of a Windows PC has fallen from $500 to $350 ..... 22 million machines. .... PC sales in India are expected to climb at 20%-plus rates annually through 2011 .... China, though, has some 110 million computers installed, vs. the 22 million in India. ..... The People's Republic has long been dominated by Lenovo, but in India, HP has overtaken local favorite HCL Infosystems .... In March, HP opened a new factory near Delhi, its second Indian plan ..... In August, Dell opened a factory in the southern city of Chennai, its first in the country. The company expects sales of $500 million this year. ...... "In the consumer market, all the growth is coming from notebooks" ..... India is one of the best overseas markets for Lenovo ...... Lenovo is also contending with the departure of South Asia Managing Director Neeraj Sharma, who quit last month to take a job at IBM ...... Taiwan's Acer, which is acquiring Gateway ..... HCL skimped on brand-building for more than a decade ..... it is partnering with Intel .. to produce a low-cost notebook called the Classmate PC. ..... "Our No. 1 challenge," says Venkatesan, "is to make the PC more compelling and relevant."
Confessions of a Debt Pusher He ended up with $13,000 worth of debt that he is now struggling to repay. "I hadn't learned anything about credit cards in high school, and I didn't know anything about them at the time," says Rhoades. "I was duped." ..... maybe that's another person who got a credit card because they wanted a free T-shirt .... "He told us phrases to tell students if they were skeptical about filling out an application," says Rhoades. "He told us to say things like, 'Even if you apply, you can always cut up the card,' and 'It's easy to pay off your balance once you graduate and get a great job.'" ..... lures—the promise of a job and the prospect of just using the card during emergencies— ..... He was pretty successful, signing up roughly 29 students in a single morning. "Most of the students just wanted the T-shirt, and so I told them to fill out the application anyway," remembers Rhoades. "I just told them to fill it out and never use the card again." ....... even though the credit-card application terms and conditions were listed in fine print, none of the students even glanced at them. ..... "Students are rarely given financial literacy training," notes Dahlheimer. "And access to cards in the absence of a warning is like giving car keys to someone who has never been taught to drive." ...... He was just one application short of getting a cash bonus so he decided to fill one out himself. After marketing the cards all morning, he had begun to buy his own sales pitch ..... "They should put warnings on credit cards like they do on cigarettes," he says, "to make sure people know how dangerous the cards are."
Fixing the Credit-Card Mess limit the amount of credit extended to students to 20% of their total income if they have a co-signer, like a parent, or $500 without a co-signer. .... "No industry in America is more deserving of oversight by Congress ..... setting caps on interest rates, late payments .... Credit-card companies, according to consumer advocates, have operated since the early 1980s in a legislative no-fly zone ...... return address is most likely South Dakota or Delaware—states considered safe harbors for credit-card companies because they have no cap on interest rates or late payments ...... Credit in manageable amounts can be a wonderful thing for college students, allowing them to build credit histories and learn to manage money. ...... the Schumer Box, which clearly displays basic information like annual fees. ...... The warning, which would improve on the Schumer Box disclosures, would tell consumers how many years it would take to pay off their balance with only minimum payments, even if they never used the card again. ..... requiring that schools funded with taxpayer dollars disclose the key terms of their contracts with card companies. ..... extra charges and fees. Typically these are levied with impenetrable explanations that leave customers scratching their heads about how to avoid them in the future. ....... double-cycle billing. ..... Under universal default, a consumer who has two credit cards and never misses a payment on one card but fails to pay the other card on time can see the interest rates charged on both cards rise. ....... 8 in 10 banks still practice universal default ..... "pay to pay." .... ban any fees imposed for on-time payments by phone. ..... credit cards have become the most profitable arm of the banking industry. .... the explosion in money they've brought in from special fees and charges .... banks pulled in $17.1 billion from credit-card penalty fees in 2006 .... wide latitude to raise the interest rates and fees .. One common clause in their contracts is known as "any time for any reason, including no reason." .... Information is the lifeblood of a market economy. ..... crippling debt that could potentially harm their chances of getting a good job or an apartment. ..... the affinity contract between Virginia Tech and Chase.
Vodafone Eyes First Mideast Deal still in the hunt to win a contract to build a new mobile phone network in the Gulf state. ..... new Qatari licence could cost over $300m .... Vodafone has invested in high-growth emerging markets, most notably in India ..... Vodacom, the African operator of which it already owns half, and has invested heavily in Turkey and Egypt, pursuing growth in emerging markets while cutting costs and launching broadband services across Europe. ...... would strengthen Vodafone's hand in pursuing investment opportunities in other Middle Eastern countries
One Giant Leap for Entrepreneurs the $2 million first prize in the DARPA Urban Challenge—a series of races with driverless vehicles ...... sophisticated, unmanned vehicles for use in urban combat zones ....... the search giant's competition to land an unmanned vehicle on the moon and complete a series of tasks ...... the Google competition is an incentive for the emerging private space industry to build exploration technologies faster and on a tighter budget than the government ....... wily entrepreneurs like Whittaker .... deep-pocketed tycoons like Allen. ...... NASA, which plans to return a manned vehicle to the moon by 2020, makes no secret of the fact that if private entrepreneurs can build better technologies for cheaper, it will adopt them. .... it has awarded $200,000 to Peter Homer, who designed a better astronaut glove; and $250,000 to various entrepreneurs who engineered Jetsons-like personal air vehicles. ..... placing the bar so high is necessary to get great innovation ..... "The day before something is considered a breakthrough, it's considered a crazy idea, and the traditional industry will react against it" ..... in 1919 offered a $25,000 reward for anyone who could fly a nonstop flight across the Atlantic. ..... "As in any enterprise, the trick is not to spend your own money," he says. .... Japan, China, India, and Russia have all announced plans to fly to the moon .... create new industries or change existing ones.