“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Entrepreneurs Bible
Cool blog archive from Marc Andreessen
THE PMARCA GUIDE TO STARTUPS
- Part 1: Why not to do a startup
- Part 2: When the VCs say “no”
- Part 3: “But I don’t know any VCs!”
- Part 4: The only thing that matters
- Part 5: The Moby Dick theory of big companies
- Part 6: How much funding is too little? Too much?
- Part 7: Why a startup’s initial business plan doesn’t matter that much
- Part 8: Hiring, managing, promoting, and firing executives
- Part 9: How to hire a professional CEO
OTHER STARTUP ESSENTIALS
- The truth about venture capitalists, Part 1
- The truth about venture capitalists, Part 2
- The truth about venture capitalists, Part 3
- How to hire the best people you’ve ever worked with
- Serial entrepreneurs and today’s Silicon Valley
- The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6
- Age and the entrepreneur, part 1: Some data
- Luck and the entrepreneur, part 1: The four kinds of luck
ADDITIONAL PMARCA GUIDES
- Guide to Personal Productivity
- Guide to Career Planning, part 0: Introduction
- Guide to Career Planning, part 1: Opportunity
- Guide to Career Planning, part 2: Skills and education
- Guide to Career Planning, part 3: Where to go and why
- Guide to Big Companies, part 1: Turnaround!
- Guide to Big Companies, part 2: Retaining great people
ASSORTED GOODNESS
- Why there’s no such thing as Web 2.0
- Top 10 science fiction novelists of the ’00s — so far
- Why Ning?
- Book of the week: Best book for tech entrepreneurs this year
- The three kinds of platforms you meet on the Internet
- Music of the week: Three views of the blues, through jazz
- Eleven lessons learned about blogging, so far
- OK, you’re right, it IS a bubble
- Counterpoint: Ben Horowitz on micromanagement
- An hour and a half with Barack Obama
THE LONG KISS GOODBYE
Before he stopped posting, Marc tantalized readers with a “Coming Soon” list (reprinted below). I was particularly excited about the Guide to High-Tech Startups. Maybe someday. All we can do is hope.
Top 10 books for high-tech entrepreneurs
Top 10 ways to do personal outsourcing
Software — the velvet revolution and the multicore conundrum
How to trick out a Typepad blog in 2007
Killer Windows Media Center apps for 2007
The truth about reporters: a multi-part series
The Pmarca Guide to High-Tech Startups: a multi-part series
Why Internet advertising is about to get humongous
(in)humans in the world
Clarity from Action
People want clarity about their future before they take action.
However, clarity comes from action
Bright teams do amazing things
Bright Pixel tussled and did it again!
There are moments to be proud of what we are able to accomplish…
This year I did not manage to help a lot in the team effort to prepare another edition of Pixels Camp! One week has passed and I am still amazed of how managed to pull it off…
We had our biggest and best Pixels Camp ever and still managed to help host the first SONAE IM Investors Day on the first day and a great INSERT COIN LIVE on the second day of the main event, that closed with a bang with the traditional but always exciting hackaton pitching session!
I think it’s all about team effort and specially a true joy and commitment of all involved in making and sharing with the tech community the greatest event possible in three 24/7 packed days of fun and hard work.
Only with really great bright and passionate people can we make this type of event happen with so little resources and time to do so!
It’s the anti-fyre event! 😉
Where genuine breadth, content and work surpasses any type of hype and social media frenzy to make some noise…
This is also only possible because ALL the sponsors and partners are truly involved in the process of making the event a great experience for who comes by…
Now, we are thinking about guaranteeing that Pixels Camp and all the relevant side events that we promoted, namely Insert Coin, have a way of maintaining the momentum going during the whole year, until it’s time for another great edition of Pixels Camp! (if you want to contribute in any way of fashion, send us ideas!)
Ill wind
My music for this week
Keep your distance
Then no harm will come
Then no harm will come
No ill wind
Will blow
Will blow
Will blow
Will blow
Sudden words
Must never be spoken
Must never be spoken
All ill wind
Will blow
Will blow
Will blow
Will blow
Keep your cool
Do not give into emotion
Do not give into emotion
An ill wind
Will blow
Will blow
Will blow
Will blow
Purpose Matters
“Definiteness of Purpose is the starting point of all achievement.”—Napoleon Hill
A good life related quote
“Since the danger of living in wretchedness is greater than the danger of dying soon, he is a fool who refuses to stake a little time and win a hazard of great gain.”
Seneca the Younger (a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and satirist)
Impressive Lyft!
It’s perhaps a good day to say that there are some things in the world that sometimes just Lyft off and defy gravity, for no good nor sound reason at all!
Lyft, the winner in the ridehailing race to the public markets, has debuted on the NASDAQ in the year’s biggest listing so far. The company has priced its shares at $72 apiece, valuing its IPO at roughly $20.6 billion—a significant jump from the $15.1 billion valuation it reached in its latest funding round last year.
The company’s latest S-1 filing notes that Lyft’s co-founders, Logan Green and John Zimmer, will hold all of the company’s class B shares, which carry 20x the regular voting power. With nearly 49% of Lyft’s voting shares between the two, Green and Zimmer could reportedly hold respective stakes in the company worth $569 million and $393 million with a top-end pricing.
Junk Food VC
Funny enough, we looked at Dynamic Yield in the past and now it was swallowed by McDonald’s…
SUPERSIZE ME: McDonald’s will spend more than $300 million to buy Dynamic Yield, an Israel-based decision-logic company. McDonald’s plans to use the new technology so that its restaurants can personalize their drive-thru menu boards appropriately. For instance, the menu would display certain items depending on factors such as the weather…
More coffee on cold days and McFlurries on hot days.
| Dynamic Yield has raised more than $83 million in venture funding from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Viola Growth, Naver Corporation, Vertex Ventures, and Innovation Endeavors. According to the deal terms, Dynamic Yield will continue to operate as a standalone company. |
| This is McDonald’s largest acquisition in 20 years, and it’s the latest in a series of deliberate technology-focused moves for the company. In January, the fast-food chain announced a new “growth plan” that emphasized convenience and personalization through digital efforts like its mobile app and kiosks that allow customers to skip the front counter entirely. |
| “With this acquisition, we’re expanding both our ability to increase the role technology and data will play in our future and the speed with which we’ll be able to implement our vision of creating more personalised experiences for our customers,” McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook said in a statement. |
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