Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
Vivek Wadhwa has a guest post up on TechCrunch, “What Have VCs Really Done For Innovation?” It’s obviously meant to court controversy. Mission accomplished.This post is my refutation. Wadhwa’s post claims:1) VCs have little to no impact on startup success, and in fact, may have a negative impact2) Venture capital slows the innovation processThis is … Continue reading VCs Are Useless? That’s Bullshit.
…if Twitter weren’t down. Chris Yeh-ism of the day: “Revolution plays well to early adopters, but the mainstream is looking for solutions, not revolutions.” (from a comment on Oliver Young’s blog)Great insights from Gil Yehuda: Same people plus same process yields same results. To get different results, you need different people, or a different approach … Continue reading Things I Would Have Tweeted…
My good friend Jackie Danicki has a great post up on why people who talk about “public ownership” are stark raving mad.Lots of things are owned by the government or state – roads, schools, hospitals, etc. Just because they’re paid for by taxpayers does not mean we own them – coercing “investment” from the public … Continue reading Why Profit Motive Is The Best Way To Ensure The Public Good
Robin Hanson at Overcoming Bias poses this provocative question in his latest post: Many people say they favor redistribution from the rich to the poor because they feel sorry for the poor. The poor suffer from having too little money, and it doesn’t take much money to help them a lot. In contrast, the rich … Continue reading If we redistribute wealth, why not beauty?
I recently got embroiled in a bit of a contretemps on Matt Yglesias’ blog about my post on Charles Murray’s recent comments about the European model. Yglesias is a self-identified progressive, which means that many of his readers think of “capitalism” as a dirty word. One of the commenters really disliked my concept of the … Continue reading Am I a horrible person whom children should jeer and pelt with dung?
We are the strongest and richest country in the world, and I have no desire to see us become a nation of cringing, self-loathing apologists. Yet it is also true that one can show grace in the exercise of power, rather than taunting those in a weaker position. The real model for this is George … Continue reading Why American Needs To Return To Soft Power
The key is not trying to bite off more than you can chew. What is the simplest way to feed people that will disrupt the economies of famine-hit countries as little as possible? The key is not to impose new infrastructure, but to leverage existing infrastructure. Another key assumption: I’m only worried about food. I’ll … Continue reading How To End World Hunger And Turn A Profit
In the spirit of Scott Adams, who uses his blog to offer simple solutions to the world’s most intractable problems, I’d like to offer my thoughts on solving the problems of poverty and the welfare state. On the one hand, it seems wrong for so many to live in squalor during a time of such … Continue reading A Modest Proposal to Solve Poverty: The Miserly Welfare State
Out of 168 countries surveyed by Jody Heymann, who teaches at both the Harvard School of Public Health and McGill University, the U.S. is one of only five without mandatory paid maternity leave—along with Lesotho, Liberia, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland. —The Opt-Out Myth, by E. J. Graff From an economics standpoint, I’m not sure … Continue reading Stat of the Day: Paid Maternity Leave