Tole's Take

A personal connection to the Good Technology-Motorola acquisition

Yes, I'm very late to the party on this one (but we did have a Board meeting to prepare for ...).  Wanted to add my congrats to the chorus of folks writing about Motorola's acquisition of Good Technology last Friday.  Danny Shader, Good's CEO, is a friend who I first met in 1999 when I was with WSGR.  In my last deal at the firm before leaving the law for a startup, we represented his company (Accept.com) in their acquisition by Amazon.com, the machinations of which were later chronicled in the book eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work.

So there you have it, a little personal connection to the day's news -- brings a tear to my eye thinking that was the last acquisition for both of us ... Big congrats to Danny and the team, well-deserved!

The Dems Are Kicking Again!

Even though I'm a lifelong Democrat who interned on the Senate Finance Committee under Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan during school, politics has definitely taken a back seat to building a startup these days.  That said, I still take a keen interest in Washington affairs, so it was gratifying to see the Democrats rebound so strongly just 2 years after one of the most thorough ass-kickings in history in 2004.

My fond hope is that they learn the lessons from recent history and not overestimate their mandate -- dust off the cloak of bipartisanship and get down to the job of moving the country forward.

The "Holy Grail" of Search: Is It Powerset?

Matt Marshall has a nice writeup on Powerset, the natural-language search engine that just closed a big first round of funding from Foundation Capital and the Founder's Fund.  Big congrats to Barney, Steve and the whole team -- from what we've seen thus far, they are on to something big (Barney is a friend and member of our Advisory Board at Krillion, I should add). 

As to the larger issue, what is the "holy grail" of search?  Is it natural-language search, or something even more futuristic?

Sure Sign You Are Not An Entrepreneur #2

"I just got into Harvard Business School; I'm debating whether I should go or whether I should start my own company.  What do you think?"

This isn't a debate, this isn't even in the same hemisphere as a debate.  What this is, however, is the second installment of Sure Signs That You Are Not An Entrepreneur.  The first one dealt with whining over a low stock price; this one deals with the angst of having a perceived tough choice to make.

Sure Sign You Are Not An Entrepreneur #1

"I need the stock to go up 30%, and then I need a guaranteed home run startup, preferably in the city (SF)"

A friend who shall remain nameless told me this a while back when we were having drinks with friends.  In spite of the fact that he was an early employee of a large, very successful public Internet company, he was bemoaning the fact that he hadn't sold his options in said company when the price was significantly higher.

If this thought has ever crossed your mind, this is a sure sign you are not an entrepreneur.

Set your Tivo: IKEA films our offices

Michael already has a good writeup on this on Krillionology.  I wanted to highlight how much fun it was shooting an IKEA spot in our offices last week -- it will air on Nov. 30 at 7:20pm on the local CBS news affiliate.

How did it come about?  99% of our office stuff comes from IKEA, and we have had friends walk by our offices in Mountain View and confuse our space with a furniture showroom (seriously).  Michael talked with the local IKEA manager on one of our frequent furniture runs and one thing led to another ...

In case you were interested in the startup economics angle, it's a no-brainer:

• $2000: cost for a brand-new office cubicle
• $800-1000: cost for a used office cubicle (and used means used in this case)
• $130: cost for the IKEA galant desks we chose for the office

Plus, the lack of cube walls leads to impromptu long-distance Nerf football games ...