Showing posts with label BBC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BBC. Show all posts

Sunday, April 02, 2023

Just Applied To Y Combinator

In 2010, Paul Graham and I were featured in the same BBC article.





How Y Combinator Started I don't think we've ever managed to remember our birthday on our birthday. ......... The VC fund was doing what now seems a comically familiar thing for a VC fund to do: taking a long time to make up their mind. ......... As we turned onto Walker Street we decided to do it. I agreed to put $100k into the new fund and Jessica agreed to quit her job to work for it. Over the next couple days I recruited Robert and Trevor, who put in another $50k each. So YC started with $200k. ........... The company wasn't called Y Combinator yet. At first we called it Cambridge Seed. ........ Initially we only had part of the idea. We were going to do seed funding with standardized terms. Before YC, seed funding was very haphazard. You'd get that first $10k from your friend's rich uncle. The deal terms were often a disaster; often neither the investor nor the founders nor the lawyer knew what the documents should look like. Facebook's early history as a Florida LLC shows how random things could be in those days. ........ We started Viaweb with $10k we got from our friend Julian Weber, the husband of Idelle Weber, whose painting class I took as a grad student at Harvard. Julian knew about business, but you would not describe him as a suit. ............ In return for $10k, getting us set up as a company, teaching us what business was about, and remaining calm in times of crisis, Julian got 10% of Viaweb. I remember thinking once what a good deal Julian got. ............ we wanted to learn how to be angel investors, and a summer program for undergrads seemed the fastest way to do it. No one takes summer jobs that seriously. The opportunity cost for a bunch of undergrads to spend a summer working on startups was low enough that we wouldn't feel guilty encouraging them to do it. ............. The structure of the YC cycle is still almost identical to what it was that first summer. ............ We never expected to make any money from that first batch. We thought of the money we were investing as a combination of an educational expense and a charitable donation. But the founders in the first batch turned out to be surprisingly good. And great people too. We're still friends with a lot of them today. ............ It's hard for people to realize now how inconsequential YC seemed at the time. .......... Jessica and I invented a term, "the Y Combinator effect," to describe the moment when the realization hit someone that YC was not totally lame. When people came to YC to speak at the dinners that first summer, they came in the spirit of someone coming to address a Boy Scout troop. By the time they left the building they were all saying some variant of "Wow, these companies might actually succeed." .......... it took a while for reputation to catch up with reality ....... That's one of the reasons we especially like funding ideas that might be dismissed as "toys" — because YC itself was dismissed as one initially. ........ The density of startup people in the Bay Area was so much greater than in Boston, and the weather was so nice. ........ Plus I didn't want someone else to copy us and describe it as the Y Combinator of Silicon Valley. I wanted YC to be the Y Combinator of Silicon Valley. So doing the winter batch in California seemed like one of those rare cases where the self-indulgent choice and the ambitious one were the same........ we didn't have time to get a building in Berkeley. We didn't have time to get our own building anywhere. The only way to get enough space in time was to convince Trevor to let us take over part of his (as it then seemed) giant building in Mountain View. .......

The first dinner in California, we had to warn all the founders not to touch the walls, because the paint was still wet.



Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Paul Graham Is Not That Innocent


Let me state the obvious first. I am a huge admirer of what Paul Graham has built in Y Combinator. And I have drawn enormous inspiration from many of his essays on tech startups. And it was an honor to once get featured in the same BBC article as Paul Graham and Brad Feld. (Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC)

And now let me get to the topic at hand. Yes, Paul Graham was misquoted. But that does not change the fact that Paul Graham is guilty of sexism just like I am. I would not accuse him of extreme sexism. I might save that for a ton of men in India. But guilty he is. Why do I say that?

You were there when girls around you were 13. If you did not see sexism then, then you were willfully blind. You very well participated in it. Sexism starts early. Young girls feeding on sexist media do weird things with what they eat. That is sexism.

I don't think there is something fundamental about men and women that makes men head for STEM. Once girls get hit by the pot of sexism early on, they kind of lose their balance, and they end up making weird choices like not going towards STEM with greater gusto than they do.

Paul Graham wondering as to why 13 year old girls don't code more is not exactly like Newton wondering why the apple fell on his head. But sexism IS social gravity. It is all pervasive and all powerful, and all men participate in it, it is only a matter of degree, some more, some less, but we all do.

Sexism is really cutting edge, as is racism. It is as if not more cutting edge than the Internet itself, only the Internet is technology and communications and commerce, sexism and racism are social. It is like I am at this Internet Society event, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee on stage. And I was and am a huge admirer of the guys. I literally think of the Internet as a new country, a feeling further enforced by a recent Indian Supreme Court decision that is blatantly homophobic. (Homophobia is sick, okay?) And I ask my question of Tim. If the Internet is a country which of you is George Washington, which is Thomas Jefferson? Tim gets offended and says "different race" in an unpleasant way. And I am like, I don't believe this motherfucker. And I made a "mad scientist" remark. (Tim Berners-Lee: The Internet Is Not A Country)

Paul Graham said recently something about "heavy accents," and there he was not misquoted, and I thought that was a racist thing to be saying.

Fred Wilson: Girls Who Code
Paul Graham: What I Did Not Say
Taylor Rose: Girls Haven’t Been Hacking for the Last 10 Years
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Thursday, July 21, 2011

"Can You Understand This?"

William ShakespeareImage by tonynetone via FlickrRadio Nepal would serve the news in Nepali at seven, morning and evening, and the news in English an hour later at eight. This was during the days of the autocratic monarchy. And so there was much state propaganda. I much preferred listening to the BBC. In English, of course.

Of course no one in my village listened to the news in English. The smart ones listened to the BBC Hindi service.

But then there was always some smart alec who would turn the radio on for the eight o'clock news in English.

"Can you understand this?"

"Yes."

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Robin Hood: My German Nickname



A German newspaper called me Robin Hood On The Internet when I was in the thick of my democracy work for Nepal early in 2006. First it was a newspaper article. Apparently that drew some interest. I got an email saying a whole bunch of radio stations in Germany wanted a piece of me. So I showed up at their studio near Grand Central and did the interview. I don't have a copy. But I got told there would be voice over in German, totally understandable.

"Robin Hood Im Internet"

Around the same time I overslept through a BBC talk program where I was supposed to call in. I felt bad.

BBC Calls

When I got called Robin Hood in 2006, I was simply amused. Wow, of all things you would call me that? But now I think I could use that nickname as I gear up to do microfinance work.

If it were not for the fucked up immigration laws in this country, I'd already be on my way.

Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Pick Up That Bag


Barackface

Barack Obama said to Charlie Rose in 2007: "Only a few years back people were throwing keys at me in the parking lot."

So I am at this event Wednesday afternoon. And I don't even drink wine.

A Few More Events?

When it was time to get started, and people started to sit down, I saw an empty spot and took the seat. A little later one woman, then another came to get their bags. I was too busy tweeting away to give much attention. But my first thought was, oh no, did I just take someone else's seat?

"Was this your seat? You can have it," I said each time. And went right back to tweeting when the response was, "No, that's okay."

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Meeting Brad Feld



I got to meet Mark Suster yesterday, and Brad Feld today, and I get to meet Vin Vacanti next week. In Vacanti's case it will not be my first time, but still. What do you think is going on? StartUp Week, that's what.

TechStars' Geographical Advantage Over Y Combinator
Brad Feld
StartUp Week At NYU April 6-15
To: Brad Feld, Subject: Iran And Me (Digital Ninja/Commando)
Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
Paul Graham, Brad Feld, Me, BBC
To Iran, With Love (3)
To Iran, With Love (1)
To Iran, With Love (2)

Both Mark and Brad recognized me right away. We have interacted online. I have interacted more with Brad than with Mark. At one point I was trying to get Brad to fund my work into Iran democracy.

"Oh, hey," Brad said when it was my turn to greet him.

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

48 Hours


It was two days before Demo Day at Y Combinator and Daniel Gross had moved from product to product like I had changed majors at college. The guy had nothing for Demo Day. The textbook thing to do for Paul Graham was to say, you know what, you had your 12 weeks, tough, you are out. But Paul Graham took the road not taken, and that made all the difference.

Greplin: The First Y Combinator Company To Get Me Excited

Greplin happened during the final 48 hours.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Me @ CNN

This is from a while back in December. Notice how I pay homage to Charlie in my quote. It's an inside joke. You will get it if you read his blog.

Me @ BBC

Monday, February 14, 2011

When Zuck's Facebook Account Got Hacked

BBC: January 26: Facebook blames bug for Zuckerberg 'hacking': Facebook has said "a bug" was to blame for an odd posting purporting to come from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. ..... Overnight, the cryptic message was posted to the Facebook fan page in the name of the 26-year old billionaire founder. .... It called for the site to become a "social business" with investment from its users. .... The message, left in the name of Mr Zuckerberg, read: "Let the hacking begin: If Facebook needs money, instead of going
Muhammad Yunus, Winner of 2006 Nobel Peace PrizeImage via Wikipediato the banks, why doesn't Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? ..... "Why not transform Facebook into a 'social business' the way Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus described it?" ..... Muhammad Yunus is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the founder of the Grameen Bank, which offers small loans to people who have no collateral to get started in business...... The message also linked to a recently edited Wikipedia article about social business and asked readers: "what do you think?"

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

To: CDO Sterne


CDO Sterne.

I am honored you reached out to us informers amongst the citizenry. You might be new to your job, but I am getting the impression you have the chops for it. You are showing early signs.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Recession Over, Unemployment Still High


BBC: US Federal Reserve cuts 2011 growth forecast: The Fed expects growth of 3-3.6% next year, down from its previous 3.5-4.2% estimate. .... the US economy grew faster than first thought in the third quarter of this year, at an annualised rate of 2.5%. ...... US Federal Reserve said it would buy $600bn (£373bn) of US government debts in order to try to lower long-term interest rates and thereby boost the economic recovery. ...... support for the move on the policy committee was almost unanimous, with only one member voting against. ..... among the positive effects of quantitative easing that they noted was a lower value in the dollar. ..... the unemployment rate remains stubbornly high at 9.6%.

There is not going to be a double dip recession. The Great Recession could easily have become the second Great Depression, but it didn't, thanks to the stimulus package. The banks are back in shape. Spending is going up. But the unemployment is still at European levels, and that is a big problem. It has to be brought down to something like 6%.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

TechStars' Geographical Advantage Over Y Combinator

Image representing TechStars as depicted in Cr...Image via CrunchBase
TechCrunch: TechStars Launches Ten New Startups In Seattle: six of the first twenty companies to go through the program have been acquired by larger companies, and about 70% of its companies have been funded and/or are now profitable.
Y Combinator is in the Valley. Y Combinator has done something remarkable. I think Y Combinator is the reason we have a new species in town: the super angel. But Y Combinator is in the Valley. Being in the Valley, in the Valley alone is a disadvantage. People don't buy servers anymore. They have Amazon web services. Times have changed. Some of the best programmers I know are self taught people. All the material you need to teach yourself programming is available online for free. And so the idea that you have to be in the Valley to be part of the action, well, that is passe.

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Brazil's Lula

Brazil's Lula: The Most Popular Politician on Earth - Newsweek: grew up so poor, he didn't find out what bread was until he was 7 ..... made the 1,900-mile journey from the country's northeastern dustbowl for a life in the slums of São Paulo ..... dropped out of school in the fifth grade, shined shoes on the street, and went to work in a factory at 14, losing a finger to a lathe ...... rose through the rank and file to become an internationally respected union leader ..... practically shut down the continent's industrial powerhouse 
2501ChavezMarcelloImage via Wikipediain the name of the steelworkers. ..... blunt, bearded ..... approval rating above 70 percent. .... "That's my man right there," Obama greeted him at the G20 summit in London in April. "The most popular politician on earth." ...... Brazil has withstood the global crisis better than almost any other nation: not a single bank went under, inflation is low, and the economy is growing ...... outpacing Russia and joining India and China ..... has repeatedly pumped up the minimum wage (up 67 percent since 2003 ...... long hours of practice have refined his shop-floor grammar and vocabulary ..... nothing vexes Lula more than being trapped in his office ..... 'I need to get out and travel, and meet people.' His connection is with the little guy. ...... likes nothing more than to ditch protocol, go off script, and (to the despair of his security detail) wade into an adoring crowd. ...... Starting in 1989, he ran for president three times, surging in early polls only to hit a wall on voting day. By the late '90s he was on the verge of quitting politics. Instead, he did something bolder: he remade himself. He stopped his fist-waving harangues, climbed into a suit, and hired a speech coach and a marketing wizard. ......... a "Letter to the Brazilian People," pledging to honor contracts, pay down the country's debts, abide by the International Monetary Fund's requirements, and generally play by the rules of the market. ....
Brasília – Presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silv...Image via Wikipedia... To convince lenders Brazil was serious, Lula increased the "primary budget surplus"—the money the government puts aside every year to pay debt and interest—and boosted lending rates to a scorching 26 percent a year, throttling growth in order to kill inflation. He also kept government wages and pensions under control. "The unions and many people in the party hated it ........ was like a piece of blotting paper. ..... putting pragmatism ahead of ideology and, for the most part, fiscal restraint over the quick fix. .....With a web of hydroelectric stations and half its fleet of cars running on clean-burning sugar-cane ethanol, the country has long been the benchmark in renewable energy. ..... , exporting more beef, soybeans, and frozen chickens than any other nation ..... his aggressive diplomacy has rallied poorer nations to demand free trade and a new deal in the international economy. .......... his ability to sell unpalatable reforms to a largely poor population that looked to him as something of a savior ..... He gave the central bank a free hand to control inflation ....... He blamed the subprime market mess on "white-skinned, blue-eyed" bankers and ridiculed the champions of deregulation and the "minimal" state. "In the '80s and '90s it was fashionable to deride the state," he says. "But in the blink of the eye, the [free] market nearly bankrupted the world. And who did they go to for a bailout? The state." ...... He even defends the ham-fisted rule of Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. "Give me one example of how Venezuela is not a democracy!" ...... Then he turned the tables: why not hold the next G7 meeting in Brazil, he challenged. "After all, in 20 years maybe only three of you will still be around." Not everyone was amused.
Lula reminds me of my own Laloo. Laloo was also a self described "man of the people." It is India's misfortune that Laloo is no longer Railway Minister. Rahul Gandhi felt Laloo had prime ministerial ambitions, and so Rahul cut him to size in Laloo's home state of Bihar.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Microsoft: Smartphone, Tablet, Bar Code

Image representing Microsoft as depicted in Cr...Image via CrunchBase
TechFlash: Microsoft Tag claims front-runner status among next-gen barcodes: Microsoft this morning claimed new momentum for its Microsoft Tag technology, which lets people scan color barcodes with their phones to automatically connect to online sites, phone numbers and other corners of the digital world. According to Microsoft, more than 1 billion Tags have been printed in the past four months, fueled by heavy usage in magazines and other print campaigns.

Sunday, July 04, 2010

Happy July 4 Fred Wilson, Brad Feld

LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 28:  Iranian-Americans ...Image by Getty Images via @daylife
Hello VCs.

I am about 15 months away from a green card, and about that far away from launching my startup, which right now I think will be something to do with the last mile of the ISP business. I think the best use of my time from now till then would be to pour myself fully into the democracy movement in Iran. I have done this before, I can do this again. I did this for Nepal in 2006. This is what I have had to say about that:
There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. What happened in Nepal in April 2006 was a political cyclone. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City. In April 2006, over a period of 19 days, about eight million people out of the country's 27 million came out into the streets to shut the country down completely to force a dictator out.
This work will help me keep polishing my two strengths that I would bring to my startup: vision and group dynamics. Internet access is the voting right for this century, the Internet Century, and to do well in that business you have to be able to deeply care about masses of people like those that have been thronging into the streets of Iran.

Iran is a low hanging fruit. The hardest part of a democracy movement is getting people to come out into the streets. Well, that has been happening in Iran. This world is connected enough by now that one Digital Ninja/Commando based out of New York City could make that fundamental difference. Everyone I need to meet in person for this work is right here in New York City, primarily members of the Iranian diaspora. All I would need is a laptop, a smartphone and a monthly metro pass. And me.

I need you guys to sponsor this work out of your own pocket. Put in 5K each, and find me 18 other VCs who will put in 5K each. I ask for 100K and 15 months. That would be enough time. If I succeed, you get to put in another 2.5K each for a 50K bonus to me. This 5K you might put into this is the equivalent of 5 million you might put into Kiva. Democracy is the ultimate fishing net you can give to a people. Once they have a modern democracy, they can help themselves.

Looking forward to it. Happy July 4.

Paramendra.

Me @ BBC
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld
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Thursday, May 13, 2010

Me @ BBC



LONDON, ENGLAND - MARCH 02:  A BBC logo adorns...Image by Getty Images via Daylife
This BBC article is the biggest media mention of me to date. The last time I had anything even remotely close was when a German newspaper wrote an article calling me Robin Hood On The Internet, ("Robin Hood Im Internet") and that was in 2006 for my fierce work into Nepal's democracy movement. That article also resulted in me getting interviewed by German radio right here in Manhattan. They said that newspaper article created a demand among many local radio stations. And that of course they will translate, and the voice over will be in German. I showed up at their state of the art studio, did my interview, and left. No snacks, nothing. Around that same time I was also lined up to appear over the phone for a BBC program. This was going to be live. But I overslept. And felt so bad about having overslept. It was like winning a marathon and missing out the awards ceremony. But I blogged saying I got invited on to the program. (BBC Calls) That was like giving myself a consolation prize.

It is also a good feeling to get followed by Ann Curry on Twitter. (Direct Messages From Ann Curry, Steve Case, Robert Scoble) I am strong on social media, on new media, but I have always been big on old media. You have to grow up listening to BBC radio as your only reliable news source in a non democratic country to truly appreciate what that brand name means. And I was a guy who could even listen to the BBC in English. That impressed a lot of people back in the days.

You can speak English? Okay, so speak. I want to hear what it sounds like.

United States To Woo Entrepreneurs With New Visa Law BBC News
Paramendra Bhagat, a budding entrepreneur, wanders around the cream of New York's tech scene, shaking hands and making contacts.

This is the NY Tech Meet-Up, a well-known monthly gathering of more than 700 people, including venture capitalists (VCs) looking to fund the next Facebook.

Sitting in a large auditorium in Chelsea, there is a crowd of hip, skinny people and the earliest of early adopters. One man ignores all the presentations to watch live baseball on his iPad - four days after it launched.

"I'm here because this is where all the opportunities are, in New York," Mr Bhagat says.
After the presentations finish and the mingling begins, he goes around talking to the investors, telling anyone prepared to listen about his start-up, which aims to bring poor people in the Indian sub-continent online.

But Mr Bhagat is from Nepal, and despite having been in New York since 2005, US visa regulations mean there is no easy way for him to stay in the US as an entrepreneur.

Even though, he says, "there are immigrants who want to come, and VCs who need them".
The news article mentions Paul Graham, it mentions Brad Feld. That is august company.

A Soft Spot For Mike Arrington
Paul Graham: Y Combinator
An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld

Kabir Chibber| NewsCred
Kabir Chibber- Goal Blog - NYTimes.com
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Kabir Chibber on Vimeo
Kabir Chibber [Monocle]
Kabir Chibber - LinkedIn
Kabir Chibber - journalisted.com
Kabir Chibber” Search Results « Prospect Magazine


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