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Fred Wilson is my favorite solo blogger. I drop by his blog most days. The days I can't, I drop by the following day and catch up on the missed posts. When I drop by, I leave a short comment. I was here!
What you do, what I do is ultimately about people. I read a quote from you a few weeks back where you are saying show me a web service that has major user engagement and I will show you a way to monetize it. If enough people show up, it will work.
Thank you for the rapid response to my blog post email yesterday. Here are some more details.
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.
Nepal: Background
Nepal is the poorest country outside of Africa. More than 75% of the countries on the planet are smaller populations than Nepal. So it is not that small a country. There are as many people in Nepal as there are in Iraq. You could have introduced democracy into Iraq the Nepal way and saved a trillion dollars in direct costs and more in indirect costs.
Nepal has been the most popular destination among Peace Corps volunteers for some reason during the half century of that program's existence. I don't really know why because I have not traveled the world.
Nepal is situated between India and China. Those two economies are growing at double digit rates. There are forecasts that show the Chinese economy will be bigger than the American economy by 2020. The democracy work in Nepal has implications for China and hence has larger geopolitical implications disproportionate to Nepal's size, especially when you take into account the Maoists of Nepal, the deadliest ultra left group on the planet since the end of the Cold War, and the Maoists of India, the number one security threat to India, as stated by the Indian government, affecting one third of that country's districts.
9/11 was a flashpoint, just like Pearl Harbor was a flashpoint. You don't want a third flashpoint in Taiwan. The Arab world and Africa and China are the three large chunks where democracy still is not in full play, but China stands out in that I don't think the American political system is what the Chinese need to convert to. The truth lies somewhere in between. America needs total campaign finance reform so it can truly become a one person one vote democracy. And China needs multi-party democracy and federalism and Tibet and Taiwan as states in that federal China. And the fermentations inside of Nepal going on right now in terms of mainstreaming the Maoists have implications for China and India. If Nepal can be turned into a multi-party democracy of state funded parties in the constitution that country is scheduled to write for itself within a year, then we will be on our way.
Iran
Just like Nepal has implications for China, Iran has implications for the entire Arab world. That country for Africa could be Zimbabwe. What is exciting about Iran is what success there could mean for Saudi Arabia and Egypt. When I see people out in the streets in Tehran I get visions of people out in the streets in Cairo.
After success in Nepal, I have witnessed wastes in Bhutan, Tibet, Burma and Iran. I have watched helplessly. The people on the ground have been doing the hard part - coming out into the streets in the face of immense brutality - and the world has been failing them in each case. A democracy movement is science, it can be made to work every single time. But you do have to mutate faster than the virus does. And you do have to take a holistic, global approach. There are basic principles that worked in Nepal that could work anywhere.
There are a few steps that the democracy movement in Iran needs to take, the most important is to shift the goal post. The goal can not be to get the existing regime to hold the presidential election all over again. The goal has to be regime change. The goal can not be to take the brutality lying down. The goal has to be to document every act of brutality to bring the perpetrators to justice once a new, interim government takes over power. The goal can not be to keep coming out into the streets. A democracy movement is supposed to last a few weeks at most, not months and years. You shut the country down completely until the regime gives way to an interim government with the mandate to hold elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking over power. That assembly would have two years to write a constitution. The democracy movement in Iran needs a leadership change. The current leader has not been able to think outside the box. He is boxed in. He is committed to functioning within the current mullahcracy in place.
My Work
It will be transparent, it will be digital, it will be political. My blog Barackface will be the hub of much of what I do. We are counting on the fact that the world is connected enough by now that everyone and every organization I need to reach out to and communicate with I can do digitally and in a massive way because a blog scales on its own. Social media is magic. And we are counting on the fact that I did this for Nepal, I can do this for Iran all over again.
After there is regime change and an interim government takes over, I will be done, my project complete. I will no longer need to give full time involvement, although I can't imagine not maintaining part time involvement all the way to the country getting itself a new constitution. After so much and such intense emotional involvement you don't just walk away.
You put in 5K of your personal money into this now, like today, like yesterday. Fred Wilson puts in his 5K once he is back from his Italy vacation in less than a week. And you two find me 18 other VCs who will put in 5K each by the end of July. Marc Andreessen 5K, Ben Horowitz 5K, Albert Wenger 5K, Brad Burnham 5K, Vinod Khosla 5K.
I start with 100K. It comes to me at the beginning - not in monthly installments - like you would do with a startup. If I can show success by September 2011 - in 15 months - each of you put in another 2.5K each for a total of 50K as a bonus payment to me. If I can do the whole thing in less than 15 months, the 150K deal still stands.
Tech
You are a VC. I am a tech entrepreneur. Why would we do this? Because ultimately it is all about people. It is about impacting lives. When the Iranians first took to the streets it warmed our hearts as to their use of Twitter as a tool. It is all related.
I am about 15 months away from my green card, and I am about 15 months away from launching my tech startup. My tech startup will be to do with the last mile of the ISP business. And from working on democracy in Iran to working on the startup is not going to feel like a career change to me. I think of democracy as the Big Bang in a country's life. It is a starting point of sorts. Once a country gets its democracy, it is on its way. But democracy alone does not put food on the table. And universal broadband is that magic wand that will help bridge the huge gulf between the West and the Global South. I had to come to America. Others like me don't have to if they can have broadband.
This post totally speaks to me. I think of the number 1.25 billion out of 6.7 billion people online the way Fred perhaps thinks about web services, his domain expertise. As someone who grew up in the Global South, I think of Internet Access - Internet as in broadband with full size keyboard - as the voting right for this century. This is the Internet Century.
When I started reading this post, I was thinking of Brad's post (that I read when it came out) before I had finished the first sentence.
The Al Qaeda is not a state, it is not even an organization any more. The Al Qaeda embodies two big trends - the Internet and Globalization - the way not even Kiva does. Bush went after Saddam instead of Bin Laden because, well, if the medicine I have is for cough (the nation state as an enemy), I am going after cough viruses, the facts be damned, don't tell me the diagnosis is for AIDS.
Fred and I might not be the best people to talk of security issues, but there are plenty of cyber security issues. Maybe that is worth a post. For all its promises, the Internet is just the newest platform for the age old fight between good and evil.
On the War On Terror, I do have very clear thoughts, unlike Fred. One, it is the same scale as the Cold War. Two, it will only conclude once all Arab countries have been turned into democracies. Three, there's the swamp part, and there is the mosquitoes part. I am not going to argue let the mosquitoes be, but I think draining the swamp is the real battle. The best way to introduce democracy to a country is the way we did it in Nepal in April 2006, through a mass movement. People who are not worried the mullahs in Iran might get pissed off if you impose sanctions talk like they are worried the mullahs might get pissed off if they give total support to the protesters in Iran. Beats me.
This tussle also reminds me of the capitalism-communism tussle, and you have to go all the way back to Lenin. When that dude did his 1917 thing, America had not seen FDR yet. FDR had to reinvent both democracy and capitalism to prepare the country for a fight with communism. A pre-FDR America could not have beat communism. Some synthesis happened.
Similarly the War On Terror will conclude through two types of transformations. One, all Arab countries end up being democracies. Two, America ends up a non-racist country. I know that is a loaded term for many people, but I am using it on purpose. A country where calling someone - Obama - a Muslim is passed on as calling him a name like happened in 2008 is still a racist country. If four Muslim young men in New Jersey were to talk violence in the privacy of their apartment, they are a cell, and will be thoroughly dealt with, but the Republican nominee competing against Harry Reid in Nevada is openly calling for violence, and I don't see law enforcement people getting excited about that. Is that a double standard or is that a double standard?
She has a permit to carry a concealed .44 Magnum and brags about bringing it to campaign events. But her passion also leads her to make troublesome statements: "The nation is arming," she said last month. "What are they arming for if it isn't that they are so distrustful of their government? They're afraid they'll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways. That's why I look at this as almost an imperative. If we don't win at the ballot box, what will be the next step?"
I have lost count of how many times I have been subjected to a dirty look or an outright dirty Q&A by some law enforcement officer this past decade, and I am not even Arab. The day 9/11 happened, I was in a small town in Kentucky. The locals called the cops on ME!
Timothy McVeigh was a motherfucker before he was a terrorist. That makes you a motherfucker. That is the angle I like to come from. So much for racial profiling.
America had its 9/11, India had its 11/9. But that 11/9 would be 9/11 because in India they put the number for the month second. The Islamists' tussle is with democracy itself, and India is the biggest pot.
"I am interested in understanding why you chose the title General Manager. It does not seem that you need one person to manage the small and largely self-motivated team."
Union Square Ventures: We Are Hiring"we have envisioned an Investment Analyst and a General Manager of the Union Square Ventures Network"
Fred Wilson and USV first put out a post weeks back saying Farewell Andrew Parker, or something along those lines. And someone commented, in all earnesty, who died? He did not say who died, he said I came over here huffing and puffing hoping noone had died or anything like that. Oh no, Andrew is thankfully alive and well, Fred had to respond.
And now this even more earnest comment on the management position. These two comments have so far stood out as the hiring process rolls on at USV.
Intra-Portfolio Evangelist. Now that is a title that could work for me. I could argue I have already been doing that for USV for free. I believe Vint Cerf is Chief Internet Evangelist at Google. (Vint Cerf, Craig Mundie, Steve Wozniak)
..... the successful candidates will spend a couple of years with us and then move on to a start up.... the GM of the USV Network will focus primarily on supporting our portfolio of 28 web services companies. ....... Because of our focused approach, many of our portfolio companies face similar challenges as they work to create and sustain user engagement, recruit talent, build relationships with partners, or design, code, and operate web services at scale. So it's no surprise that our portfolio companies are learning from each other. We have tried to facilitate that learning by hosting meetups and mailing lists, but we believe that we can do so much more. .......build on our early work to create a useful and sustainable connection between the portfolio companies. Think of it as a community manager for the USV portfolio. The community is small, and private, but populated by people and companies who are having a big impact on the web...... Build on the current platform of mailing lists and meetups by identifying and implementing social tools and services that create value for USV portfolio companies.....Identifying best practices in areas like social media, search, and online marketing and sharing those in the network.....Helping the portfolio companies recruit and hire great employees.....Organizing events like the annual portfolio company CEO summit...... Fostering connection online and offline between the functional disciplines (marketing, sales, finance, etc) in each portfolio company....... Strong interpersonal skills ..... Proven ability to foster communication and cooperation among diverse individuals online and offline...... Hands on experience with light weight tools such as Wikis, mailing lists, etc...... Several years of management experience in flat, matrix, or loosely coupled organizations...... At Union Square Ventures, we basically do two things. We try to make the best investments we can and then we do everything we can to help our portfolio companies succeed....... At the end of the day, we will hire two people who will help us make investments and support the portfolio. If you think your skills would be a better fit in a slightly different alignment, feel free to make that point....... very important to us that the candidates for these positions share our conviction about the transformational potential of the web......be prepared to forcefully defend thoughtful positions on potential investments, but to also consider carefully the positions of others and to be intellectually honest and open to persuasion....... "net native" .....
Ideally, I would do one year, but I could do two. But two would be max.
Vision and group dynamics are my major strengths.
I got myself elected student body president at the number one liberal arts college in the (Bible Belt) South within six months of landing as an international student. When I landed I could not have told you the cultural differences between Kentucky and California. I spoke so fast, people asked me if I was from New York. One friend who voted for me later told me, "I did not understand a word you said, but you sounded so excited I figured you might do something, so I voted for you." They had to change the constitution so I could run as a freshman.
In 1999 I was one of the founding members of Chaitime.com that raised 25 million dollars before it succumbed to the nuclear winter. We were trying to be the premier South Asian online community. We had offices in Philadelphia, Toronto, London, Mumbai.
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, January-February 2007, and February 2008, and more recently in February 2009 were political cyclones. 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.
And I see things. I got vision.
I am a Net Native.
I don't live in America. I live on the Net. I am a Netizen. America is Europe, the Internet is America. I said that over a decade ago.
I did Nobel Peace Prize quality work a few years back for the democracy and social justice movements in Nepal. I did my work entirely online. Nepal is the poorest country outside of Africa.
I am the second richest farmer in my neighborhood on Farmville. Was the richest. A few weeks back someone with more XP than me befriended me, but he has a few weeks at best.
I am more than a Net Native. I am a Net Entrepreneur. I don't want to just live online. Online is where work is. After USV it is a startup for me, my own startup.
I was early on Geocities. I was also early on Hotmail, Flickr, LinkedIn, Friendster, Gmail, Wave, among the other obvious names.
"If you think your skills would be a better fit in a slightly different alignment, feel free to make that point."
I think I am a great fit for the Intra-Portfolio Evangelist position. Other than what you have already mentioned, and what you have mentioned does cover what I am about to say, but I'd like to go ahead and specify nevertheless.
I want to make a case that Twitter needs to go public before Facebook, and it needs to do so this year, earlier the better. I have a few ideas on how FourSquare can cement its number one position in the location space. I think it is very important USV get into Chatroulette early and help it cement its number one position in the random connections space. And I want to help find the next FourSquare, just be on the lookout.
I hope this is not a salary only job. I hope you can add elements that give it an entrepreneurial feel. I am assuming there is a decent six figure salary, but that there is also some kind of a performance-based percentage cut of sorts. I'd be eager to suggest something on that pertaining to Twitter. And I hope you are not too rigid on office hours. Working long hours is second nature to me. But this job feels pretty citywide to me, and also bi-coastal. And I expect to be reading a ton of books on the clock in preparation for some specific projects I have in mind. A Kindle as a business expense item?
I am excited. What can I say? I feel like Bill Clinton when he was applying for colleges. The dude applied to just one school. Georgetown was in DC, it was a good school, and it had a strong foreign service program. I hope you hire me. Summer is absolutely beautiful in New York.
This video is from 2005.
LinkedIn tells me all five USV people are circle two to me: Fred Wilson (3 shared connections), Brad Burnham (2), Albert Wenger (4), Eric Friedman (2), and Andrew Parker (5 shared connections). Looking forward to bringing all of them into circle one.
Image by Meetup via CrunchBase
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