Showing posts with label sam lessin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sam lessin. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Sam Lessin Of Slow

Musk’s grand vision for Twitter faces reality check in Asia His biggest headaches lie abroad. The question to be answered over the coming years is how far Musk will stick with his promises of freeing up Twitter — not just in the US, but in the rest of the world. ...... For all the furore about which way Elon Musk might tilt US political discourse after getting the keys to Twitter Inc, his biggest challenges may emerge across the Pacific. ........... If the Tesla Inc and SpaceX billionaire makes good on promises to scrap censorship, he’ll encounter a plethora of perplexing regulations, wielded by sometimes authoritarian governments, pushed to the limits by a horde of first-time Internet users. ....... Twitter’s monetisable daily active users numbered 179 million internationally — dwarfing the 38 million in the US in 2021 ........ “Asia has the potential to make or break the new Twitter” ........ Twitter is officially banned in China, but the country will still demand a lot of Musk’s attention. Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos alluded to the potential conflicts in a tweet shortly after Musk’s deal, asking “Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?” ....... An obvious point is that China is tremendously important for Tesla, the key source of Musk’s wealth. The billionaire will certainly face pressures — implicit or explicit — to fine-tune Twitter’s policies to please Beijing. ...... As the world’s biggest electric-vehicle market as well as a supplier of Tesla batteries, China is essential to the healthy growth of the centrepiece of Musk’s business empire. Tesla has also benefited from significant tax breaks in setting up his Shanghai Gigafactory — its first overseas plant — and been allowed to wholly own its local operations, a rarity for a US firm. .......... A pressing issue is how Twitter handles China’s efforts to spread propaganda globally on the platform. The company in 2020 instituted labels for government officials and “state-affiliated media” for publications like Xinhua and Global Times, and readers are reminded of this government-backing any time they like or retweet stories. Chinese media have called the practice “intimidation” and already begun to lobby the billionaire to roll it back. ........ Bots are another matter. China has also used automated and anonymous accounts to distribute the government’s messages, which prompted Twitter to remove more than 170,000 accounts in 2020 for “spreading geopolitical narratives favourable to the Communist Party.” Musk has pledged to “defeat the spam bots or die trying!” and sounds determined to keep taking on the fake accounts. ......... Beijing has shown a willingness to punish billionaires who don’t comply with its wishes. Regulators have hammered the country’s tech giants and effectively banished Alibaba Group Holding Ltd co-founder Jack Ma from public view. ........ Musk’s SpaceX could certainly seek Chinese customers, while his Boring Co may profit from lucrative infrastructure contracts in the country.



Job interest in Twitter skyrocketed more than 250% since Elon Musk moved to take over. But current employees are nervous.
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Saturday, May 07, 2022

Sam Lessin



A DAO To Topple Putin By Christmas

Sam Lessin General Partner, Slow Ventures Lessin was a personal investor in crypto before his firm made numerous bets including blockchain privacy startup Aleo (valued at $1.5B), blockchain platform Chia Network (valued at $500), and Solana. ........ Other than crypto, Lessin backed cloud software startup Airtable, valued at $11.7 billion, and rocket launch company Astra, which went public at a $2.1 billion valuation in 2021. ........ Lessin founded Slow Ventures in 2015 alongside Kevin Colleran and Dave Morin (who has since left). The firm has raised $750 million over the last seven years. ......... Once Facebook's vice president of product management, Lessin now works with pal Mark Zuckerberg's sister, Arielle

Slow’s Newest Seed and Opportunity Funds… More of The Same! We wanted to share with the Slow community the launch of our fifth seed fund (Slow Ventures V), and Slow’s second Opportunity fund (Slow Opportunity II), representing together $325M in new capital commitments for us to invest in the coming years. In total, Slow now manages $770M of investor capital and has invested in more than 550 companies over the past decade. ........ Our point of entry remains at the Pre-Seed and Seed stage and then we continue to support and invest in the later stages as these companies continue to grow. ......... we will seek out and support companies from the earliest days — long before a new thesis is proven or before it is simply about scaling. We love entrepreneurs who ask ‘what if’ and take calculated risks on new markets, business models, and technical innovations. ...... Our goal is to be intelligently non-consensus. So much of what is called ‘venture capital’ has simply become a matter of piling capital into things which everyone sees and knows is ‘working’. Our job is to push the envelope ahead of the herd of large funds. ........ and are always looking for the next frontiers ........ Currently we have several new ideas we are exploring, from

launching and managing DAOs

to investing in individual humans in exchange for a piece of their future value creation, all in an effort to find the next great and unrealized truly ‘venture’ opportunities. ......... We care about impact, not facetime. Time is always money, but even more so at the seed stage. ....... We don’t take board seats and we don’t demand in-depth investor meetings. ........ We want to help founders understand how the venture game is being played. Lots of guidance and advice founders rely on is quickly out of date in this rapidly changing market so we help founders better understand the dynamics at play ........ We’ve honed our network and processes to give founders the best opportunity to raise the capital they need from the most appropriate top tier investors focused on their sector and stage. ........ To us, it really isn’t that complicated. We remain as we have always been, generalists who believe in backing great people with great hypotheses, trying to prove they are correct. We take pride in funding founders from the earliest days, before everyone else comes knocking, we believe the best things take time, and we take pride in delivering capital to founders when it really matters.

Sam Lessin’s Lessons From Backing Solana, $350M For Jump Capital And A Red-Hot Recruiting Software Raise In Santa Monica

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Monday, November 01, 2010

Dropio Acquired

Image representing Sam Lessin as depicted in C...Image by jessica vascellaro via CrunchBaseI was just over at Mark Peter Davis' blog for this blog post and learned there Dropio has been acquired - wow - and by Facebook? Congrats, people.

FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology
Digital Dumbo: Here I Come
Venmo And Frictionless Payments
Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever
The Far Future Of Databases At The Dropio Offices
A MeetUp Has Me Excited: Y + 30
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Thursday, May 27, 2010

Indaba Music: NY Tech Talks MeetUp

Image representing Indaba Music as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
Tuesday evening I showed up at the MeetUp offices for a great MeetUp run by the MeetUp CTO Greg Whalin. This was my second time at the MeetUp. The last time I went Dropio was presenting. Sam Lessin and Jacob Robbins showed up. Jacob showed up also for this one.

Ends up I am also going to the Digital Dumbo event later this evening. I think I am figuring it out. Digital Dumbo is like the NY Tech MeetUp after party ought to feel like. The beer is free, although one is usually more than enough for me. At last month's Digital Dumbo, I found myself drinking water. When I wanted my second cup and turned around, there was this guy standing between me and the water. He was busy talking. So I decided to not interrupt. He was leaning right against the water stand.

The beer is free. The venue is a tech company's office. The area is like no other in town: Dumbo. All those who show up are in the industry.

At Greg's MeetUp, this time it was the turn of Indaba Music. I guess they have been around a few years. They are a Ruby shop: Jesse Chan-Norris was the key presenter. One of Jesse's parents had last name Chan as in Jackie Chan, another had last name Norris as in Chuck Norris. It was a tech heavy talk that lasted for an hour and a half. And then about 10 of us just hung around for another hour. Etsy dude Christopher Munns did some juicy story telling, tech style.

Ruby On Rails
Ruby On Rails - Wikipedia
Ruby On Rails 3.0 Moves Nearer Release Rails 3.0 features the merger of Rails with the Merb framework .... an Action Rails 3.0 API and an Active Record chainable query language based on relational algebra

His events mailing list is the best thing Charlie O'Donnell ever did. That mailing list is the reason I have forgiven him for having blocked me from leaving comments at his blog. The only problem is by the time you find out about a great event through Charlie's email, it is sold out already. So you try your luck next month, or you talk to Andrew Zarick.
7PM Digital DUMBO #16 Sponsored by Invoke @ The Dumbo Loft

RSVP: http://digitaldumbo.eventbrite.com/

The DUMBO Loft
155 Water Street
Corner of Pearl and Water
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Date: May 27th, 2010
Time: 6:30-9pm
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Thursday, May 20, 2010

The Far Future Of Databases At The Dropio Offices



I just received my third email in as many weeks asking me to show up for Sam Lessin's sci-fi MeetUp called Y+30. That is not spamming, that is bombardment. I was sold with the very first email though, even though I was not as impressed with the last event they had, the one on food. Most speakers at that event tried to venture out about five years at best; or I was not able to follow much of what they said. And food as a topic does not excite me. When I think food, I think hunger. I am a Third World guy. I consider myself a great cook, but I cook a very limited number of items. I have never used any recipe or cookbook for anything. The whole recipe talk is designed to make believe anyone can cook anything. I don't buy into that. On food my thought is I like to stay thin.

Databases: Past, Present, and Future
[PDF] Paralle Database Systems: The Future of High Performance Database
Database Doomed - Is the Relational Database Doomed?
The Future of Database Tuning and Database Administration | Remote...
The Scale-Out Blog: The Future of Database Clustering
Slashdot | The Future of Databases
The Future of Database: Beyond Search
Plants For A Future - 7000 useful plants
The True Future of Databases
The Future of Relational Database Management Systems

The next MeetUp in queue is called The Future Of Porn. Sam Lessin, visionary? Or a visual guy? There is a clip in the movie Minority Report that he might want to show at that one.

3D Porn - The future of masturbatory technology? • VideoSift..
The future of porn and cybersex is 3D : Shiny Shiny
The Future of Porn
Jobs envisions future 'free from porn'
The Death of Motion Capture, the Future of Porn and Personal...
The Future of Porn: Going Back to Its Roots - The Internet is the...
Sex, Toys, and Video Games:The Future of Porn
Microsoft 'Bang': The Future of Online Porn?
No future in porn downloads: adult industry
The Valley Exposed: The Future of Porn - LA Daily News

But the one tonight is called The Future Of Databases. Now this is really something.
Thursday, May 20, 2010 7:00 PM
Drop.io World HQ
68 Jay Street Suite # 413
Brooklyn NY 11201

Like most things, the long-term future of databases is best discussed over beer... With the help of our friends at Basho Technologies we've assembled a cutting edge panel of experts to tackle what databases will look like +30 years.

Our panelists represent the full range of high volume storage engines from the document store avant-garde to the RDBMS old guard and everything in between. You can expect thorough coverage of what "database" means today and what it will mean in the future.

Panelists:
- Ken Ross - Professor in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University
- Dwight Merriman - CEO, 10Gen (commercial sponsors of MongoDB)
- Jonathan Blessing - Managing Partner, 3Thirds Software (NYC-based DB consultancy)
- Justin Sheehy - CTO, Basho Technologies (commercial sponsors of Riak)

Moderator:
- Mark Uhrmacher - Founder, CTO of ideeli.com


In case you have not visited the site recently, Drop.io has gone through a major revamp. The main page is much more minimalist now. That is a good thing. Don't make people scroll. Every milli second counts. Fast is good.

ideeli, Inc.: Private Company Information - BusinessWeek
Luxury goods, 90% off - Ideeli (4) - Small Business

This is going to be my third time at the Dropio offices. The first time was during Social Media Week early in February, the second time was only a few weeks back at a Digital Dumbo party. Two days before that I got to meet Dropio Dude Jacob Robbins for the first time. At the party Jacob told me about the new look of Dropio. In this blog post - Digital Dumbo: Here I Come - I talk about Jacob and something hack. All Jacob ever did was he spoke to me the web address for the page that tells you how to get to the Dropio offices, fancifully called the Dropio World Headquarters.

Could 2011 Be Venmo's Year?
Dropio's Indian Cofounder Darshan
What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger
Reshma Saujani "Gets" Tech

And then, after porn, it is going to be gaming's turn.

Gaming the Future - PC Game Evolution
The Future of Gaming| Popular Science
The future of gaming is all in the mind - CNN.com
The Future of Gaming... - subsaint Blog - GameInformer.com
The Next 25 Years of Video Games | Cracked.com
LoadingReadyRun - Halo: The Future of Gaming
The Future of Gaming: 5 Social Predictions
The Video Game Revolution: "The Future of Video Gaming" by Michael...
The future IS gaming - Trends in the Living Networks
2020 Vision: The Future of Gaming - PC Feature at IGN





Having this event at the Dropio offices is a smart move on the part of Lessin. Dropio is one of the top 20 dot coms in town. It is a startup that has crossed that threshold of whether it will survive and do well or what. But even FourSquare, the dot com in town with the most buzz, is scheduled to lose most of its buzz by the year end when it will be in a much better shape as a company - measured by the fundamentals - than it is today. But it is good for team morale to have some buzz. And hosting a get together like this one gives you some buzz in the NY tech ecosystem. And it is not just Dropio, but Dumbo, that unique locale like none other in the city when it comes to tech. The mystique is fast building.

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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Digital Dumbo: Here I Come


Dumbo. Directly under the Manhattan Brooklyn overpass. At first I did not know the full form name. But it was a great sound, like Yahoo, or Google, supposedly meaningless, but a great sounding name. I thought some of the techies in town came over to this semi vacated part of the city, drove away the rest of the inhabitants, mostly homeless people, and took over. That is what Dumbo feels like.

Dumbo is special in the NY tech ecosystem. I am not aware of another geographical locale quite like it. There are some very cool office spaces around town, some of which look like abandoned artist spaces. But Dumbo is the only place that is not one office, or even one street, but an entire neighborhood, although it is not that big of a neighborhood.

Ignite, Set It On Fire

Come to think of it I lived in Brooklyn for my first few years in the city. I lived south of Prospect Park. That is quite a distance from Dumbo. But a few times I walked from Times Square to where I lived. I'd start out around midnight, and be home by dawn. That is a great way to experience summer in town. It is much better than throwing up on a subway platform or inside the train: I have done both. And no, I was not drunk during those walks. The truth is I am not much of a drinker. One beer for one evening is as far as I prefer to go. Like last night, the MeetUp people had an entire refrigerator bulging with free beer - free for us, a bunch of money for them, but hey, they are a profit making dot com, who cares; yes they exist, profit making dot coms - but I took just one. (FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology)

A few days back I had an email from the First Round Capital guy Charlie; I am on his mailing list for cool tech events in town. Two events for the week looked at me. Sam Lessin was speaking at the MeetUp headquarters on Tuesday, and it was a MeetUp that sounded really, really cool, but I had never heard of. And there was this Digital Dumbo thing for Thursday that looked so great and fun, but there were no spots left. I shot a quick email to Sam. Can you get me in? Since it was taking place at the Dropio office.
Thursday, April 29th
7:30PM Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In

While our application lives in the 'clouds', we set up people-world headquarters in DUMBO in ye-olden-days of 2008. Now in the spring of 2010 we are prepping to roll out the next generation of rich media file-sharing... Join us to celebrate

RSVP: http://digitaldumbo.eventbrite.com/

Drip.io HQ
68 Jay St #413
btw Water & Front
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Date: April 29th, 2010
Time: 7:30 - 10pm
When I brought that up with Jacob, the other Dropio speaker at the MeetUp, he taught me the secret way to get into the Dropio office. He casually mentioned it was like a cocktail for people who worked in Dumbo. I tried to unlearn the secret way and said, "In that case I will not come. I don't work in Dumbo." Hacking a site is one thing. But hacking a site's office, um, wait, I don't even hack sites. But thanks, Jake.

Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Charlie has blocked me from leaving comments at his blog. I retaliated by hyperlinking his name Charlie to the most famous Charlie video on YouTube: 2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments. Charlie bit my finger, Charlie blocked me on his blog.

And today I have a Facebook email from none other than the guy who runs the show, the organizer of Digital Dumbo. How cool is that? And the guy read about my interest in Digital Dumbo at my blog. That is even cooler. People who read my blog are, by definition, cool. Andrew Zarick is now officially cool.

Not having read up on it, not having been to one event yet, this is what I have to say about Digital Dumbo. Everyone who works at any tech company in Dumbo should be able to attend. Heck, everyone who works for any tech company anywhere in the city should be able to attend. I guess what I am saying is turn Digital Dumbo into a block party in Dumbo. May would be a great month to start in that direction.

Digital Dumbo Block Party. Get the city involved. You want jobs? Buy me beer.

Digital DUMBO| Facebook
digitaldumbo on Twitter
Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In - Marketing - Design- Eventbrite
Digital DUMBO
Digital Dumbo #12: One Year Anniversary Sponsored by Carrot...
Digital DUMBO Drinks
Dumbo NYC, Brooklyn » Archive » Digital Dumbo Drinks #2 (26Feb2009...
Dumbo NYC, Brooklyn » Archive » Event: Digital Dumbo #14 (DumboNYC..
Digital DUMBO Hosts Its First Event, Bringing Over 100 Digital...
» Twestival YVR to Digital DUMBO NYC – we've got you covered
Digital Dumbo - A Digitally-Anthropomorphic Social Elephant
Blood, Sweat and Fear: David Skokna at Digital DUMBO - HUGE
Digital Dumbo - Yöshi Sodeöka
Invoke: Twestival YVR to Digital DUMBO NYC – we've got you covered...
Twitter / @digitaldumbo/Digital Dumbo Agencies
MediaPost Publications Just An Online Minute...Digital DUMBO Gets...
Brooklyn Heights Blog » digital dumbo
HUSH | Backdoor » The After Party: Digital Dumbo, Lucky #13
Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In Mixer
DUMBO Named New York's Digital District | NBC New York
Digital DUMBO| Andrew Zarick
Brooklyn Cupcakes at Digital DUMBO| Brooklyn Cake
Digital DUMBO Drop.io On In - NYC Calendar | Guest of a Guest< Digital DUMBO Drinks
Brooklyn's DUMBO Neighborhood Becoming The Home for New York's...
Anna Zach @Digital DUMBO on Vimeo
Digital Dumbo Stream Discussion
NYConvergence: Outside.In, Carrot Creative Host Digital DUMBO Drinks
Flickr: Digital DUMBO
Digital DUMBO #7 | The JAR Group
DUMBO Digital District of New York | AD60
Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In: Thursday, 4/29 at 7:30pm at Drop...
space150 - space150 Sponsors Digital DUMBO #8
Why Digital DUMBO Matters? | Andrew Zarick
HUSH Studios vs. Digital Dumbo on Vimeo
Carrot Blog — Recap: Digital DUMBO Drinks #4
Digital Dumbo #15 - Drop.io On In | Small Business Complete
foursquare :: Digital Dumbo #14 #NYDD :: Brooklyn, NY
NYConvergence: Carrot's Germano: DUMBO is NYC's 'Digital District'
Digital DUMBO #14 « Christopher M Kennedy
Digital DUMBO #14 Sponsored by Invoke at The Dumbo Loft in...
HUSH | Backdoor » 365 Days of Digital Dumbo
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“How do you fit a mountain into a teacup?” -Digital Dumbo
Digital Dumbo | NBC New York


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Monday, February 22, 2010

A MeetUp Has Me Excited: Y + 30

I am going to a MeetUp tomorrow evening - well, I am going to a Lunar Year celebration with John Liu for this evening, we are trying to get the guy to show up for a February 28 Holi celebration in Astoria, I be pulling strings - but tomorrow, Tuesday, I am going to this MeetUp that I am unusually excited about. I guess at some level I am bummed I had never heard of the MeetUp before this month. Makes me feel like I have been out of the loop. But I found out about it during Social Media Week, and I am glad. (Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever)

I don't know what to expect. That is another reason I am a little on the edge. Will it be pitch dark? Will they throw bright light in my face? Will they make funny noises? Will they make us wear costumes? Or at least goggles? Is the venue some kind of a basement? It is called a Brooklyn Future MeetUp, but it is in Tribeca, the Jay-Z Tribeca. I love Brooklyn, it is the most residential of all boroughs, but Y+30 is a much better name in the first place.


on Feb 23rd - we are talking the future of food, register for the event at http://meetup.com/BLKNY30 
From Michael Pollan to molecular gastronomy, food bloggers to food
porn, celebrity chefs to rock star butchers, the world of eating has
changed remarkably in recent years. There’s never been a more exciting
time to be a food-lover, and yet we’re also increasingly concerned
about issues like food safety, sustainability, and health.

What will the food world look like in 30 years? Will traditional
restaurants still be around or we will be eating in a world of pop ups
and food trucks? Will scientists rule the kitchen?

We’ll talk to experts across the industry, including chef Michael
Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills,
marketing whizzes from Rooster Design Group, and writer and Food52
co-founder Amanda Hesser. (@amandahesser)

After the panel stay for demos by cocktail experts and chefs, tastings
by local producers, and cameos by some of the city’s cult food
vendors.

Looks like they will be feeding us too. We get to sample some food stuff. I am all for that. And what is food porn? What could that be?

I left this comment at Sam Lessin's Tumblr blog a few days back. (@lessin)
I am so looking forward to this, you won't believe. I am so surprised I was not even aware of this MeetUp's existence until the first week of February this year. Finding about this MeetUp has been one of my rewards for having attended Social Media Week events with abandon. http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/02/social-media-week-best-ny-tech-meetup.html
Wow. I am like wow. What a theme for a MeetUp. I like vision people, I like vision talk, I like talk about the future. I am such a huge fan of Esther Dyson, and it is because she is such a visionary. She is a remarkable woman in many other ways, but that is my primary reason to like her so much.
Y+30 is stretching it, it is hard enough to figure out what the landscape will look like one year from now, or five, 30 is eternity, but the year will roll around for sure, and the reward is not in ending up being accurate - I fully expect most of our predictions to fall flat on the face - but in making the effort itself. Those who think hard about the future live the present more fully.
I am so excited about this event, I fear I might miss it. I am feeling superstitious.
I am so glad you have Disqus integrated to your blog. Disqus is my idea of a micro blogging platform.
Another reward to me from Social Media Week has been Tumblr. I use Twitter to broadcast, Facebook to connect, and Buzz/Tumblr to listen. Glad to be following you on Tumblr.

Excited about tomorrow.
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