Executive Change At Twitter

New York Times: Why Twitter’s C.E.O. Demoted Himself: for all its astonishing growth, Twitter has succeeded in spite of itself ...... I’ve screwed up in many, many, many ways in terms of managing people and product decisions and business ..... he excels at understanding what Internet users want and contemplating Twitter’s future, but isn’t a detail-oriented task manager.

I don't know much about Dick Costolo, except that he sold FeedBurner to Google like Evan Williams sold Blogger to Google. To Ev's credit, Blogger remains my favorite social media platform, more so than Facebook and Twitter. It is that sentiment that gave me the confidence to speak my mind here: Twitter Is Massively Complex.

First Time Entrepreneurs Getting Screwed

Mike Arrington: "That first company I started made a lot of money for the venture capitalists – nearly $30 million – but next to nothing for the founders."

I have heard this story from someone else I know. His first company got sold for a lot of money - multiples more than Mike's - but he made only a tiny bit of money in the process. In other words, he got screwed.

Unique URL For Facebook Updates

Image by Google via CrunchBaseWhile I was reading this TechCrunch post about the father of Google Wave jumping ship to go join Facebook, I came across something I have wanted a long time. For a long time I have wanted every Facebook update of mine to have a unique URL that gets automatically fed to the search engines. My privacy settings on Facebook have been to Everyone from the outset.

Am I Smart?

When you start talking in terms of a tech startup with IPO ambitions, I think it is fair for people to ask if you are smart. I am smart. I am plenty smart. I am a ton smart. But I don't walk into a room thinking I am the smartest person in the room. I don't think I ever have. Because when I enter a room, I am not looking at a mirror, I am looking at other people. I am eager to listen to what others have to say. And when people are being themselves they are interesting as a rule. I l-o-v-e making small talk with street vendors, for example. The street is not a room.

Binary Investments, The Middle Kingdom, And Super Exits

Fred Wilson: The Fallacy Of Bimodal Returns: startup returns are not bimodal. They exhibit more of a power law curve. There will certainly be one or two venture deals every year that generate 100x or more. And there will certainly be quite a few total busts. But there are a lot of outcomes in the middle of those two.

Binary is the term used by Ron Conway, the guy in Silicon Valley who invests like he had perennial diarrhea. I read him using the term in a TechCrunch blog post a few weeks back. Binary works for him. It works because he has a track record over almost two decades, or at least a decade and a half, of not having missed out on any good deal in the Valley. He has been in all the top companies. He has also managed to get into FourSquare. And he keeps spreading the love far and wide. This past year I think he put 60% of his money into New York companies.