Archive for the ‘Things That Interest’ Category
The Mexican Government, desperately and clumsily coming to terms with social media.
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on February 15th, 2010
So, check this. Mexico is creating a “cybernetic police force” (poorly named - I’m picturing a bunch of guys that look like they stepped off the set of Tron) to combat crime on social networks. Good luck getting in front of that one guys.
———
MEXICO CITY, Mexico — Mexico has racked up its fair share of menacingly named outlaws in a three-year drug war: the Zetas, Aztecas and even a band of female assassins called the Panthers.
Now, if the government gets its way, another name will also make the wanted list: los Twitteros.
Things a VC will never say
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on June 9th, 2009
Hilarious post. My favorite is “i > u. JUST ONE BOARD MEETING OUGHT TO PROVE IT”
Shocker - Mexico Not A Failed State
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on May 9th, 2009
In yo face, Somalia!
So this just in from Moody’s Investor Service. Mexico’s investment grade remains solid and talk of Mexico becoming a “failed state” is “far fetched”. From the article:
Moody’s did acknowledge issues such as rising crime and violence, end of the oil hedge in 2010 that buffers government revenues against oil price fluctuations and subsequent need for possibly higher taxes, issuing debt and lower spending, an increasingly severe economic downturn, and structural issues.
Still, it says these do not fit the general profile of a failed state, such as Somalia, and that Mexico’s credit profile remains in line with peers of the sovereign Baa credit rating group (Mexico is rated Baa1, three grades into investment grade).
Idiots
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on May 2nd, 2009
So, do you party?
I’ve held my tongue on this for a while but am I the only one who feels that “pandemic” thing is ridiculous?
Every year, the regular old flu kills 35,0oo people in the US and 500,000 worldwide. So far, the pig/bird/human flu has killed 1 person in the US and some number between 60 and 200 in Mexico (depending on who you want to believe). And for this, all businesses have been shuttered here (crippling an economy that wasn’t doing so well to begin with), the US is doing backflips trash talking Mexico, and, perhaps worst of all, everyone is walking around with those ridiculous surgical masks on. Come on people, pull your head out - are we that starved for drama?
And now that disaster is not panning out, we all seem a bit, well, disappointed. Check this story, “What we thought is that we would have an exponential growth in the number of persons with symptoms. But the information we have is that hasn’t occurred, and we now have a stabilized curve with no important growth” of confirmed cases, Mexico City’s mayor Marcelo Ebrard said declared Saturday.”
UPDATE: Also see this NYTIMES article. “Of 908 suspected cases that were tested, only 397 people turned out to have the virus, officially known as influenza A(H1N1), Mexican health officials reported on Friday. Of those, 17 people have died. ”
Venture Investing down 61% percent from Q1 last year - ouch!
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on April 18th, 2009
This is going to come as a surprise to no one but it’s a bit shocking to see the actual numbers. Check the NYTimes story here.
As a result, investors are funneling time and money into existing portfolio companies instead of a new generation of start-ups. Only 132 start-ups raised money for the first time, the lowest number in 15 years.
The Sound of the Other Shoe Falling
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on April 9th, 2009
From an article entitled Tech jobs getting zapped, “Year to date, 8,000 tech jobs have been slashed, including 4,100 just last month.”
I’m not sure if this is good for us or bad for us. The recession has forced plenty of early-stage tech companies to find ways to do more with a lot less (aka: good for us) but there will be plenty of laid-off tech workers that will be willing/required to work for less (aka: competition, aka bad). I guess we’ll see.
iSteam? iFart? Big money in Iphone development.
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on April 6th, 2009
From the NYTimes today. This validates our idea that small is the new big. I wonder what it says about our culture that an electronic farting app is one of the hottest sellers.
Is It Safe?
Posted by: andy in Things That Interest on March 24th, 2009
Great Op-Ed piece in the NY Times about the US perceptions of the drug cartel violence here. I feel like I need to chip in my two cents here.
Mexico is not without its warts and the drug wars do indeed represent a huge problem but the view from the street bears little resemblance to the pornography of violence that one sees in the media (my Mom called me the other day (from the Midwest) and asked me how I was dealing with all of the beheadings!)
I’m not sure which cartel was the mastermind behind this heinous act, but we DID have some lawn chairs stolen from our porch. That’s been the extent of the crime that we’ve witnessed here. I’m sure that there is violence around us but I’ve not seen any, neither have any of my friends, nor their friends. Let’s put this into perspective:
Gun violence in the U.S. kills 14 out of every 100K people. In Mexico, it’s 12 out of every 100K. Dig a little deeper and you find that 4 out of 5 gun deaths in Mexico are narcos killing other narcos (Mexico’s “self-cleaning-oven”). Unless my math fails me, that means approximately 2.5 out of every 100K normal everyday citizens are killed by guns here. I don’t know what the narco-on-narco numbers are for the US but I suspect that they are negligible. Add it up and you are 5 times more likely to be shot and killed in the US than in Mexico.
Are my numbers accurate? Who knows. There are so many variables (crimes committed vs reported, non-gun murders, etc. etc.) but certainly Mexico doesn’t deserve the bad rap it’s been handed as of late. As mentioned in the article: “Let’s leave caricatures where they belong, in the hands of cartoonists.”
How to Run A Company (again)
Posted by: andy in About Us, Things That Interest on March 9th, 2009
Good post from Joel Sposky of Joel on Software. His prescription: build something, stand back and see how it works (it probably won’t), tweak the knobs until it does what you want it to, don’t give up. This seems about right to me.
…certain aspects of a business can be off by only a little bit and then, one tiny adjustment, and BING! The thing starts working.