Captain's Log: FALLEN SOLDIER, THE REST OF THE STORY

Having a son who is joining the military and having been a pilot myself many moons ago – this blog has a very special significance. It will bring tears to your eyes.

Captain's Log: FALLEN SOLDIER, THE REST OF THE STORY

News Flash – Read all about it

Jason Calacanis To Startups: The Economy Is Not Bouncing Back Soon, You Have To Wait It Out

Wow – what a brilliant post. Talk about “spot the bleeding obvious”. Of course after raising $20m and firing a bunch of people Mahalo is going to be just fine.

What a crock. For goodness sake, now is the time to show some backbone and start (if you’re not already) solving customer problems and getting paid for it.

Sure there will be a tech recession – but it won’t be like the last one (incidentally we launched Mod_Gzip right into the teeth of that one and it’s still going strong)

There’s way too much whining going on – quite the bitching and get back to work. You’re competitors are running for the hills – go snag some new customers.

Wassup Obama

Brilliant remake of a classic

 

And the original

Apple sells 6.9 million iPhones in Q4 of 2008

Ok… I'll bite at this stat:

• Apple has sold 200 million mobile applications in less than four months.

Let’s say that there are 10m iPhones out there – that means that EVERYONE of those owners has brought 20 apps in the last 4 months.

Even if this was close to being true – what do those twenty apps do? How many of us actually run 20 apps each on our desktop?

How will Twitter make money?

Seems to be the question du jour these days. Here’s the answer – when it offers something of “Value” that the customer is willing to pay for.

I would expect that value to come from solving a real pain point that is not addressed in a competing or free product.

It’s all going to boil down to value – right now no one has figured out how to find it.

Therefore the only issue remaining for Twitter is also simple to figure out – can they find that value point before the money runs out?

Thank you Henry Kravis

Speaking at the Super Return Conference in Dubai on Wednesday, the KKR chief said:

“All of us need to accept responsibility for the damage done to the free-market system… We’ve moved too slowly to replace management in some situations…. We wait too long hoping they’ll improve but they never do… You have to focus on all the stakeholders. It’s a new thing for us and something we’re really hammering. Long term value is only achieved if growth benefits all stakeholders in a company, from owners to employees, communities and even governments. We are also conscious we are fiduciaries to millions of hard-working men and women and university endowments…Trust must be earned over the long haul and maintained constantly. We have not always adequately explained what we do to the man on the street. Even some of our investors, although happy with the returns we deliver, don’t fully understand what we do and why they should invest with us.”

That’s right – it’s all about TRUST and right now that’s the real scarcity.

iPhone App Store's Brutal Reality: Get Viral Or Don't Quit Your Day Job

Right on the money and a warning to all other stores. It’s really simple, open up the iPhone and allow people to extend it. Cut the NDA’s out and help developers be successful with great developer tools.

The other company that does that funnily enough is Microsoft. Some of the best developer tools in the business and I don’t need to sign an NDA to develop for their platform.

iPhone App Store's Brutal Reality: Get Viral Or Don't Quit Your Day Job

Hypo Bank Rescue Fails, Threatening Lehman Scale Bankruptcy, Future of Euro

A must read – and if you want to be really scared read the first two comments.

It will be interesting to see who is still standing when the music stops. What is happening now in the financial markets is truly unprecedented and will be taught in business schools for years to come.

This is what happens when people get really, really greedy. Basically the difference between financial engineering and value creation.

It’s time people went to prison over this.

naked capitalism: Hypo Bank Rescue Fails, Threatening Lehman Scale Bankruptcy, Future of Euro

9% – What’s in a number?

Well that’s the current approval rating of Washington. That is a staggering number. Think about it for a moment - “Main Street” no longer believes in the leadership running the county.

Right now I believe we are on the edge of the abyss – the current Paulson-Dodd-Frank-Pork plan reflects a lack of leadership and real understanding of the problem. Or does it?

Paulson is not a stupid man. He knows what the numbers are, just like Bernanke and the others. What they are trying to do is cushion the landing, which is simply not going to happen without a lot more bloodshed.

There is no question that something has to be done – however right now they are acting like managers (making things right (and failing)) vs. acting like leaders and doing the right thing.