BLOG STARTUPS, VENTURE AND THE TECH BUSINESS
January 27 2012
by Scott Johnson
2012: Smartphones are now a social necessity
My last post, outlined five things to be excited about as we enter 2012. Number one on this list was smartphone ubiquity. I am not sure on what day last year this occurred, but the smart phone went from luxury to social necessity. Has the smart phone eclipsed the television in our hierarchy of needs? ...
January 26 2012
by Scott Johnson
No Better Time, Ever, To Be An Entrepreneur
I am often asked “what is new and exciting” by pretty much anyone that knows what I do for a living. And it is a great question that I relish answering – usually. Of late, however, I have been responding in a way that needs polish. I will say “smartphones” or “Health IT” or “the ...
January 19 2012
by Thanasis Delistathis
Venture capital should not be a political punching bag
Venture capital has been in the news lately, thanks to the critics of Mitt Romney’s previous career as a CEO of Bain Capital. For those of you that have been in a cave over the last couple of weeks, the criticism from Romney opponents is that some of the companies that Bain Capital invested in ...
January 12 2012
by John Backus
Re-Inventing Education for the 21st Century
The Internet is staring down the College Cartel. And the Internet will win. College costs cannot continue to rise at three times the rate of inflation, as they have for the last thirty-five years. My friend Jack Biddle, co-founder of VC firm Novak Biddle, and an early pioneer in online education companies (Blackboard, 2Tor, Fidelis ...
January 11 2012
by Todd Hixon
The High Stakes Games Around Generic Lipitor
Last month Lipitor became a generic drug. Get used to saying “atorvastatin”, the generic name; it will be worth the effort. Lipitor is the greatest drug in history: $130 billion of cumulative revenue for Pfizer, and control of high cholesterol with minimal side effects for millions (currently 3 million in the U.S.). And, Lipitor is ...
January 11 2012
by John Backus
Part 2 – Busting up the College Cartel
In my last piece, I pointed out how for more than a generation – 35 years and counting – that the costs of attending college have increased at three times the rate of inflation – almost twice the rate that health care costs have increased over the same period. Yet our children are receiving the ...
January 10 2012
by John Backus
Part 1 – The Rise of the College Cartel
I wrote an article yesterday that appeared here in the Washington Post’s Capital Business magazine. I have had some tremendous feedback about this article, and many of you have asked me to expand on my ideas about how to reform the College and University system in America. This is the first of three posts I ...
January 9 2012
by John Backus
The Death of Retail 2.0
The 2011 holiday shopping season saw a 15 percent increase in online sales, up to $35.3 billion according to Comscore, but consumer electronics retail bellweather Best Buy reported a one percent decline in holiday sales. What is going on? Pretty simple – we are in the middle of another battle between brick and mortar and ...
January 5 2012
by Thanasis Delistathis
Privacy matters
Mark Zuckerburg, founder of facebook, famously declared in one public appearance in 2010 that the age of privacy is over. As we all share more information over the internet, the world is becoming more transparent. So do people care about privacy, and does it matter? I saw some data recently from the work of one ...
December 15 2011
by John Backus
On Women, VC & Startups….
A few months ago on PEHub, I engaged in a lively debate about the state of entrepreneurship and venture capital, here and here. One of the issues I addressed, the absence of women in the venture capital, technology and startup worlds, was revisited last week at the TEDx Global Woman’s Entrepreneur event. At minute 11, ...
