A VC - Latest Comments in Things I Wish For In The New Year

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Mike — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:18:52 -0000

What if someone has to drive a long way back and forth to work every day, but only makes $25,000 a year? I would think that the payroll tax deduction for that person would not be enough to compensate for the increase in their driving costs.

For me personally, it would be great. I drive very little (most work from home, and when I do have to go to the office, it is not far) and make enough to where I pay the max every year in Social Security.

But I think it would be tough for people in the lower incomes that have to drive long distances.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

pauljacobson — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:35:47 -0000

I am with you on the iPod Touch although I'd like to see Apple release an iPod Touch that has at least 80GB of space on the drive so I can replace my aging 60GB iPod 5th Gen. An iPod Touch with those sorts of specs would make an awesome media device and pseudo PDA (I wouldn't consider an iPhone until it received a number of massive upgrades - sticking with my Nokia E71 and whichever super smartphone Nokia comes up with next).

As it is I carry my E71 and my iPod with me pretty much wherever I go and having a more capable and powerful iPod Touch would hit a sweet spot for me.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Andrew Deal — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 17:12:16 -0000

I share most of the same hopes apart from the draconian demonization of gasoline on the consumer level. Instead, do the same thing but on a tariff level, so that only imported oil is taxed. This keeps the revenue approach more constitutionally aligned, and makes us, the main nation int he world really concerned with doing things cleanly, incentivized to produce cleanly and set an example the rest of the world will follow.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Andy Freeman — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 17:37:07 -0000

The budget surplus under Clinton happened:
(1) With a Repub congress.
(2) After the savings and loan debacle had ended.
(3) After the cold war ended.

(2) and (3) freed up a lot of money and the fighting between Clinton and Gingrich kept it from being spent.

Are Obama and Pelosi going to fight?

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Timothy Post — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 04:49:16 -0000

Fred, I agree 100%.

Currently, I use the Google Reader on my iPhone. While it works well it doesn't synch with my desktop client and so posts which I have already read remain on the desktop as duplicates. Plus, I can't share with a note items on the mobile version.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Matthew Stotts — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:01:48 -0000

Sure, critical mass is always the challenge but Second Market, by choosing to be an SEC regulated alternative market, is putting up too many hurdles for investors and venture-backed pre-IPO companies alike. Rather than encouraging liquidation, organizations like InsideVenture are providing a direct private market for an additional private round of funding in the absence, but with the expectant return of, a healthy IPO market. I can't believe you are giving up on the IPO market forever.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 14:20:17 -0000

I don't know how I feel about the ipo market long term but I do know that being on the board or even managing a public company in this day and age is not an ideal way to operate. I like the private markets better. If only we had more paths to liquidity in them

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Andy Freeman — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 11:39:10 -0000

Krugman is only arguing about whether FDR wage policy lengthened the Great Depression.

The regulatory stuff is undisputed. Grain that you grow on your own land to feed cattle that you're going to slaugter and eat on said land is "interstate commerce" thanks to FDR. Do you really think that Walmart is going to be more affected by job regulations than Mom and Pop?

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:07:07 -0000

There's a big need for a mobile/social feed/blog reader. That's one thing I wish for

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Timothy Post — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 04:02:12 -0000

I wish someone would develop a browser plugin which would compare a website RSS/Atom feed with my Google Reader OPML file and let me know if I already am subscribed.

A corollary wish is a blogroll feature which would offer all the RSS/Atom feeds as a single OPML file which could be easily imported into your reader of choice. This feature would be especially useful at this time of year when everyone seems to be publishing "Best of..." lists. It's a bit of a pain to manually copy/paste 30 RSS feeds into your reader without also knowing which feeds you already subscribe to (see above).

Lastly, I wish that Apple's Safari development team would offer a feature in Preferences which would deactivate the auto insertion of the prefix feed://, instead of http://, whenever one clicks the RSS icon in the address field.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:47:11 -0000

Me too. I am eager to see some of our companies list so I will face this hurdle and will need to overcome it. If enough leading companies do it, others might follow

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Megan — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:18:34 -0000

#1 has been said for years, but it needs to keep being said because it's right on the mark and hopefully somebody will implement it one of these days. #2, #6 and #7 are right on and very original. Thanks for your smart observations, Fred.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Brian Lord — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 22:06:10 -0000

This is a great post. I like your positive attitude it is constructive and reasonable. Happy New Year.

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Guest — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 19:34:55 -0000

Thanks, Fred,
it does seem like an interesting idea, but I am afraid the need to disclose company info will limit participation.
Happy New Year!

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Dan Weinreb — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:26:43 -0000

I don't think Obama will be a "closet conservative", but I think he will be more centrist than some people might expect. The whole left-right characterization is so bankrupt, anyway: there are many, many issues and you can't just assume that someone is "x% to the left/right" and that will predict his behavior on all the issues. Anyway, if you advocate a gas tax (me, too), you must not be an ideologically-pure "conservative" anyway, so maybe what you're wishing for is OK with me. The rest of your hopes are my own hopes too. Happy New Year!

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Prakash — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 05:27:39 -0000

Fred, no revenue generation wishes for Twitter?

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:51:08 -0000

Certainly I have wishes for all of our portfolio companies but its hard for me to talk about all of them and I wouldn't want to single out just one of them. Twitter gets a lot of buzz but we have many exciting companies in our portfolio and 2009 is going to be an interesting year for all of them. Revenues will be front and center for most, that's for sure

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:34:06 -0000

I agree completely

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 04:33:08 -0000

Well said. Its a balance and I hope he can find the right one

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 03:42:08 -0000

His scheme doesn't take money out of people's pockets because the gas tax is refunded by a drop in the payroll tax. Clearly there's no train in montana but one could get an electric or hybrid car and pocket money on that trade

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

fredwilson — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 03:38:06 -0000

Second market is encouraging companies that list to post basic financials and some other data. Any company that lists can limit the people who can see the data and trade on it. Although its clearly going to slip out over time if they do that

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Guest — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 02:45:49 -0000

Hmmm... How do you disclose confidential company information to that market? If you can't disclose the P&L and balance sheet, who would buy the stock? And if you are on the Board and you had that information, but you didn't disclose it to the buyer because of confidentiality, is that even legal? (even if we are talking qual. investors only)

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

Max — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:38:08 -0000

How does your scheming work in Montana? You want a subway from Boise to Billings?

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

CJ — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:44:24 -0000

8) Define Conservative. It seems to me that the last several Republican Presidents(who are typically held to be conservatives) have had more of an impact on socializing our country and expanding the deficit than any Democrat. The only difference being where the money is spent, not if and how much.

What I want from Obama is truth and realism. It's OK to want to help everyone, just realize that you can't and be truthful about it. Realize that some people/entities will fail because, even though their names are iconic, the balance sheet and the output no longer is.

Realize that after 'giving' over $1 Trillion in bailout funds to companies to prevent the 'collapse' of our economy, a few hundred billion to prevent the hunger or ensure the health of our fellow citizens shouldn't be too much of a strain. Regardless of how much those who have just been bailed out protest.

While it's true the country is in dire straits economically, I don't want our next President to feel like he can't help The People because The irrationally exuberant bankrupt corporations have taken all the money from the till.

-Malcolm Lloyd

Re: Things I Wish For In The New Year

example — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:42:39 -0000

We need a carbon tax, not a gas tax. Coal plants and whatnot shouldn't get a free ride on the backs of motorists. Cars are our most visceral CO2 sources, but they are not the largest.