Dave Roberts – the VP Strategy and Marketing at Vyatta – has written a solid post on Open Source Juicer that tears apart Steve Tobak’s CNet article titled The Patent Reform Act will harm the US technology industry.  There is a ton of meat in Dave’s post – which is (unfortunately) also titled "The Patent Reform Act will harm the U.S. technology industry".

Dave has 10 patents to his name, so he’s speaking from a position of someone who has spent plenty of time on the "inside of the patent game."  Two telling paragraphs:

"What’s all the more infuriating about the current patent situation is that many of today’s patents go against the original social contract surrounding patents. The original goal of the patent system was to get inventors to share their innovations for the common good. In return for a limited monopoly, you, Mr. Inventor, share your invention so that We, the public, can understand how you did it and can then innovate on top of it. Rather than stifling innovation, patents were supposed to drive it forward.

Unfortunately, many patents, even the ones that are legit, would have been created independently anyway. It’s obviously a balance, but at least in the world I live in, I see patents getting in the way rather than helping me. I have never gone and looked at old patents to get new ideas for products. The only time an independent patent, one that I’m not working on filing myself, comes to my attention, it’s because somebody is getting sued for infringing it. This tells me that we have lost the original goal that patents were supposed to foster."

Great stuff Dave.  Thanks for speaking out.

Amy and I just finished watching Good Night, and Good Luck.  Wow!

We both sort of knew the story of Ed Murrow taking on U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy during McCarthy’s anti-Communist crusade while chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.  The movie has motivated me to Kindle a Murrow biography and read it.

The movie was fantastic – Amy and I kept shouting at the TV during it which is always the mark of a successful movie in our house.  David Strathairn was incredible as Murrow and George Clooney did a great job as his counterpart / coproducer Fred Friendly.

One of the awesome things about the United States is that due process matters.  Another is that freedom of speech is a valid construct – and even more so in today’s web saturated universe.  So far in my 42 years on this planet I’ve never been afraid of speaking my mind.  I’ve often been wrong – and will admit it publicly whenever I am – but I love the fact that I can state my thoughts without fear.

As the midgame of our presidential election reaches a climax, this is powerful stuff to consider.  Marc Andreessen wrote a superb post last week titled An hour and a half with Barack Obama.  I’ve been supporting Obama in the primaries (even though I’m Independent – my party affiliation is "unaffiliated".) Marc’s post totally nails why I’m supporting Obama.  Regardless of who you support, it feels great that it’s acceptable in this country to write (and watch) what we think.

To Mark Cuban, Todd Wagner, and Jeff Skoll and their respective colleagues who produced the movie – nicely done!

My friends over at Intense Debate are looking for a Technology Evangelist, Systems Administrator, and Software Engineer.  If you are interested, drop them an email at jobs@intensedebate.com.

While you are at it – if you are a blogger and like comments – give Intense Debate a try.  The Foundry Gang has had it on our blogs (Feld Thoughts, AsktheVC, Foundry Group, Seth Levine, Ryan McIntyre, and Ross Carlson) for a while and we are all digging it.

Scoble just put up a one minute video with Todd Vernon, the CEO of Lijit.

Scoble has Lijit’s search wijit up on his blog in the right side bar.  Go give it a try and see what’s going on at SXSW – at least through Robert’s eyes.

Todd just wrote a great post on why Lijit will increase your page views.  He’s got examples, data, and even conclusions.  Plus he uses fancy new phrases like "second click" and "third click." 

Right now, when people search your blog, their second click is usually the back button in the browser to go back to the Google (or other) search page to click through to something else that search brought up.  Why not keep the second click on your blog instead?

If you are a blogger, don’t be left out in the cold.  Reclaim your second click (and all the ensuing traffic.)  Get Lijit now.  You are minutes away from search happiness.

Frank Gruber (Somewhat Frank) has a nice summary of the 5 Startups (that) Demo At Tech Cocktail Boulder.  200+ people at The Foundry (across from our office at Foundry Group.)  I was in Berkeley having dinner at Adagia Restaurant talking about patents.  Oh well, the tradeoffs one makes in pursuit of the truth.

My partner Jason pointed me to the announcement that Jack Bauer gets early start with "24" prequel.  I have high hopes for this season given how much last season sucked (until the last four episodes.)  It’s either going to be fantastic or be over.  Joel Surnow has apparently already voted with his feet, so this one will be high risk / high reward. 

One of my Work-Life Balance institutions is something Amy and I call "Life Dinner."  We have a standing dinner date on the first night of every month.  Given my travel, we usually end up having this date 75% of the time; when we miss it’s my responsibility to schedule a new one shortly after the first.

Life Dinner has three key parts to it.  First, we have a pre-arranged, regular, repeating evening where we both can reflect on and talk about what is going on in our lives.  Next, we give each other a gift.  Finally, we have a fun night out and either explore a new place or enjoy one of our regular haunts.  A few times a year we will share Life Dinner with another couple, although we almost always do it alone.

This isn’t the only time we go out, but it’s a special time.  Both Amy and I are huge believers in rhythms and patterns.  Having now had Life Dinner as an institution for around eight years, it’s a great monthly touch point for our lives.  Sometimes one of us is stressed or overwhelmed with what is going on around us – Life Dinner provides a great "within 30 days" opportunity to catch this and work on it as a couple.  Other times we’ve been running hard in our own separate directions and it gives us a chance to firmly reconnect.  Sometimes everything is going great and we just talk, laugh, and gossip about what’s going on around us.  Occasionally Amy will even get me to talk about my views on politics or religion.

Part of Life Dinner is the gift.  There is no set expectation here – just that we each give the other person one.  Over the years I’ve received clothes, art, my fun skull belt that I’ve been wearing around lately, a remote control fart machine, a Range Rover, books, and an occasional surprise trip.  I’ve learned how to buy (and give) lots and lots of jewelry, art, and the occasional item of clothing (although no lingerie since I’ve never really understood it.)

As I write more about Work-Life Balance, you’ll notice that part of the magic here is that I have events – life Life Dinner – that have an appropriate periodicity.  This creates a powerful (and satisfying) base to build from.  While we’ve had a few tough Life Dinners over the years (as we’ve used them to work through things in our relationship that we had conflict over), when I look back on the 70+ evenings we’ve spent together having "Life Dinner" it’s clear that it’s incredible bedrock for our relationship.  And our lives.

I was at a board meeting recently and the notion of potentially hiring a COO came up.  I blurted out "I don’t believe in COO’s."  An interesting conversation ensued, including someone pointing out that I’d recently supported hiring a COO at another company I’m an investor in (never underestimate the contradictory nature of a VC’s brain.)

I’ve modified my statement to be "I don’t believe in COO’s 98% of the time for companies smaller than 200 people." 

In almost all cases, you only have a two level executive hierarchy – CEO and VPs.  The VPs are often creatively titled (SVP, EVP, CxO, something else) – but they are the direct reports to the CEO and have meaningful span of control over the business.  Many of these VPs would report to a COO if one existed, and this is generally a bad idea in a very young company (again – with a 2% exception.)

There are two situations that are common that I think are silly:

1. The sales guy (VP Sales) wants to be the COO.
2. The finance guy (VP Finance) wants to be the COO.

Somewhere along the way there was an infomercial that said "if you are a VP and you want to advance in your career, become a COO."  I’ve never understood this and it just confuses things.  There’s a logical progression here – the VP Sales wants to be VP Sales and Marketing, the VP Sales, Marketing, and Business Development, then SVP of Sales and Marketing, then COO.  Huh?

Same drill with the VP of Finance.  There’s a logical path to be CFO.  Then the CFO wants all HR, legal, and IT.  Then the CFO argues "hey – I’m running operations – I should be COO."

Neither of these has ever made sense to me.  The VP Sales path is particularly confusing since most great VP Sales suck at managing operations (which is ostensibly what a COO does.)  I struggle less with the CFO situation – although by the time a company needs a CFO rather than a VP Finance (usually 100-ish employees), the CFO is going to be slammed with dealing with managing the normal "CFO-ness" of the universe, including dealing with investors; subsequently taking over "operations" usually makes no sense.

The 2% exception holds.  In really young companies when the two senior execs "split up the business", a CEO / COO relationship can apply.  I’ve even had one co-CEO situation work beautifully (ServiceMagic) even though every time I thought about it I was sure it wouldn’t work long term (I was wrong.) 

Overall, titles don’t (and shouldn’t) matter much in an early stage company, other than for helping people on the outside of the company understand who does what to whom.  In my experience, the idea of a COO almost always muddies the water.

I love my life.  I get to work on fascinating things with really smart people.  And every day is different.  Plus I’m married to an awesome woman (but that’s a different post.)

I spent the afternoon at the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology.  I’m on an advisory board for a new study on "Entrepreneurial Companies and the Patent System" being supported by the Kauffman Foundation.  Tomorrow I’m speaking on a panel on the Symposium on Intellectual Property and Entrepreneurship.

It was a very productive afternoon.  We spent several hours discussing the research project on Entrepreneurial Companies and the Patent System that is being led by Stuart Graham and Ted Sichelman.  One of the areas Stuart and Ted are concentrating on are software patents.  Doing real quantitative research on the impact of software patents is critical as much of the academic literature (economics, legal, and social science) is crap.  The discussion was a robust one that I think was helpful to Stuart and Ted.

As I’ve been slowly making my way through the academic literature, what I’m realizing is that there are very few people that have effectively synthesized the issues from an economics, legal, and entrepreneurial point of view.  There is a preponderance of anecdotal data and an overarching concern about "treating different things differently" (e.g. the perception that software and bio / pharma have to operate under the same rules.) 

In addition, there are massive selection bias and survivor bias in much of the research.  It’s not that the studies were necessarily poorly conceived (although some are); rather it’s incredibly difficult to get good data on the companies in any sample since so many of them are early stage, have failed, have been acquired, have had significant turnover, or have changed strategies.  The cost of real data acquisition (non-anecdotal) is high and requires a real understanding of the underlying companies and market segments being studied.

It’s just messy stuff.  While messy stuff is fun to study, it can also be frustrating.  I’m impressed that the BCLT folks have put together a diverse advisory board – including a number of non-academic practitioners – to help them think through the best approach to this study.  I’m off to dinner to hang out more with these interesting people and get a few more cracks in about my view of the invalidity of software patents.