Month: March 2010
Over the years, a number of companies I’ve been an investor in have had hackathons. These are typically day long events where everyone in the company works on whatever cool new ideas they have. On Monday night I got a note from a company I’m on the board of about a hackthon they just completed. As I looked through the list of things that the various teams created, I got chills of excitement.
Most of the companies we invest in release software at least once a month. Some release weekly, or even daily. I’ve become a big advocate of true Agile development (partly because of my experience with Rally Software – the leader in Agile software development environments) and – more recently – the notion of trying to get to continuous deployment which has been popularized by Eric Ries.
If you are releasing at least monthly, it’s easy to do a full day hackathon at least once a quarter. And, rather than have it be an “engineering thing”, you can (and should) make it a full company thing. Here’s how:
- Pick a date during the quarter for the hackathon. Mondays and Thursdays are best.
- Designate one person in charge of managing the hackathon. This person has a budget for food and prizes and is encouraged to do whatever they want to publicize it throughout the company (easy for 10 people, not so easy for 1000 people). The goal is to engage 100% of the company in the hackathon.
- Form teams. The teams should be between two and five people. The teams should be self-selecting. The Hackathon manager should come up with an easy way to manage the team list (hint – wiki). Each team should have a name and, in advance of the hackathon, should spent at least one meal together talking about what they are going to work on. People should be encouraged to work with folks they’ve never done anything with before, although this shouldn’t be a requirement.
- The hackathon starts at 12:01am and ends at 5pm. Whatever is done, is done. Demos and awards start at 5:30pm. Food is included. The hackathon manager is responsible for coordinating all of this, including the mechanism for judging.
In the best hackathons, there is a wiki that is very dynamic during the hackathon. This way all of the activity is captured and can be reviewed afterwards. The goal is not to include everything from the hackathon in future releases; rather it’s to stimulate a bunch of ideas, generate some prototypes, end up with some useful code, but get everyone in the company thinking about all the products.
Not all of the hackathon projects need to be about code. I’ve seen things like help systems, new web sites, better customer support processes, better management of social media activity, and lots of business process stuff created and implemented during hackathons.
After the hackathon is over, publicize what you’ve done to the world. FeedBurner used to do a great job of this with a simple blog post that highlighted every project and the teams that worked on them.
Oh – and don’t forget to invite your board members. If I can make it, I’ll always spend a day at a hackathon. It’s one of the best ways for me to really engage in and help out the companies I’m involved in. Plus it’s a blast.
Today, Amazon’s 1-Click patent was confirmed following a four year re-examination. Amazon now has ownership of a highly controversial and very absurd patent which I hope will only be used defensively. This a classic example of a “business method patent” that should simply not exist. I continue to wait patiently to see what the Supreme Court says re: Bilski.
In other patent news, Google and Facebook were sued over a social network patent. This was a patent issued in October that apparently has something to do with how people join social networks on mobile phones. Egads.
In better news, it looks like I’ll soon be able to buy a jet pack for $86,000.
These people are way cooler than I could ever be. At least I have something to aspire to.
Amazon Fires Its Affiliates in Colorado (Including Me) Because of Colorado HB 10-1193
I’ve been an Amazon Associate (Amazon’s affiliate program) for many years. Today I got the following notice in my Amazon Associates account.
and I woke up to the following email.
Dear Colorado-based Amazon Associate:
We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to inform you that the Colorado government recently enacted a law to impose sales tax regulations on online retailers. The regulations are burdensome and no other state has similar rules. The new regulations do not require online retailers to collect sales tax. Instead, they are clearly intended to increase the compliance burden to a point where online retailers will be induced to “voluntarily” collect Colorado sales tax — a course we won’t take.
We and many others strongly opposed this legislation, known as HB 10-1193, but it was enacted anyway. Regrettably, as a result of the new law, we have decided to stop advertising through Associates based in Colorado. We plan to continue to sell to Colorado residents, however, and will advertise through other channels, including through Associates based in other states.
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
You may express your views of Colorado’s new law to members of the General Assembly and to Governor Ritter, who signed the bill.
Your Associates account has been closed as of March 8, 2010, and we will no longer pay advertising fees for customers you refer to Amazon.com after that date. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned prior to March 8, 2010, will be processed and paid in accordance with our regular payment schedule. Based on your account closure date of March 8, any final payments will be paid by May 31, 2010.
We have enjoyed working with you and other Colorado-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program, and wish you all the best in your future.
I’ve been a supporter of Governor Ritter since his campaign for governor and have worked hard to positively impact Colorado’s software / Internet / technology / entrepreneurial ecosystem. Over the past two months, I’ve privately expressed my outrage over HB10-1192 and HB10-1193 to several people in Ritter’s administration. I watched as numerous people in the software / Internet community tried their hardest to help our legislators, the governor, and their staffs understand why this is such a huge step backwards for Colorado. I was told several times “don’t worry – we’ll take care off all the silly stuff.” There seemed to be enough folks showing up to discuss this that I thought rational minds would prevail.
I made a huge mistake. I should have come out very publicly about this when I first heard about it, made sure everyone that I supported during the elections that supported these bills (including one of the co-sponsors) knew my opinion and understood why they had the potential to be so detrimental to the software / Internet / entrepreneurial climate in Colorado. Shame on me for not being more aggressive, although there are some days I definitely feel like there are only so many fronts I can deal with outside my very full time day job.
I’m not at all surprised by this action on Amazon’s part. I expect the Internet Affiliate business in Colorado will completely die within the next thirty days (every company that has an affiliate business will turn off all of their Colorado-based affiliates.)
I then received the following email from Colorado Governor Ritter
Gov. Bill Ritter issued the following statement today criticizing Amazon.com’s decision to abruptly end its financial relationship with Amazon Associate businesses in Colorado:
“Amazon has taken a disappointing – and completely unjustified – step of ending its relationship with associates. While Amazon is blaming a new state law for its action, the fact is that Amazon is simply trying to avoid compliance with Colorado law and is unfairly punishing Colorado businesses in the process.
“My office worked closely with Amazon’s affiliates and associates to modify House Bill 1193 to specifically protect small businesses, avoid job losses and provide a fair, level playing field for on-line retailers and Main Street, brick-and-mortar retail shops alike.
“Amazon’s position is unfortunate, and Coloradans certainly deserve better.”
I’m especially disappointed in the Governor’s statement – it’s completely tone deaf to the actual issue and what Amazon is clearly stating. I’ve heard several people saying “Amazon is the problem” or “well – this is good – now people will buy locally.” Neither of these statements is valid – Amazon behaved like a rational company in the face of government regulation that had no upside for them and substantial downside. Also, this has zero impact on consumer purchasing activity as this doesn’t impact the end customer of Amazon products in any way.
Rather, the many small businesses and solo entrepreneurs who make money off of Amazon’s affiliate program just lost a revenue stream (which, by the way, is used to employ people and pay state taxes.) Colorado just got a big black eye in their historical effort to be a place that is friendly to business, especially high growth technology companies. And our state government likely now has lost more tax revenue than it was going to gain through the bill in the first place while simultaneously damaging the revenue streams for many small Colorado businesses.
The only logical solution in my book is what Amazon says in paragraph 3.
There is a right way for Colorado to pursue its revenue goals, but this new law is a wrong way. As we repeatedly communicated to Colorado legislators, including those who sponsored and supported the new law, we are not opposed to collecting sales tax within a constitutionally-permissible system applied even-handedly. The US Supreme Court has defined what would be constitutional, and if Colorado would repeal the current law or follow the constitutional approach to collection, we would welcome the opportunity to reinstate Colorado-based Associates.
One of the great things about living in Eldorado Springs, Colorado is interacting with nature on a daily basis.
Protecting the environment has been a priority of mine for many years. Every now and then I like to call out a non-profit organization that I support that I think does an excellent job of helping protect the environment.
Colorado Conservation Voters is one of these groups. CCV works to turn conservation values into Colorado priorities by educating legislators and the public about important environmental issues, helping pro-conservation candidates win their elections, and then holding our elected officials accountable. Most importantly, they do it efficiently as they are a group that has influence and reach much larger than their budget would indicate.
In the past six years they have built and protected a conservation majority in the state House, Senate, and Governor’s office. These victories matter – Colorado is a better place for CCV spearheading these pro-environment victories. For example:
- Colorado now requires that 20% of our electricity come from renewable sources like wind and solar;
- More water is kept in our rivers and streams when they need it most and in crucial areas for habitat protection, protecting the health of our rivers;
- We have the strongest protections in the nation for our drinking water, wildlife, and communities threatened by oil and gas drilling.
This is a group that understands how to make change happen. They use their money strategically and efficiently. If you are interested in conserving the environment in Colorado, I encourage you to take a look at the Colorado Conservation Voters website as well as considering making a gift or even becoming a monthly donor.
If you live in Boulder, it’s time to help bring the Google Fiber experiment to our awesome city. A bunch of folks from all over Boulder are working on the Boulder Fiber project to help us become one of the cities for the Google Fiber for Communities project.
Boulder is a perfect city for this. When I moved here in 1995 I didn’t expect to engage in much business as I was spending most of my time in Boston, NY, and San Francisco. However, I discovered an incredibly smart community that was extremely computer and Internet savvy. As the commercial Internet started to take off in the mid-1990’s, Boulder was a hotbed for Internet usage and innovation as we rapidly became an incredibly wired city. I attributed this to the convergence of (a) a smart, well-educated population, (b) a university at the core of the city, (c) a bunch of national labs, (d) a solid legacy of tech startups, especially around storage, cable, and telecom, and (e) a strong culture of independence which was well suited to all things Internet.
What I didn’t realize at the time were two important metrics that underscore both the technology and the entrepreneurial energy in Boulder. The two metrics are that on a per-capita basis, Boulder has the highest percentage of computer scientists and the highest percentage of Ph.D.’s in the US. When combined with a vibrant entrepreneurial community that has deep software and Internet expertise, magic things happen.
We’ve seen a lot of this magic in Boulder in the past five years. I’m proud of how the city I call home has arisen as one of the most important entrepreneurial communities in the US with much more activity, visibility, and influence than a city with a population of 150,000 typically has. More importantly, the amount of innovation coming out of Boulder is extraordinary.
Google has put out a challenge to find communities that are willing to be a test bed for an experimental ultra-high speed broadband network to see what kind of innovation will emerge. If you are a member of the Boulder community, even if you aren’t in the high tech or entrepreneurial sector, help us tell Google why Boulder is the best city in the US for this experiment.
If you are game to help, do the following things:
- Go to the Boulder Fiber site and follow the directions – it’ll take five minutes.
- Follow the Boulder Fiber project on Twitter
- Fan Bring Google Fiber to the City of Boulder on Facebook.
Silicon Flatirons Conference: The Role of Place: Entrepreneurial Immigration, Iteration, and Innovation
On Thursday, March 18th (during CU Entrepreneurship Week) there is going to be a great Silicon Flatirons Conference on “The Role of Place”. Brad Bernthal, who is chairing the conference, leads with a great quote from Harvard Professor and Monitor Group co-founder Michael Porter.
"Paradoxically, the enduring competitive advantages in a global economy lie increasingly in local things – knowledge, relationships, and motivation – that distant rivals cannot match."
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this personally given all my work around the Boulder entrepreneurial community, TechStars, Foundry Group’s investments in different parts of the US, and the Startup Visa initiative.
I’ll be on the first panel titled Entrepreneurial Immigration Policy with Lance Nagel (partner in Morgan, Lewis & Bockius’ Labor and Employment Practice) and Vivek Wadhwa (Senior Research Associate, Labor & Worklife Program at Harvard Law School and an Adjunct Professor at the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering). I expect we’ll get a good chance to cover plenty of ground, including several of the incredible immigrant entrepreneur loci and projects like the Startup Visa initiative.
The second panel is Place and Iteration: Lessons From Storage and includes several folks who have been involved in the Boulder “storage ecosystem” over the past 30 years, including Jesse Aweida (founder of StorageTek) and Kyle Lefkoff (general partner of Boulder Ventures, who has invested in several Boulder storage companies over the years including McData and LeftHand Networks). Jim Linfield (partner at Cooley Godward, the founder of Cooley’s Colorado office, and counsel for a number of Colorado storage companies) will be anchoring the panel.
The third panel is Innovation and The Architecture of Geography and will explore broader lessons and insight concerning the role of place, regional architecture, and innovation.
Once again, my friends at Silicon Flatiron have put together a rich conference on a very important and timely topic. It’s taking place at the Wittemyer Courtroom, Wolf Law Building, University of Colorado on Thursday, March 18, 2010 from 2:30PM to 6:30PM. Register now and come join us.
The Apple patent suit against HTC really riled up my friend Sawyer. I wasn’t planning on posting another missive from him until next week, but I thought this was particularly timely given the public statement from Apple, including a specific quote from Steve Jobs about its competitors stealing their patented inventions. Sawyer explains why this is simply inflammatory rhetoric and actually has no basis in fact or the way patent law works. He also makes the case – using this as an example – that patents stifle, rather than promote innovation. Enjoy. And, after you read this, if you want a little “doesn’t this sound familiar” action, take a look at the Wikipedia page on Apple Computer v. Microsoft Computer with regard to the GUI – with a little Xerox tossed in as a side dish. And now, my friend Sawyer.
The other day Apple announced that it is suing HTC for infringing several patents related to the iPhone, including patents on the UI, i.e., software patents. As part of the press release, Steve Jobs said the following (emphasis mine):
“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
The rhetoric of "stealing" and "theft" surrounding accusations of patent infringement is bothersome, both because substantive patent law doesn’t embrace the concept of theft, and because most patent cases don’t involve credible allegations of actual theft or even copying.
Plaintiffs try to use "theft" to inject a moral element into patent suits, but there is no substantive moral element in patent law. The point of a patent is to grant a monopoly in exchange for public disclosure, and patentees want people to use the ideas (in exchange for license fees), otherwise the public disclosure aspect is pointless. The Constitution doesn’t authorize patent or copyright law for moral reasons either: “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries…”
The only doctrine in patent law that shades into morality is willful infringement. The shifting law on willful infringement will be the subject of another post, but in any case, willfulness isn’t a morality doctrine; willful infringers aren’t bad people, they are just people who decided to continue possibly infringing because they didn’t think they infringed, thought the suit was frivolous, or thought they would lose more money by stopping, at least in the short term. The doctrine is set up to penalize people who recklessly infringe by potentially trebling damages, and so acts as an incentive to settle suits and pay licensing fees. This isn’t a moral calculus, it’s a utilitarian one.
Willfulness, however, acts as the main vehicle for plaintiffs to inject moral rhetoric and copying allegations into a patent suit. “Copying” in a patent law sense means that an infringer either literally read the patent and copied what the claims said wholesale, or saw a product embodying the patent and copied the patented aspect of it. Copying in patent law does not mean “theft.” Theft of secret ideas is actionable under trade secret law, and I know of very few cases pairing the two. Literal copying is often actionable under copyright law as well. Isn’t it the case though that patentees want people to copy? Doesn’t copying mean that their ideas are spreading and being used for follow-on innovation, which are good things? The issue if anything is proper compensation, not the act of copying itself.
Unsurprisingly, we don’t usually even get into copying as a consideration. A paper by Mark Lemley and a good blog post titled Patent defendants aren’t copycats shows that the vast majority of patent cases don’t involve an assertion of copying (and we’ll have to see if the Apple case does). Putting in place an independent invention defense to infringement, as suggested recently by Brad Burnham at Union Square Ventures, would potentially wipe out 90% of patent cases.
Setting all of that aside, in my experience, when plaintiffs do allege copying, particularly in software cases, the allegations are uniformly flimsy and bogus litigation tactics aimed at getting “black hat” stories about defendants told to juries. And it’s a great tactic because juries are people, and regardless of the merits, they like to stick it to the bad guys, especially so where the merits are boring patent law issues that no one understands anyway.
Now we have one of the biggest and most innovative companies out there, Apple, trying to sue one of its competitors out of the market with patents, and using the false rhetoric of theft to justify the suit. This underscores that the patent problem isn’t just "trolls" versus "big companies," it’s big companies using patents to sue others in the same market into oblivion, cutting off competition and destroying innovation. Imagine, if HTC weren’t making great Android phones to compete with the iPhone, would Apple be incentivized to significantly improve its products? Would we have no iPhone if patents didn’t exist? I think it’s fairly obvious that in the absence of patents, we would have more competition and more innovation here, not less.
In any case, the takeaway for reform advocates is that we need to shift the rhetorical frame in discussions around patents from the moralizing of "stealing" and "theft" to what the issue actually is, a dry utilitarian calculus about what outcomes are better for innovation and competition. When we think about the issues in that frame, it sort of takes the wind of out of Steve Jobs’ sails, doesn’t it?
I saw a tweet today that said “The doubly-linked list, a structure I studied thirty years ago, has recently been patented.” After giggling at the absurdity of the idea, I went and at a patent dated 4/11/06 that appears to be for the doubly-linked list. The prior art was extremely thin, only went back to 1995, and didn’t mention that entire computer languages have been created around the list as a core data structure. One of my first Pascal programming exercises in high school (in 1981 – on an Apple II using USDC Pascal) was to write a series of operations on lists, including both linked and doubly-linked lists (I always thought it was funny they were called “doubly-linked” instead of “double-linked” lists.) Anyone who ever graduated from MIT and took 6.001 learned to love all varieties of the linked list, including the doubly-linked one. That was 1984 for me by the way.
Ironically, Wikipedia had great entries – with source code no less – about both linked lists and doubly-linked lists. The linked list history goes back to 2001, well before the patent was filed. My understanding is that patent examiners aren’t allowed to use Wikipedia – I’m meeting with some PTO folks on Friday and I’m going to ask them if this is fact or fiction. Regardless, this patent is another example of how ridiculous the situation has become.