I’m at the Venture Capital in the Rockies Conference today. Denver’s awesome Mayor – John Hickenlooper – is the breakfast speaker. It’s 8:25 and I’ve already heard the quote of the day. John – who is an entrepreneur – is talking about his entree into politics. When he mentioned to his brother that he was thinking about running for mayor, his brother responded, “C’mon John, politics is hollywood for ugly people.” Perfect.
Amy and I spent as much of the summer as we can at our house in Alaska. Today, Mt. Augustine, located about 75 miles southwest of our home in Homer, erupted.
Amy has more links and information on her blog if you are interested.
After a magnificent long weekend in the Bahamas, my return to American soil was via the Miami Airport. Blech. The best part of the airport was the landing on the runway.
We taxied for a while, eventually ending up in the middle of the airfield next to an active runway (holy shit – did that plane just take off next to us?) A bus pulled up, we got off the plane and crowded on it, and then drove around in a circle for 10 minutes, enjoying the smell of exhaust mixed with jet fumes, eventually ending up at a terminal. We went up an escalator and wandered past a huge number of gun-toting security dudes. Eventually we made our way through the very nice and tidy customs area (I didn’t understand a word the custom agent said to me – he definitely wasn’t speaking English), down another escalator to a dingy baggage claim area, where we walked past rows of doors that were locked. Eventually we found the one open door (hint: it was the one with the long line of people), waited a while, and got waived through the bag check area.
The door magically opened into another huge space – this one not so dingy – but with completely incomprehensible signage. Now – I’m a good traveler – I travel a lot – and usually just do it by feel, but this time I had to stop and think about what to do next. We found a departure monitor, but the flights were listed alphabetically by airline and then by time. We didn’t remember which airline we were on so a manual scan of the monitor eventually turned up Denver as our destination city near the last entry (yes – we were flying on United / Ted). Eventually, a disheveled looking woman guarding the elevator from a plastic chair grunted “check in floor two” at us and it dawned on us that we should take the elevator up a level.
Voila. Another huge space. For some reason we weren’t checked in all the way through to Denver, so we wandered over to the United check in counter. The computer kiosk worked fine and we went in search of the next line. This one was only 100 or so people long waiting for another escalator up. We waited and eventually had our boarding pass scrutinized by another person that spoke to me in a language I didn’t understand. Up the escalator we went, to face another line, this one 200 or so people long. Ah – security, TSA, line – cool – I’m in familiar territory. Apparently in the Miami airport “keep your baggage with you at all times” means “leave your bags wherever the hell you want – we won’t do anything to them” which was even more entertaining after we told the TSA guy about the stray baggage (I’m not sure he understood the language I was speaking, which I’m certain was English.)
Eventually we cleared security. Almost there, or so we thought. We wandered down a dingy looking hallway (Terminal F), noticing the holes in the tiles, ceiling crap all over the floor, and stuff that looked eerily like asbestos coating the carpet. You could smell the mold even before you saw it and everything in this hallway felt damp, except for the stunning black and white photographs of people lying mostly naked on the beach that adorned the wall (at least they have an appreciation of art in Terminal F.)
We finally got to the gate – a sea of purple chairs in the midst of a handful of crappy food stores. Remarkably, they had free WiFi, but no power outlets anywhere (unless you were willing to stand up next to the pay phones, far away from everyone else). A weak excuse for a strawberry smoothie allowed me to deny reality for a little while – I’m on the plane now and will be home soon.
What is this “Ted” thing anyway? This feels like a bad excuse for Frontier.
I’m at CMU today for the National Center of Women & Information Technology semi-annual meeting (I’m chairman). We just had a fantastic keynote from Nick Donofrio – EVP of Innovation and Technology at IBM, a 42 year IBM veteran, and a strong supporter / advocate of woman in information technology.
After wandering around enemy territory (the CMU computer science and robotics buildings – as an MIT grad, I kept expecting someone to notice that a spy from another school was snooping around – they didn’t notice me, they were too busy looking at all the Google flyers advertising for jobs) I settled into the conference room at Newell Simon Hall. I noticed this huge building out the window and overheard someone mention that it is called The Cathedral of Learning and was the second tallest academic building in the world. A quick search on Wikipedia turned up an awesome amount of information on this building which was commissioned in 1921 and finished in 1937 (fundraising started in 1925 – I hope the money was raised before October 1929). The building is on the University of Pittsburgh’s main campus and the view is stunning from the third flow of CMU’s Newell Simon Hall.
I love the idea of a building called “The Cathedral of Learning”, regardless of which campus it’s located on.
Earlier this summer I was invited up to Fairbanks, Alaska by the Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation to talk about entrepreneurship. I decided to swing up to Fairbanks at the end of our Alaska trip to check things out. Amy grew up in Fairbanks and we’ve been there plenty of times to visit friends, but I’d never gone with view toward the entrepreneurial activity going on in town and really had no clue what was going on.
I was hosted for the day by Charlie Walker – the executive director of the Fairbanks Economic Development Corporation – and his intern Olga – a wonderfully smart student at University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) who grew up in Russia and has a dream / vision of starting a venture capital firm in Eastern Europe.
After a 5am run (I somehow convinced myself that it’s never really dark in Fairbanks in the summer and – even though it was pre-dawn at 5am – I had a super run) I was picked up by Charlie and Olga. Charlie immediately apologized that he was going to be tangled up all day in a “political thing” that had come up – it turns out that the Mayor of Fairbanks was trying to fire Charlie and – if unsuccessful – effectively shut down FEDC. While I probably don’t have the whole story, it sounds like classic small town politics that ultimately hurts the town. The issue being raised is one of conflict of interest over $28,000 so it’s getting plenty of local air play. I told Charlie not to worry about me and go deal with this issue in front of him as I was sure that Olga could help me out for the day (which she did a superb job of.)
We started off at a 7am at the Fairbanks Sunrisers Rotary Club meeting. Now – I’m not a Rotary Club kind of guy, but I go where they take me, and had a nice time with this group. I gave a short talk on entrepreneurship and venture capital, listened to the various announcements, and smiled a lot. I got a pen as a speaking gift which I’ll add to my Rotary Club pen collection (I now have two of them.)
Olga then took me to Rogers Software Development which appears – at 25 people – to be the largest software company in Fairbanks. Rogers has a proprietary software product for barber shop / beauty salons and appears to be on a tear as they’ve leapfrogged a number of incumbent companies with older applications (DOS and Windows / non-Internet). They’re growing 100% yoy, have 5,000 customers, are self-funded, clearly profitable, and – well – exactly what you’d expect from a scrappy 25 person software company. Fun, surprising, and delightful.
We then wandered over to the Office of Electronic Miniaturization (OEM) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (although OEM is off campus on the second floor of a Wells Fargo building.) OEM is a DMEA (US Government Defense Microelectronics Activity) sponsored electronic miniaturization program composed of a design development and production facility – the giveaway that it was started in the Internet-bubble is its website – www.silicontundra.org. The program includes a 1,500 square foot class 10,000 clean room which is located on the UAF campus. The building OEM is located in also houses the Nanook Tech Accelerator – an attempt to build a local incubator (which is the source of the conflict issue that is causing Charlie and FEDC so much grief.) OEM was funded about 5 years ago and was supposed to be self-sufficient by now but isn’t (although they continue to make progress toward the goal, including a new recent deal with Tessera Technologies).
Lunch was at Pike’s Landing and included Wayne Marr (the Dean of the UAF School of Management), John Dickinson (the CFO of OEM), Cynthia Adams (the CEO of GrantStation – which appears to be the second largest software company in Fairbanks), and Terry Aldridge (consultant to FEDC who is part of the conflict of interest issue described above.) We had a vigorous conversation about entrepreneurship and venture capital, which predictably started off with the question “Do you think venture capital will come to Fairbanks?” to which I responded “that’s the wrong question – you should be asking what you can do to accelerate entrepreneurship in Fairbanks – the money will follow the activity.” I liked Wayne, John, Cynthia, and Terry and the fried halibut burger was great.
I finished the day with a talk to about 50 people at UAF on venture capital and entrepreneurship. The first hour was standard stuff, but the second hour got exciting as we started talking about how entrepreneurship can grow in a modest sized town (85,000) like Fairbanks that doesn’t have much of an entrepreneurial culture. Fairbanks is fortunate to have a huge intellectual asset in UAF (which is the premier science / technology school in Alaska.) Fairbanks is also the northern-most major city in North America (at least I think it is) which gives it another unique characteristic that it could capitalize on. A recurring negative theme was the difficulty of keeping young people in Fairbanks after they graduate from college due to a perception of limited opportunities as well as a hatred of the brutal winters. I spent much of the time focusing the group on several ideas that I thought they should pay attention to if they wanted to expand entrepreneurship in Fairbanks:
Overall, I had a very stimulating day. While I don’t expect I’ll be doing any investments in Fairbanks any time soon, it was fun to explore entrepreneurship in a town like Fairbanks.
We just had the biggest earthquake of the summer – a 4.7 at 12:57pm our time – about 38 miles from Homer. Following is the map (hint: look for the big red box.)
We have lots of little earthquakes nearby all the time – this time it was big enough to notice. At first I thought Amy had snuck up on me and was shaking the back of my chair to get my attention. I said something like “hey babe” but the shaking continued. I turned around and Amy wasn’t there. I then noticed that my computer monitors were bouncing around at which point “EARTHQUAKE!” entered my brain. I rolled with the last five seconds (it was about 10 seconds long) and then went up stairs to announce the event. Amy thought I was slamming doors down stairs, so she didn’t make the connection until I told her.
Bob Geldof is echoing through my head. It was one of those days – it didn’t help that I overdid it yesterday on my run up and down Homer Hill (and am still feeling weird 24 hours later from 90 minutes of too much hill.) At least I have a pretty pictures to look at. Here are your Alaska photos of the day.
(Blackstone Glacier and some very happy looking sea otters that didn’t realize that Monday’s happen – courtesy of Dave Jilk.)
The Homer, Alaska sunset is on the left; the Maine sunset (where Seth Levine – who works with me – is on vacation right now) is on the right. How’s that for a bi-coastal blog – Seth decided to go on vacation about as far away from me as he could get and still be in the United States.
It’s almost Tuesday.
Every VC’s favorite rock band – The Flying Other Brothers – is coming to Homer, Alaska on August 18th (how could you be a VC and not love a band who’s albums are titled IPO, Secondary, and 52–Week High.)
FOB is fronted by Roger McNamee – the extremely successful investor that co-founded Integral Capital Partners, Silver Lake Partners, and most recently Elevation Partners (famous – among other things – for having U2’s Bono as a partner.) Amy and I will be rocking out at Duggan’s Pub on the 18th. Maybe Bono will show.
I grew up in Dallas and – when I went to school in Boston – I was proud (at least for a while) of being from “Big-D”. However, Amy cut me down to size when we hooked up. She grew up in Alaska and told me that if you cut Alaska in two, Texas would be the third largest state.