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from the Emerging Business Team

What Makes a Community Meaningful? by Kris Olson on Friday, July 04, 2008

In early May, at Startup Camp in San Francisco, I had the chance to talk to two startups about their open source projects and how community plays a role in these projects. I have been thinking about the best kind of community we could create on the Microsoft...

Zino Society -- Some Startup Will Begin the Day with a Pitch and End it with $100k by Christopher Griffin on Thursday, July 03, 2008

Yesterday I met with Mary Holmes from Seattle's Zino Society, an interesting group whose mission, among hosting a high degree of wine-oriented social events, includes supporting the growth and success of entrepreneurial ventures. The Society's history...

What Half of Your Brain and Google Have in Common by Christopher Griffin on Thursday, July 03, 2008

Several weeks ago I read a short profile in the Wall Street Journal about Charles Wolf, a man who, while suffering left-brain damage from multiple bouts with cancer, has managed to build an investment portfolio that has beaten the DJIA and doubled its...

Why Powerset is important and different by Don Dodge on Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Microsoft announced yesterday the acquisition of Powerset, a natural language search engine. Techmeme has lots of stories about the acquisition. Today the stories are all a bout Microsoft/Yahoo potential deals . But lets take a step back and look at how...

Lanchester's Laws for Startups by Yi-Jian Ngo on Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Interesting rule of thumb based on military operational research performed by Frederick Lanchester during World War I: If you’re trying to enter an existing market where the dominant player has greater than 40% market share, you will need to spend at...

Marc Andreessen Joins Facebook Board by Kris Olson on Tuesday, July 01, 2008

The news today was Marc Andreessen's joining the board of Facebook. From Netscape to Facebook, some interesting ironies along the way. Marc is also a founder of Ning, a social networking application. So why is this important to startups? It's because...

Go Public? (Why Would Anyone Want To Do That?) by Christopher Griffin on Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen an uptick in news articles citing the lack of tech IPOs (my colleague Don Dodge wrote on this just days ago). Don mentioned some of the macro-economic factors driving the dearth of tech IPOs. But there is another...

Microsoft acquires Powerset by Don Dodge on Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Microsoft has agreed to acquire Powerset, a Natural Language search engine, founded by Barney Pell. Satya Nadella, Senior Vice President, Search, Portal, and Advertising said on his blog ; Powerset will join our core Search Relevance team, remaining intact...


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