Fair Use News & Views

Larry:

I hope you decide to run for the Lantos seat.

The reason is simple. — you get it. (or maybe IT)

A short story with my perspective:

A few years ago I met Sherwood L. Boehlert at a political event in DC. At the time he was head of the Science Committee (as his business card proudly proclaimed), so I started talking to him about the Internet. I’d written a white paper about the benefits of growing the US broadband infrastructure and he seem like a place to start.

After a sentence or two he told me he really knew nothing about the Internet and I should talk to someone whose name I can’t recall. I asked why the head of the Science Committee knew nothing about the Internet. My sarcasm was obvious, so he responded in kind. “The trouble with you people is that you need to pay more attention to what we are doing here in Washington.” — could he give me a better straight line? I told him the last time I checked he worked for the citizens and he should be paying attention to me instead. Well, not surprisingly he turned on his heel and ran away as fast as he could.

The problem is that Congress needs someone on the inside to explain it to them. —- because they will never listen to obnoxious people like me.

I know that you will NEVER be Mr. Boehlert. — because i’ve met both of you and I can say you are no Sherwood Boehlert.

Be the guy who gets it!

Here is a grassroots surge that we should all get behind

Roy Bostock has only been chairman of Yahoo for just over a week and he is already following their proud tradition. — doing something incredibly stupid. He is trying to negotiate by reaching over the table and poking Monkey Boy in the eye. Balmer will not like that, Roy. You think the worst that can happen is that he goes hostile. He may start a nuclear war that will consume you and your whole company. Memo to Roy. — get real dude!

What will come of the Microsoft/Yahoo combination? Lost in their strategies is the reality that business combinations are multiplicative not additive. So to see what falls out we simply need to come up with a factor for each piece and multiply.

Microsoft — the glory days are over and not coming back. Low innovation, but huge presence and distribution. — Give ‘em .8 (of Apple)

Yahoo — totally a legacy company with sinking relevance. Email and Flickr are nice, but is there really anything else? Couple this to a long chain of clueless management and I’ll give them a .3 (of Google)

So .8 x .3 = .24. — that’s 1/4 in my book. Must be something canonical here, because two half a loaf companies definitely feel like 1/4 a loaf. It’s not the steel industry Mr. Balmer. — don’t tell me about economies of scale. Bill Gates has got to be thinking “Let these guys run it for a couple of months and they fly it into a mountain.”

MicroWho?