Big news around these parts at the beginning of 2015 is that Mercedes Benz has decided to move its new U.S. headquarters to Atlanta. Which is a fine thing for Atlanta. Mercedes and Porsche. Two high class car companies with U.S. headquarters in a high class car driving city. The more interesting aspect of the […]
Continue reading →This week I was interviewed for an upcoming article in the Atlanta Business Chronicle on the subject of how innovation is driving economic development (job growth in layman’s terms) and what needs to be done to continue to attract and foster startup companies. This led me to think about the subject a bit and this […]
Continue reading →Highly respected venture capitalist Bill Gurley sounded the alarm about a month ago in an interview in the Wall Street Journal about the amount of risk VCs and startup employees are taking on these days. Very specifically he is worried about burn rates. To quote: And I guarantee you two things: One, the average burn […]
Continue reading →I recently came across this graphic on Planet Money. Three things struck me about it. How many people are in local government, how few people are employed in manufacturing, and how services have really come to dominate the US economy.
Continue reading →From time to time the subject of MBAs and startups seems to raise its head and did so again recently by a few of my fellow inhabitants of Atlanta Startup Village. First John Melonakos mentioned how Business School is not Street Cred for Startups and then Kevin Sandlin followed on with why Getting an MBA […]
Continue reading →So two of the largest advertising giants, Omnicom and Publicis are getting together to form a company with $23 billion in revenue to fight off the inroads from digital competition. Might be a losing battle, data based marketing is growing fast. But beyond that the deal is being billed as a "merger of equals" for […]
Continue reading →One of the top five classes I have ever taken was a shortened version of a negotiation course during a Mergers and Acquisitions executive education program at The Wharton School. The class was led by Stuart Diamond. It was darn good. It has been over ten years since I have taken that class. But there is […]
Continue reading →Great Jim Barksdale quote over on A VC today. If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine. Seems like the right approach for anyone running a company to take. It is the approach that I have seen most of the CEOs that I work for […]
Continue reading →About a month ago Half Off Depot announced that it had acquired Dealster. To quote the release: “Dealster marks the first acquisition for Half Off Depot. In addition to its membership base, Dealster’s value to Half Off Depot lies in its proprietary platform, which includes social elements for customers and merchants as well as other features […]
Continue reading →So a long time ago at a place about a mile away I worked at this little startup called MindSpring. MindSpring was kinda like Zappo's before Zappo's was just a gleam in Tony Hsieh's eye. The company was completely core values based. To cite one of them, we were customer driven. We also had something we called […]
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