BLOG

It always bugs me when I see conferences do their “last chance to register” email. I mean, I know it’s standard operating procedure; hell, I’m probably going to do one today. But it still bugs me. It’s one of those “marketing speak” things that just feels insincere.

Five years ago, we started Defrag. The “we” part of that sentence is always assumed to be Brad and Eric. Or maybe, Brad and Phil and Eric. But that’s not true. Five years ago, I had built and sold a tech conference with two friends, but I’d

If you’re into reading tea leaves (and I’m a big fan), then you’ve been having fun lately. The pace of angel investing has most definitely slowed down (and I still say AngelList is more of an indication of a bubble, than a fundamental change in how startups

I woke up this morning, let the dogs out (we have a doberman and the world’s largest golden retriever — really — he’s 130lbs), and sat down to watch this talk that Brad gave at Stanford. If you know Brad, it’s a lot of stuff that you’ve

Originally this morning, I was going to blog something about Mary Meeker’s slide deck, and how the last recession saw the growth of e-commerce, while this recession is seeing the growth of mobile adoption/commerce — but honestly, I’m not sure I have much more to say than

Yes, we’re focused on Defrag 2011 - I mean, check out THAT agenda (and please note that the agenda does not yet reflect the addition of Aneesh Chopra, CTO, The White House to the keynotes). But amidst all of that, I wanted to put our stake in

A weird thing happened on the way to Defrag this year: we announced we were capping attendance at 300 (to make sure the quality of intimate conversation is maintained), and a bunch of people who have never come before registered. A bit odd, right? And then this

It’s a Saturday, and Defrag is 25 days away, so a quick post… Two things: 1. I just confirmed Aneesh Chopra, CTO for the White House, as a Defrag keynoter. If you’re keeping track, you now have authorities in mobile (Tim Bray), big data (Roger Ehrenberg), tech

The question always kind of startles me, although I guess it really shouldn’t. “Should I go to Defrag?” Well, duh! But, actually, it’s a really good question because in truth there are people that shouldn’t go to Defrag (example: lovers of the status quo that aren’t obsessively

I was on three phone calls today (it was a light day): one where I was reviewing an opportunity with someone, one where I was sharing some thoughts on a few startups, and one where I got to chat over a branding initiative with a friend/CEO of