Davos Newbies Home

One of the many refreshing things about Dave Winer is he holds no truck with conventional wisdom. As a Silicon Valley stalwart for decades, Dave has seen many waves of hype and vapour come and go. So he focuses a sceptical eye on any current certainties. The latest contrary view from Dave is that incubators are OK.

His logic? “The incubators have been about brands and markets, product concepts, applications. Instead they should have been about technology.” Then, “let’s find a way to start lots of standalone companies, fund lots of independent-thinking developers with a twinkle in the eye, it’s so cheap, but let’s give them standards to work with. Let’s make it so that when the companies merge, the services plug together, and work. Based on many years in this industry, I think this feature would please the VC mind.”

Such a scenario would mean that successful capital providers would need to understand and maybe even use the technology they were funding. Quite a radical idea. (Full disclosure, as American journalists would write: in my new job at Vesta, part of what I’m trying to do is realise some of the vision that Dave has now helped — unbeknownst to him — clarify for me.)

***Day without weblogs

A lot of the weblogs I follow are observing A Day Without Weblogs. I don’t want to drop this weblog for the day, but Nadine Gordimer’s essay on Aids is vital reading for anyone who cares about the future of our species.

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