BijanBlog

Let's get rid of the Non-Compete

I spent nearly 10 years working in the bay area. I worked at a number of startups and most importantly I worked with some amazing people. And I worked with those same amazing people over and over again in different companies.

My experience was hardly the exception. Many great companies in Silicon Valley have teams that have worked together time and time again.

When I moved back to Boston I forgot all about non-competes. I was frankly surprised that employers not only require them but they actually enforce them. This means that if you leave a company, you are not allowed to work for a competitor. The definition of a "competitor" is often broad and confusing.

As a result Boston startups have a real disadvantage from day 0. Boston entrepreneurs have one arm tied behind their back compared to their west coast counterparts. Imagine if Mass. didn't have a non-compete. What could the successful alumni from EMC, Lotus, Lycos, Akamai, DEC, Avid, Sonus, Groove, etc have possibly created after leaving those companies?

Or think about the reverse? What if CA had a non-compete. We might not have seen Intel, AMD, Apple, Oracle, SalesForce.com, Adobe, ,  develop the way they did (those companies were started by entrepreneurs that were at "competitive" companies prior).

Scott Kirsner has a post about last weeks NEVCA lunch where Paul Meaeder from Highland Capital calls the non-compete a "silent killer"

There are many reasons why the east coast vs west coast debate continues. There are some complex issues at work and it might take some time.

Getting rid of the non-compete should be an easy one though. Let's do it.

Dave opens up Flickr-to-Twitter

I've been using Dave Winer's Flickr-to-Twitter for a few months now.

Using Dave's software, I take a photo with my iPhone or Curve, email it to flickr, and it automatically posts to Twitter with the name of the photo and the url. It works simply and perfectly.

It's one of my favorite uses of Twitter & flickr. Sharing a photo "in the moment". But it is been a closed service and unavailable to the general public.

Until now. Dave has decided to open up the service to anyone. If you use Twitter and use Flickr then this is a no brainer. You'll love it.

If you use Flickr and haven't tried Twitter than I bet this will get you twittering away.

Bug Labs MeetUp in Cambridge - Oct 9th

Bug Labs is having an open event on Tuesday, Oct 29th 9th in Cambridge.

Please join us if you are interested in open source technology, consumer electronics and the idea of web services + hardware. Peter, the founder & CEO of Bug Labs will be there. I'll be there too.

Here is the event info. No RSVP required

Hope you can make it!

Update: I'm very bummed but I won't be able to make the event. I have a personal commitment that evening that I forgot all about. Ugh.

Update 2: My plans have changed again and I can make the event after all :)

(disclosure: Bug Labs is a Spark portfolio company)

Please don't cc me

I introduce people all the time. It feels like a daily thing these days. I enjoy it and its just part of my life.

This morning I received an email from a friend that I introduced to a very cool company. He is super excited about the opportunity. I'm happy for him. Feels so good.

But I have one very special request. If I introduce you to someone , please, please don't keep me on the email thread while you and the other person make arrangements to meet/talk whatever.

I'm begging you.

:)

Radio 2.0

Several years ago I simply gave up on the radio. I decided it wasn't for me. Music on the radio felt stale and I couldn't stand the commercials.

So I decided to listen to my personal music collection as a substitute for radio. It began with a big honking server that stored my Mp3 collection. Even though we love our Sonos and mp3 server, it's not a system to discover new music. It's just a fancy home networked ipod in many ways.

Music discovery for me nowadays is practically 100% online. Places like Hype Machine, Project Playlist, various mp3 blogs, Last.fm give me more than i could imagine.

But I can't get any of that internet radio goodness in the car or on my home audio system. For our cars, we are satellite radio subscribers. Lauren has XM radio. I have SIRIUS in my car. It's better than terrestrial radio but in many ways it's still lame.

The big problem with broadcast radio (satellite or terrestrial) is that it's broadcast. It's one-way. You can't share it with friends. You can't comment on it. You can't keep history. You can't create a playlist. You can't personalize it. And broadcast will never give you the range of internet radio content. Even satellite radio, with all of their channels, has a limited playlist per channel.

The broadcast radio industry is trying to catch up. HD is smart. And they recently agreed on an iTunes-based tagging service. Linking broadcast with the web is a good idea. It's certainly better than my current method of tagging the radio :)

HD radio and satellite radio feel like a band-aid. it's just an interim step while we wait for the inevitable. We want a full internet radio experience in our cars, on our mobile phones and on our home entertainment systems.

That's what I want. Give me Radio 2.0

Here Comes the Sun

On Sunday we were hanging around Harvard Square before dinner. There was this guy singing his heart out - playing one beatles song after another. It was great.

Even Ellie & James were taken by the music.

I wish my Curve could have captured video instead of just this photo.

The best song of his mini-set was Here Comes the Sun. Lauren and I were singing right along.

Here's George's version.

Internet People at N3

Next New Networks (a Spark portfolio company) introduced Internet People a month ago. The results have been simply awesome. It has been watched over 4 million times and it has generated over 10k comments.

Last week the team at Next New Networks created this live, one-shot version of Internet People with the employees of the company. These guys rock.

Check it out.

Real-life "Internet People" performed by NNN from justin on Vimeo.

Getting trashed

Someone recently trashed me pretty good.

It was an entrepreneur and he wasn't happy that I didn't invest in his company. I was very clear on why I wasn't going to invest this time around. I told him directly & clearly & quickly. But I guess that wasn't good enough. So he took it out on me behind my back. And I found out. Maybe I was supposed to?

The odd thing is that this person then called me for advice a week or so later. He has a bunch of VC friends so i was a quite surprised that he reached out to me about his particular question.

Odd behavior coming from a guy that trashed me.

Anyway, I answered his questions and gave him some pointers.

Felt good giving him advice. But also felt pretty bad too.

Time to forget it I suppose.

Dear Dopplr. I was wrong about you.

So I can't remember who first invited me to Dopplr. It was either Rafer or Prashant.

Dopplr is an online service for frequent travelers. You put in all of your upcoming trips and you hope that your traveling friends do the same.

I joined several months ago. And in the beginning I didn't get it. It felt hard to use. It felt like yet another weak social network asking me to re-create myself online. I had to invite more friends to yet another service.

Lots of folks asked me what I thought and I would just reply,  "it's okay". Which is code for "it's not for me".

But I was wrong. Way wrong.

It clicked about a month ago for me. Once I had a core group of friends using the service it became incredibly useful. Now I love Dopplr. It's fantastic. It's made for folks like me that travel a lot and have friends that travel a lot. Using Dopplr I've been able to connect with my west coast friends while I'm traveling or when they are in NYC or Boston.

I'd like to see some improvements to Dopplr. Integrating with Twitter is a no-brainer. Also, to sync based on categories to Outlook or Gcal is also a must.

I was wrong about you Dopplr. I'm glad I stuck it out.

Dopplr is still in private beta but if you want to give it a try leave a comment here and I'll send you an invite. Here's my profile on Dopplr.

Students today

The story about the kids in Boulder is an inspiration. 50 students walked out during the Pledge on Thursday. They objected to the "under god" phrase. Even the principle was impressed.

I'm still digging into the background of this story and whether other students around the country are going to do something similar. Or maybe they already are?

Someone should ask our presidential candidates what they think about this. I'd love to hear what they have to say about separation of church and state.