Category Archives: People

There’s not a single rule in the world of business that says you have to be a certain age in order to start your own company or startup–and if there is one, then that needs to be ripped out of the rule book and abolished from the minds of human civilization. Those starting a business or have an idea that can drastically change the world are the backbone to the creation of our economy, not to mention our society. Take a look at the ages of folks like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and many other successes. All started at a young age. Some probably prospered more than others because of the support system that they had.

In order to help foster the innovations, aspirations, hopes and dreams of future entrepreneurs, Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, and well-known investor, decided he  wanted to give something back and help the young people find their way so he started a program called the Thiel Fellowship where he would select 20 of the most brillant minds he could find, all under the age of 20, and give them a generous seed round to help fund their ambitions for the next two years. When you get down to the deeper meaning, it’s actually a means to back Mr. Thiel’s belief that entrepreneurs can be quite successful if they skip their post-secondary education. But why would someone be so bold as to abandon continuing their education?  Well it could be for a variety of reason (too many for this post), but for Mr. Thiel, it’s because he says that the system is broken–the cost is not worth the benefit (you can read the industry’s reaction here). So rather than just complaining about the antiquated education system, he chose 20 high school students and gave them each $100,000 and started his Thiel Fellowship.

As is appropriate for the summertime, there needs to be one giant party where people can simply gather to talk about whatever they want and have a great time. Here in Silicon Valley, that one party has been going on for the past seven years and happened just this past Friday. Held at the always-impressive offices of venture capital firm, August Capital, thanks to the gracious generosity of investor David Hornik, TechCrunch’s annual summer party went off spectacularly and in style.

I’ve been fortunate to attend this August Capital party over the past few years and I must say that each year gets better and better. Recently, over the past 3-4 years, TechCrunch has coincided this event with their mini-conference, the CrunchUp. As I mentioned in a previous post, the CrunchUp usually ties into a specific theme that has taken center stage in the industry–this year happened to focus on Facebook’s platform. So most people would go to the CrunchUp and then drive over to August Capital’s offices on legendary Sand Hill Road for a chance to unwind and have casual conversations with their friends, members from TechCrunch, and meet some new people. And every year the venue is packed!

One of the best convergences of marketing and technology just happened on Thursday. In a rather interesting move, it was announced that former Mashable COO and DoSomething’s Chief Digital Officer, Adam Hirsch, had been appointed the new Senior Vice President of Emerging Media & Technology, by leading global social agency, Edelman Digital. In this role, Mr. Hirsch will be responsible for helping to “operationalize new partnership, opportunities, platforms, and technologies” on behalf of the agency’s clients–meaning that he’s going to be on the forefront of tech innovation, which hopefully involves him being on the early influencers to help guide new digital programs and help move people past just being on Twitter and Facebook.

The announcement of Mr. Hirsch to the Edelman Digital team is the latest step by the firm to further develop what I like to consider to be the digital marketing Dream Team. This addition will be joining up with the likes of Steve Rubel, Executive Vice-President of Global Strategy & Insights, David Armano, Executive Vice-President of Global Innovation & Integration, Michael Brito, Senior Vice-President of Social Business, and Kevin King, Mr. Hirsch’s boss & Edelman Digital’s Global Practice Chair. With this extremely knowledgeable and prominent group of specialists and thought leaders, there’s certainly no doubt that Edelman knows what it’s talking about when it’s coming to how to build a sound digital practice and strategy.

Everyone has a dream of where they see their life going. For many of us here in the United States, it’s something that we can see come to fruition, but for many others around the world, it’s just not possible, all for a variety of reasons. But in Africa, the problems just seem to compound one another and the odds of someone living a fulfilling life just seems so astronomical. From civil war to diseases to other forms of strife, people in this third-world continent are in need of assistance and for a chance to realize their true potential.

Well things need to change. Instead of building upon fear and concern, perhaps we should realize that our efforts should go towards helping to build up hope and their future. With respect to Africa, one such charity is going above and beyond to help promote these ideals. It’s called THRIVEGulu and just this past week launched to the world as a means of helping the people of Uganda rebuild their lives and become self-sufficient once again.

Started by actress Eliza Dushku (Bring It On, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dollhouse) and her mother, Professor Judy Dushku, THRIVEGulu is a non-profit organization operating in Uganda that focuses on building and operating a trauma healing and reflecting center in Gulu (northern Uganda). It supports the healing and rehabilitation of trauma victims of the Ugandan civil war through the use of education–basically shows them that violence isn’t the answer and that there is much more they can do besides simply picking up a weapon and attacking their neighbors. Most of the time, a proper education is probably all that’s needed to help stop the violence and many in Africa, let alone Uganda probably don’t have access to it. According to their website, THRIVEGulu offers classes that are geared towards “helping rebuild society, increasing confidence and independence among participants, and providing creative outlets for victims of trauma to tell their stories…“

One of the hottest songs this summer is not one you would typically think would be this big. It’s amazing that the song people can’t get out of their heads isn’t the ones that are played frequently and practically non-stop (I’m looking at you Gotye), but rather the ones that are remixed over, and over, and over again. This summer, that one re-dubbed song happened to be “Call Me Maybe“, sung by the pop sensation, Carly Rae Jepsen.

Soon after its release, the Internet was abuzz with dozens of remakes of the pop song and included college athletes, Sesame Street, regular individuals, President Obama, and many others. Just doing a search on YouTube will reveal over a couple thousand video remakes of the song. So it was only a matter of time before someone here in the tech community, and in Silicon Valley, no less.

Last night at the launch party for the new African charity, THRIVEgulu, the sensational startup band named feedbomb took the stage to perform a brand new song. In case you don’t know about feedbomb, it’s composed of past and present members of Facebook, including lead singer Randi Zuckerberg, Chris Pan, Andy Barton, Eric Zamore, Robert Johnson, Mike Vernal, Eric Giovanola, Sean Chaffin, and Chris Struhar, the group puts on one hell of a performance singing covers of the best songs of the past few years, and even some familiar oldies. So while at the THRIVEgulu event, their second song just happened to be a brand new one and one that was written by Owen Thomas, the West Coast editor at Business Insider, and it was called, “Fund Me Maybe“.