Generated Transcript

[00:00:14] Craig Syverson
So welcome to program 12 of Venturecast. I am Craig Syverson of Grunt Media.

[00:00:19] David Hornik
And I’m David Hornik of August Capital.

[00:00:22] Craig Syverson
And we are back again to talk about things and punch pontificate on rumors.

[00:00:28] David Hornik
Oh, good.

[00:00:29] Craig Syverson
I don’t know. I don’t know.

[00:00:30] David Hornik
What do we got?

[00:00:31] Craig Syverson
There’s a lot of rumors this week. The one. What’s the video one?

[00:00:34] David Hornik
Metacafe.

[00:00:35] Craig Syverson
Yeah, that’s still a rumor. I haven’t checked the news.

[00:00:38] David Hornik
You know, it’s interesting. I heard the Metacafe rumor at the video egg board meeting.

[00:00:42] Craig Syverson
Okay.

[00:00:42] David Hornik
So obviously pretty relevant and it’s amazing how quickly news travels these days.

[00:00:48] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:00:48] David Hornik
Because, I mean, the rumor heads, I think it had just come out on TechCrunch maybe minutes before we started the board meeting and one of the board members said, oh, you know, what do you think of the fact that Yahoo’s buying Metacafe? Which of course hasn’t been confirmed. Neither confirmed nor denied at present. But, you know, it’s pretty interesting. And obviously Metacafe is interesting. There are a number of these sites that are collecting up lots of interesting content and getting audiences. And so it’s a little bit like buying a Metacafe is like buying CBS or buying NBC. It’s the next generation of these things.

[00:01:25] Craig Syverson
So how do they differ from YouTube? Do you know? Do you know about them?

[00:01:28] David Hornik
These are, you know, ultimately, how does everyone differ from YouTube? They have less traffic. That’s so. But, you know, it’s. That is an interesting question. Right. You look at something like, you know, like a meta cafe or is it heavy or whatever. These things that, you know, they appeal to particular demographics, their videos are a particular set of things. I mean, I think that increasingly we’re seeing edgier. Edgier sites. Right? What. When I think of YouTube, I don’t actually think of softcore anything. Right. I mean, I think of, oh, now here’s Jon Stewart and here’s a music video and here’s the Coca Cola thing, whatever. Some of these things you think of college girls in small T shirts. So I think what’s interesting to me is that major media companies are considering buying these companies that have. That really do push up against the edge as far as I’m concerned. Look at college humor is a great example, right. Interactive Corp. I think it was interactive corp, but collegehumor.com and, you know, they’re just pages and pages and pages in college humor of young, scantily clad coeds. I guess most coeds are young. But in any event, what would I Know, I’m a father of four, I don’t look at these sites.

[00:02:45] Craig Syverson
Professor.

[00:02:47] David Hornik
Yeah, Goodly. Professor. I know nothing of these things. So anyway, but, but it’s just a big content site, lots of video, lots of user submitted stuff and a big audience funded by Benchmark and Excel. I think it was the guys out in England. So it will be very interesting if it turns out that that is in fact an acquisition that’s happening and rumored at a couple hundred million dollars. That’s a great outcome. So we’ll see, we’ll see how it goes.

[00:03:17] Craig Syverson
I heard that Good Technologies got acquired by Motorola.

[00:03:21] David Hornik
That is true.

[00:03:22] Craig Syverson
Danny Shader, I knew him back in the old days when he was still going to college and so we used to go to concerts together. So congratulations, Danny. That’s, that’s, I heard about. A little late, but that’s, that’s great news.

[00:03:33] David Hornik
Yeah. So again, rumored, I don’t think it’s been reported rumored at $500 million or so.

[00:03:40] Craig Syverson
So my question to you was there were multiple rounds for funding.

[00:03:44] David Hornik
Yes.

[00:03:44] Craig Syverson
And there were discussions about who has preference. How does that work with different rounds? Some were saying the early investors are going to get a good deal and some other people will say, no, the late investors are going to get a good deal. And I’m sure everything’s structured differently. Right?

[00:03:59] David Hornik
Right, exactly.

[00:04:00] Craig Syverson
Is it always a good idea to be first or is it a better idea to be third?

[00:04:03] David Hornik
Or, you know, it just depends on how it goes. And it’s an interesting question with Good. They raised over $100 million as I recall. So that’s a lot of money over.

[00:04:13] Craig Syverson
Over a number of rounds, over at.

[00:04:15] David Hornik
Least three, I believe, but could be more rounds. So Kleiner Perkins put in the first money and then continued to be involved in each of the subsequent rounds. And so Aileen Lee, who was over at Kleiner, was the person who was leading the charge at Good. And she’s just a great smart person and I think did a good job of working with the company to keep driving it forward as it, as it. Each new milestone, let’s say they raised $100 million and they received $500 million for the company if they got their preference. If there was just a simple preference, which meant that for every dollar that you put in, you got your money out first, then they would get the first hundred million dollars. But if all you do is get your preference, then what happens is you get your first hundred million dollars and then the 400 million left gets divided among the common shareholders, which principally would be the employees and founders of the company.

[00:05:10] Craig Syverson
Okay.

[00:05:11] David Hornik
And so what typically happens when it’s a big number, when it’s a number that’s substantially larger than the total amount that’s been raised in the company, is that the preferred say, you know what, we don’t want our preference. We’d rather get our piece if we were common stock. And they do what’s called converting, which means that you say, I’m not a preferred share anymore, I’m a common share, and I’m going to sit along with all of you other common shares and get my percentage of the whole amount as opposed to just my preference.

[00:05:40] Craig Syverson
I see. And this ability to convert is part of what’s negotiating.

[00:05:45] David Hornik
Absolutely right. So there are two things that are negotiated. One, in almost every instance, you can convert at your own choosing. So you, if you hold preferred stock, you can determine to say, I’m going to make this preferred stock into common. That’s largely because the only circumstances really are. Well, there are a couple circumstances, but the principal circumstances that you want to receive more proceeds and your preference would be smaller than if you converted. So. But there are other circumstances where the other shareholders can require you, as preferred shareholders to convert. And that is usually used in connection with IPOs. So you want to take the company public. You want to sell a single class of stock to everyone. And so, you know, shareholders collectively vote to go public and to convert all preferred to common. And so you have a single class of stock that. That’s sold in the public markets.

[00:06:37] Craig Syverson
So it’s a majority vote that makes. Gives the power for them to convert.

[00:06:41] David Hornik
You know, it just depends. Depends on the sorts of mattress.

[00:06:45] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:06:45] David Hornik
I mean, that’s, that’s the thing. Why I can’t really say what happened. Good. I mean, it’s possible that the first people who put money in bought, I mean, assuredly bought it, bought their shares at a. At a relatively low price, some tens of millions at most, I imagine. And so they put in a small number of millions of dollars, got a bigger percentage of the company. So a whole lot of shares, the later guys paid higher prices for a period of time as the company was continued to grow and do well. And then the only question really, as it became less obvious that Good was destined for an IPO and going to be like research in motion and have a public company stock that traded at a high price. When they raised that last round, did they raise it to continue to get a higher price, or did they actually end up raising that last money at a lower price, in which case it’s conceivable that the last money in bought more shares for a smaller amount of money and did better than the guys who came before them.

[00:07:42] Craig Syverson
Is that what’s referred to as a down round?

[00:07:44] David Hornik
Right, exactly. So when the price, when the share price goes down as against an earlier sale of the stock, then that’s a down round.

[00:07:52] Craig Syverson
Got it. And do venture firms have particular strategies that they make like you and your partners? Do you say we’ll never do a down round or do some venture firms specialize in down rounds or is that kind of thing happening?

[00:08:07] David Hornik
Or, I don’t know, Never say never. Yes, every firm has its own particular kind of deal that it likes. And for example, certainly the things that I like to do are very early stage investments. Of all the companies I’ve invested in, one had a product that was selling when I funded it. So that’s pretty early. And I’d say that as a general matter, that’s sort of what August does is this early stage funding where we get involved and we try and be helpful in you building your team and building your product, whatever. There are other investors that think that’s crazy. That’s just crazy talk. Like, you know, what metrics do you have to measure and how can you measure the aggregate value of the market? And all of these things that we just sort of, you know, take, take as much data as we can and make a bet. They are much more driven by, by information, data, markets, et cetera. And so then when you have revenue traction of tens of millions of dollars, then they’re much more inclined to invest in those sorts of things. And then there are folks in between. I’m sure there are firms that look at companies that they believe to have enterprise value, but that have hit hard times in some form or other. Again, I’m not suggesting that good had reached significant difficulties and had a big washout round or any of that. But on the other hand, they were on a pretty steep curve, selling their shares at a pretty high price. It’s conceivable when they raised their last round of financing that they had to take money at a lower price than the, you know, north of 100 million valuation that I believe they sold shares at at some point or other. So, so it just goes, it depends on the firm and, and, and the terms really depend on the firm and, and, and a negotiation and a conversation between the entrepreneurs, the company, you know, the people running the company and the, and the investors who are saying, on a certain set of terms, I’m happy to buy X number of shares for X number of dollars.

[00:10:00] Craig Syverson
Mm. What else happened this week?

[00:10:04] David Hornik
I want to talk more about preferred shares.

[00:10:06] Craig Syverson
Okay, Talk more about preferred shares.

[00:10:08] David Hornik
You know. So what else happened was big news at Yahoo.

[00:10:13] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:10:13] David Hornik
Well, it’s actually kind of. I think it’s moderate news.

[00:10:16] Craig Syverson
Is it still in the rumor phase or do we have.

[00:10:18] David Hornik
No. So now. So, you know, what happened at Yahoo. It was in the rumor phase, you know, early on, again, TechCrunch, I think that those guys are really just in the information flow. And, you know, Mike Arrington and the team over at TechCrunch are hearing about things pretty early and they got word of a big company meeting, an all company meeting that was taking place. I think it happened on Wednesday, Tuesday. Wednesday. Anyway of this week. And something’s happening. Shakeup and management, et cetera, et cetera. And what was announced was reorganization of sorts. And Decker, who was the cfo, is now running half of the business. The half of the business. And I forget how they’re described their two halves. There’s. I’m going to blow it. But essentially the idea was that they would take the CFO and then they would take the coo, Dan Rosenzweig, and they’d split the business between the two of them and Terry Semel will still remain at the. At the helm and there’d be some shakeup. But it didn’t really strike me as a big change. And as a result of the proposed change, Dan, who has done amazing stuff over there, decided to step down and leave the company rather than go from running all of it to running half of it. And I think that it’s just. It’s an interesting circumstance. Oh. Lloyd Braun, who was brought in from the, from the media side and was running the office down in la, has stepped down. And I think that that was met with universal approval. I was at a conference down in la, always on. On Hollywood, on Hollywood conference down there. And Lloyd Braun at that conference was asked a number of questions that suggested that he was not particularly well versed in technology, which is a challenge when you’re running sort of technology and media at a technology company.

[00:12:06] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:12:07] David Hornik
So I think that that was not a surprise. And frankly, there’s a lot of work that could be done there. And I think that Yahoo is incredibly well placed with the right person at the helm to interface with Hollywood and studios and drive old media to online, become new media, etc. But he was not the guy to do it again. I just say that sitting in my office, knowing nothing of what he actually did just how. Looking from the outside. So, Mr. Braun, to the extent that I’m absolutely dead wrong, my apologies, but.

[00:12:38] Craig Syverson
No talks of layoffs.

[00:12:41] David Hornik
Only in the rumor mill. But nothing in the, you know, nothing in the. And frankly, layoffs are really not the issue. Right. The company, frankly, doesn’t. It’s not that it has too many resources or that it’s losing money or any of these other things. It’s really about opportunity and growth. And how is it that a Google can be making all these great strides and a Fox can acquire this asset, MySpace, and suddenly become the second largest traffic on the web after, you know, after Yahoo. And so it’s really just people looking in saying, there’s so much opportunity here. What are you guys doing?

[00:13:14] Craig Syverson
Right?

[00:13:15] David Hornik
And. Which is maybe somewhat fair and somewhat.

[00:13:17] Craig Syverson
Unfair in my naive view of it. I had this analogy that Yahoo seems like one of those old conglomerates from the 60s, or like Arthur Daniel, the trend was we should be in every business in the world. Right? We should be in shipping and we should be in cars. And it seems like to me that Yahoo is sort of the first web conglomerate where they seem like they’re taking on all these elements, but there’s kind of no there, there. I don’t know. I want to get a better grip. I feel I have a grip on Google, even though it’s a behemoth. But I think that’s probably what a lot of them are talking about, right? Is to. Is there a focus or is there a specialty or. I don’t know if a specialty is what they’re after.

[00:13:56] David Hornik
Well, you know, it’s interesting. I mean, so I will admit my bias up front. You know, I’m good friends with the guys who started Yahoo. I think they’re both brilliant and good people who have. Who really did revolutionize the web and have done an amazing job of driving innovation in the web from the early to mid-90s on. So. And, and frankly, they really did figure out things that were important and, you know, have done a good job of morphing, starting out with this taxonomy of, okay, I’m looking for cars, I’m looking for animals. I’m looking to, you know, okay, what’s next? And what are people looking for? Oh, they want online mail and they want online calendaring, and they want. They want groups and they want this. So to a certain extent, that Yahoo has responded by creating great services that. That serve the needs of their end users. And as a result, you know, they have the largest worldwide audience of any web company. And then the Second thing that’s interesting to me is that, you know, my Yahoo and this. And the integration of these web experiences was in. I mean, this whole integration, integrated web experience thing was invented by Yahoo. They really were the guys who figured it out and understood it and were able to incorporate. Okay, I’m interested in finance data and how that comes to bear on my experience and I’m interested in these particular groups and this particular email, etc. So in some ways I hear what you’re saying because they do lots of things. On the other hand, I think that they work hard. They have worked hard historically to try and create some kind of aggregate experience where one set of properties informs the other set of properties. And the bigger number that you have, the harder that problem is. So, you know, they’re going to have that issue. They have Yahoo Photos and they have Flickr and how do those things work together? You know, they have this 360 experience and they have Delicious now and they have My Web and you know, how are these things going to work together? So, and then I guess the second half of it and I get it. Feel like I’m on a rant here now. My rant.

[00:15:56] Craig Syverson
No, I love it.

[00:15:57] David Hornik
What are you saying, Craig? You’re mad. The second part of it.

[00:16:02] Craig Syverson
Madman.

[00:16:03] David Hornik
Who let this madman into my office to ask me insane questions? So the other, the other thing. Listen, he’s laughing. He’s laughing maniacally. Get out. The other, the other piece that I think is. Is interesting and maybe unfair to a certain extent, is that to their credit. I don’t mean to diminish this in any way. Google has found an incredible business business that was invented by Overture but perfected by Google. And it is the cash cow of all cash cows. It is just an unbelievable business. They’ve done it incredibly well. Then by virtue of scale, are able to then grow greater scale, et cetera. And so it’s easy to describe what Google does because Google’s that search thing. On the other hand, they have been expanding and trying other things. And one of the things that happened just now, just recently, was that they shut down Google Answers, right?

[00:17:00] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:17:01] David Hornik
Which, I mean, I think it got a lot of press for saying, hey, this product isn’t really working, you know, good for them. I think that the right thing to do is try a bunch of stuff and close it. So I don’t want to bash them about it. On the other hand, you know, Yahoo. Japan had this Answers product that was working pretty well and they looked at it in the US and said, well, let’s, you know, we can, can do that. And created what is one of the fastest growing pieces of the web, you know, of the web experience of online media. And so it’ll be an interesting evolution. I’m not counting out Yahoo. I think that there are a bunch of smart people there. They have amazing properties. They’re going to continue to buy interesting stuff, whether it’s Meta Cafe or some other thing. And on the flip side, I think Google’s going to continue to try and expand its reach and it will grow increasingly challenging for them. So it’s good, good time to be in the valley. Love, love, right? It’s a steel cage match. Yahoo versus Google and you know, and everybody wins.

[00:17:57] Craig Syverson
Yeah. All right. I trolled around for a bunch of stories. It seems slow this week.

[00:18:04] David Hornik
Must be Christmas time.

[00:18:05] Craig Syverson
Ah, it’s Christmas. Oh, beginning. What?

[00:18:08] David Hornik
And Hanukkah.

[00:18:09] Craig Syverson
Excuse me.

[00:18:09] David Hornik
Yes.

[00:18:10] Craig Syverson
People are saying Christmas this year. Do you catch that?

[00:18:13] David Hornik
They’re just saying Christmas.

[00:18:13] Craig Syverson
Yeah, they decided last year it went too far, the whole holiday PC thing.

[00:18:19] David Hornik
You know, look, I was driving around the, the neighborhood with my kids and, and I was quick to point out the, the one of our neighbors who had the blue tree, like, look, it’s a Hanukkah tree. We are not the only Jews in this neighborhood. That was a triumphant moment for the Hanukkah decorations, which are sort of, you know, they’re, they’re slim pickings decorations.

[00:18:42] Craig Syverson
But that 40 foot menorah on your roof though, that’s. Yeah, that’s pretty cool. When it lights up at night being.

[00:18:46] David Hornik
Pulled by the reindeer, man, that’s the coolest.

[00:18:50] Craig Syverson
This is big.

[00:18:51] David Hornik
Oh, this thing’s too heavy on Dasher Dancer.

[00:18:55] Craig Syverson
Herschel already.

[00:18:58] David Hornik
Who let Herschel pull this lead? Yeah, well, you know, it’s, it’s fun to have fun times in the Hornet cast around the holidays.

[00:19:06] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:19:07] David Hornik
So, you know, we can cut that piece, but it’s a. I’m cutting most of this. Most of this. This is like genius.

[00:19:13] Craig Syverson
So it’s like, oh, what happened, man?

[00:19:17] David Hornik
We did some transitions like, hey, that was, you know, what was, what else was cool?

[00:19:22] Craig Syverson
What’s that, David, Insert cool thing. Okay, good. Well, we should, we should, we should do a bunch of those. So did you hear about.

[00:19:30] David Hornik
Wow. What?

[00:19:32] Craig Syverson
Well, it’s really cool.

[00:19:33] David Hornik
No doubt.

[00:19:34] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:19:37] David Hornik
Hey, that was awesome.

[00:19:38] Craig Syverson
Yeah, you think so?

[00:19:40] David Hornik
Did you see that thing? Yes, awesome.

[00:19:42] Craig Syverson
Very, very cool.

[00:19:45] David Hornik
All right.

[00:19:45] Craig Syverson
Okay. That’s a show. We can just do that.

[00:19:50] David Hornik
You know, I’m just hoping that one of these days this chair breaks because you’re hoping so ugly.

[00:19:55] Craig Syverson
I can arrange that. Yeah.

[00:19:58] David Hornik
Sit on my lap, Craig. Leave that in there.

[00:20:01] Craig Syverson
We’ll take that one out. We’ll have to do the video podcast of nothing but prat falls.

[00:20:07] David Hornik
Yeah, right, exactly.

[00:20:08] Craig Syverson
Spit takes from pratfalls.

[00:20:10] David Hornik
Nothing better. So is there anything else? Let’s see. Anything else happening in the tech world? Yeah. Well, we can talk about. So. So I’m off tomorrow. Flying. I’m flying to Perry, you bastard. To. That’s right.

[00:20:26] Craig Syverson
Tough life.

[00:20:27] David Hornik
It is a tough life. The venture capital life is a tough life. It’s a. It’s an 11 hour flight, Craig.

[00:20:32] Craig Syverson
Oh, the violence come out.

[00:20:34] David Hornik
It’s. And I have to stop in Chicago.

[00:20:36] Craig Syverson
Uh huh.

[00:20:38] David Hornik
But.

[00:20:38] Craig Syverson
And the first class seats aren’t leather on that first leg. So, you know, poor guy.

[00:20:42] David Hornik
You know, first class is all but dead. Have you noticed that?

[00:20:44] Craig Syverson
I have noticed.

[00:20:45] David Hornik
It’s basically business class or not.

[00:20:47] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:20:48] David Hornik
This first class thing is this mythical beast that does exist in European flights and costs you the price of a small car. So. No, no, no, there will be no. You know, it’s the upstairs. I’ve never actually been in one of those double decker planes that has that upstairs, but I bet you it’s awesome.

[00:21:06] Craig Syverson
I can say that I have.

[00:21:07] David Hornik
Have you.

[00:21:08] Craig Syverson
You’ve been up there from London. But pure luck. I was in my normal coach seat, you know, with. With cattle sitting there at an aisle seat and you know, the seat next to me is in the middle and the seat next to me is empty. And we’re just about to take off and then someone comes in and sits down. Ah, you know, they’re ready for the, you know, 13 hour flight back and. And then this, this guy comes up to me and says, excuse me, it’s my fiance sitting next to you and we haven’t been together for a while. Do you mind trading seats with me? And I say, I don’t mind. He says, well I’m in upper class. This was in virgin. And he said I was having trouble getting other people up there to switch. I said, yeah, I can imagine that. But I’ll be happy to do it. So I traipse upstairs, go up the little staircase, go into virgin upper class.

[00:21:57] David Hornik
Into virgin territory, if you will.

[00:21:59] Craig Syverson
Oh my God. I mean it was.

[00:22:02] David Hornik
Did they have vestal virgins?

[00:22:03] Craig Syverson
Practically. They had the massage option.

[00:22:08] David Hornik
Say no more.

[00:22:08] Craig Syverson
Yes. Which I signed up for but didn’t receive because I was late in.

[00:22:13] David Hornik
No, you didn’t receive it because they.

[00:22:15] Craig Syverson
Knew that you knew I did not belong there.

[00:22:17] David Hornik
Give everyone a massage but that guy.

[00:22:19] Craig Syverson
The guy who’s not wearing farragon, he’s from coach, right? He’s from below.

[00:22:25] David Hornik
That’s excellent.

[00:22:25] Craig Syverson
But so I can say that I’ve done it and it cost me nothing. But it was. I truly felt like I’d flown from la. When I arrived, I mean, it was like. Because I slept well, you know.

[00:22:36] David Hornik
Oh, yeah, no, these. Have you ever seen the site? So this is great. Have you ever seen the site seat guru?

[00:22:42] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:22:42] David Hornik
Seatguru.com and you can see what the configuration of the plane is. And so I was actually, when I was making this particular plane reservation, I was trying to figure out which plane I wanted to fly on. To the extent you have any control like which you know. And so they described the business class seats or. And first class seats. And there’s the normal seat and that’s like, you know, oh, don’t get in the normal seat. It’s all normal. Then they have the normal. Then they have the sleeper or something which isn’t really a bed. It’s sort of, it’s at an angle. So it’s sort of like you’re sleeping only on the side of a mountain. And then they have the flatbed. And the flatbed. Now there’s, that is. That’s the thing that you want because it basically flattens lies out just like you’re lying in a bed.

[00:23:26] Craig Syverson
Wow.

[00:23:27] David Hornik
Right now, you know, for me you only need like 4ft and I can lie flat for you. You need like in a good ten.

[00:23:34] Craig Syverson
Foot span, a double C. Yeah.

[00:23:36] David Hornik
You’re two of me. You stack me on my. On top of me. And, and I would see eye to eye with you.

[00:23:43] Craig Syverson
Yes. But, but I’m only half the man. Well, you know, even out.

[00:23:49] David Hornik
Are you saying that I’m fat?

[00:23:51] Craig Syverson
I did not say that. But I gotta say those, that dress you’re wearing today, I don’t know, makes you look a little.

[00:23:55] David Hornik
Exactly. Good thing. Good thing. It’s radio.

[00:23:57] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:23:58] David Hornik
All right. So anyway, I was telling the conference, so I’m going to, to Le Web. I had been saying Le Web and people who spoke French said, why it’s not. It can’t possibly. Le Web.

[00:24:09] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:24:10] David Hornik
Web is not lay.

[00:24:11] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:24:11] David Hornik
And I said, oh, oh. And then I looked at it and indeed they were correct. It’s actually. Which is a little bit of a misnomer because it was a Le blog and Le blog dude. And now it’s web. So it’s, you know, it’s sort of like having Jack Hornick and then his son Jack Hornick and then his son John Hornick of the third. Not really little, but anyway. So what’s amazing to me is this conference has essentially become what I would view as the. The business 2.0. Cut that, cut that. It’s what’s interesting to me. You know what’s interesting to me, what’s.

[00:24:57] Craig Syverson
Interesting about this conference in its two manifestations. David.

[00:25:01] David Hornik
So what’s interesting to me is that this, that this conference, Le Web? Trois, has become essentially the Web 2.0 Conference of Europe. It started out, you know, six apart. Started out having a blogging conference for Europe to get the bloggers from all of the European nations to come together and sort of talk about what they were doing. And the first one was a success. And then the second one, which I was out at and spoke. Spoke at as well, was a pretty big conference, good crowd and from all sorts of places, both around Europe and from elsewhere. And this one, they sold out a thousand seats, which is just stunning to me.

[00:25:36] Craig Syverson
I was looking at the list. It’s pretty impressive.

[00:25:38] David Hornik
Well, yeah, and that’s, I mean, you know, the nice thing about it is when you look at the participant list, it shows who you are and where you, where you’re from and so who you are, what’s your affiliation, where you’re from. So David Hornik, August Capital, American flag, and then, you know, Loic Lemieux, six Apart, French flag. And so it’s just cool to see and, and lots of interesting folks doing, doing all sorts of stuff. So I’m pretty excited to be there. And I’m going to be speaking, I guess, on Monday. And then.

[00:26:06] Craig Syverson
What are you speaking on?

[00:26:07] David Hornik
What am I speaking on? That’s an excellent question, Jeff Clavier. Jeff and I, we’re like the mutton Jeff of the conference circuit. Jeff. We go, we go. And Jeff, what do we. What should we talk about today? Well, let’s talk about, you know, consumer spending. Okay, great. Consumer spending. So I think it’s called. Oh, no, this is my south by Southwest talk at south by Southwest. I’ll be speaking about the end of the bubble or some such thing. Some sort of bubble 2.0 like thing that’s too depressing. Yeah. But at this, it’s really about investing in the new web businesses, so it’ll be fun. And I’m actually going to take equipment with me. And I tried to take you with.

[00:26:48] Craig Syverson
Me, but I know otherwise engaged with cleaning my garage. Yeah, that’s it.

[00:26:54] David Hornik
All right. Well, you know, it’s a shame.

[00:26:57] Craig Syverson
Yeah, it would have been fun It’s. It’s holidays.

[00:26:59] David Hornik
It’s.

[00:27:00] Craig Syverson
It’s tricky timing.

[00:27:01] David Hornik
No, I hear you. I’m gonna get a world of grief. But in any event, I better. As long as I return with some reasonably appropriate Parisian gift. There’s this great little kids store that I’ll go to and get all sorts of cute little Parisian kids clothing and that will. I will earn all sorts of brownie points with my wife. Less so with my kids. But that’s okay, right?

[00:27:20] Craig Syverson
Clothes.

[00:27:21] David Hornik
Dad, what are you. Do I really want to wear a beret again? No.

[00:27:27] Craig Syverson
These horizontal stripes look terrible on me.

[00:27:30] David Hornik
Yeah, right. Who. Who thought of this shirt? But it’s gonna be. It’s gonna be fun. And I’m gonna bring some. I’m gonna bring some equipment with me and I’m gonna try and talk with folks.

[00:27:38] Craig Syverson
Great.

[00:27:39] David Hornik
And capture as many accents as possible. I think the more accents. Maybe we can do an accent count.

[00:27:44] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:27:45] David Hornik
And the more accent. Right, exactly. The Venture Cast drinking grain. So that’ll be cool. And so I’ll try and do that. And we’ll. We’ll put that out as one of our podcasts.

[00:27:55] Craig Syverson
We’ll take it. Yeah. We’ll figure out what to do with.

[00:27:56] David Hornik
It over the holidays and then.

[00:27:58] Craig Syverson
Sure, that’s a good idea.

[00:27:59] David Hornik
And then perhaps so. And then we’ll meet again in the new year.

[00:28:02] Craig Syverson
Wind south by Southwest.

[00:28:04] David Hornik
South by Southwest isn’t for a while. It’s forgetting the end of February, March, somewhere in there. The next conference on the conference circuit actually is. The conference circuit begins again. You know, you. It’s a reset. We come to the end of the year and we’ve. We’ve come to the end of 2006. We have a reset on the conference circuit and maybe we can talk about this. Maybe in the next podcast we’ll talk about a review, a review of the conferences. Because, man, oh, man, you know what? I went to a few.

[00:28:28] Craig Syverson
You are a junkie. You’re almost as bad as Scoville.

[00:28:31] David Hornik
I am a junkie. There’s no question. I love conferences. And so I went to a lot. And so we begin the. We begin the cycle again. And the first in the cycle, Consumer Electronic Show.

[00:28:41] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:28:42] David Hornik
So this Consumer Electronic show is the first week after you come back from the holidays. And so I’ll be down in Las Vegas at ces. I think the next one on the list would be the Demo Conference. And then the Riley E. Tech Conference. We got the TED Conference. We got the south by Southwest Conference. Take a breather, you know, regroup. Got the Wall Street Journal conference, you know, just got a whole bunch of great stuff that’s just the first half of the year right there.

[00:29:10] Craig Syverson
And that’s your stuff. I’m going to Macworld, I’m going to nab. So I’m doing my awesome. My geek computer and podcasting and media thing.

[00:29:19] David Hornik
I hope to join you at Mac World.

[00:29:22] Craig Syverson
I think there. Is there not an overlap with ces.

[00:29:25] David Hornik
There is, unfortunately.

[00:29:26] Craig Syverson
All the time.

[00:29:27] David Hornik
It’s. Yeah. In fact, Jobs won’t speak at ces and he sort of saves it because his view is that basically there’s so. There’s so little attention to. To be had at the Consumer Electronics show because there’s. It’s so diffuse there. It’s just monstrous.

[00:29:41] Craig Syverson
I hear it’s. I’ve never actually had to go, well, you know what?

[00:29:44] David Hornik
Don’t. It’s. It’s just ugly. It is ugly. And, you know, so you got the room full of car audio, and you have the room full of, you know, high fidelity. And then, you know, so Jobs is. He’s. I mean, he’s absolutely a PR genius. And so he said, that doesn’t make any sense. Why would I go and do that? Create my own conference. Create anticipation, whatever about what I’m gonna announce. And, you know, look, guess what? There is anticipation. I can’t wait to hear what he’s gonna announce. What’s next?

[00:30:11] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:30:11] David Hornik
Which machine do I have to throw out next and buy the new one? So, anyway, but that will be. So that will be 2007. That’s exciting. 2007. I think 2007 will be the year of all of my companies doing incredibly well. That’s, you know, that’s my prediction.

[00:30:26] Craig Syverson
That’s good.

[00:30:27] David Hornik
So that’s good news for them, for my portfolio.

[00:30:32] Craig Syverson
That’s a good. That’s a good optimistic point. That’s refreshing. That’s good. But you’re an optimist. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. You make me feel good. Good.

[00:30:41] David Hornik
This is a feel good experience. It’s supposed to be a feel good.

[00:30:44] Craig Syverson
Experience, ladies and gentlemen, but I think many of us in podcasting and new media have waited for 2007 for a long time. My friend Alex Lindsay saying, I’ve been waiting for 2007 for the past 15.

[00:30:55] David Hornik
Years, all my life.

[00:30:57] Craig Syverson
Yeah. He’s knowing it’s gonna happen, you know.

[00:30:59] David Hornik
And so this is the big year for podcasting.

[00:31:02] Craig Syverson
Yeah. For those of us who are in production and starting off our shows, it just seems like it’s. This will be the year it’s gonna something is going to significant will happen in terms of make or break I think in terms of revenue models or.

[00:31:14] David Hornik
Well, I’ll tell you one thing for sure we will talk about it in 2007.

[00:31:17] Craig Syverson
We will indeed.

[00:31:20] David Hornik
Well, happy holidays.

[00:31:21] Craig Syverson
Should we let her let our people go?

[00:31:23] David Hornik
Please let my people go.

[00:31:25] Craig Syverson
My people go. We’ve bludgeoned them long enough with our. With our chatter.

[00:31:29] David Hornik
Well, merry Hanukkah to you.

[00:31:31] Craig Syverson
Thank you, sir. Merry. God, I don’t know.

[00:31:34] David Hornik
Happy Solstice Christmas.

[00:31:36] Craig Syverson
That’s what I used to say when I was a new age guy because everybody celebrated the solstice, right? You couldn’t help it.

[00:31:42] David Hornik
It’ll happen whether you like it or not.

[00:31:44] Craig Syverson
Exactly. So that was my old excuse but. And Mary, thanks to Cash Fly for providing bandwidth for this particular program, particularly.

[00:31:53] David Hornik
As so many of you start downloading this the the demands on the cash flow. Oh my God.

[00:31:57] Craig Syverson
We’ve almost crashed them.

[00:31:59] David Hornik
They’re vast amazing.

[00:32:01] Craig Syverson
Dignation nothing this week in tech. No big deal. Venture cast. Oh my God. The lights dim in Chicago.

[00:32:08] David Hornik
Crazy.

[00:32:08] Craig Syverson
Yes, thank you cash fl than thank you.

[00:32:18] Audio Clip
New York to Paris 7 hours only 30 minutes longer than to London Paris. Right away you’re in the swim of things because once more you’ve landed refreshed and with extra hours to do what you want to do in a leisurely way.