Generated Transcript

[00:00:14] Craig Syverson
Welcome to Venture Cast 19. I’m Craig Syverson of Grunt Media.

[00:00:18] David Hornik
And I am David Hornik of August Capital.

[00:00:21] Craig Syverson
This is the dark episode.

[00:00:25] David Hornik
Not because we’re going to say things that are particularly deep and brooding.

[00:00:29] Craig Syverson
No. But it’s dark outside, which is a first.

[00:00:32] David Hornik
That’s true.

[00:00:33] Craig Syverson
And this is just an indication of our dedication to you, our audience.

[00:00:37] David Hornik
That’s right. I just had this conversation with my.

[00:00:40] Craig Syverson
Wife who said, was it a conversation?

[00:00:42] David Hornik
It wasn’t so much a conversation. It was, hey, and why are you going to your office at 10 o’ clock at night on a Saturday? I said, well, I have to record the podcast.

[00:00:52] Craig Syverson
We have no life. Wait a minute.

[00:00:55] David Hornik
She basically did insinuate that I was a giant loser.

[00:01:00] Craig Syverson
Uh, yes. Without saying so.

[00:01:02] David Hornik
Yeah, yeah. Which is fine. But you know what she’s doing right now? Sleeping.

[00:01:07] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:01:08] David Hornik
So.

[00:01:08] Craig Syverson
And I think, you know, I mean, isn’t sleeping sort of a loser activity?

[00:01:12] David Hornik
Yeah. Hey, don’t you think we’ve got stuff to do? Yeah, she’s just sleeping.

[00:01:16] Craig Syverson
We’ve got an important podcast, but no, it’s been. We missed a show, which was a first. For our first 10 episodes, we did great. And then schedules just went all to hell.

[00:01:27] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:01:28] Craig Syverson
And they’re still going to hell. So that’s why we’re here at late on Saturday.

[00:01:32] David Hornik
I appreciate that you’re here.

[00:01:33] Craig Syverson
Absolutely. Well, it’s, you know, it’s a two minute drive.

[00:01:36] David Hornik
Good.

[00:01:36] Craig Syverson
And yeah, the kids had a sleepover, so, yeah, let’s just go do the show. Let’s get it done.

[00:01:43] David Hornik
That’s right.

[00:01:43] Craig Syverson
Because next week looks rough for both of us. And so it’s conference season. Right. So you’ve been, you’ve been on the road a lot. I’ve been on the road a bit, but yeah, that’s why we haven’t connected up so much. Have you been at the office at all?

[00:01:56] David Hornik
Not have you picked up your paycheck? I was here. I was here. I was here a couple days this week, but the first day, I guess I came in on a Thursday or something and one of the assistants said, hey, David’s here.

[00:02:08] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:02:09] David Hornik
Hey, people, look who’s here. You know, it had been a while.

[00:02:14] Craig Syverson
So you’ve been to. Since our last show, you’ve been to three major things I’ve been to.

[00:02:19] David Hornik
Well, I’ve been to south by Southwest just this week. And then before that it was at ted.

[00:02:24] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:02:25] David Hornik
And I also just spent a day on the Microsoft campus here in town at the. Microsoft has a venture capital summit.

[00:02:33] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:02:34] David Hornik
So Ballmer Comes down and talks to the VC crowd and then a bunch of the execs come and talk about the various divisions. And it’s actually a great event. So. Yeah, so I had those things.

[00:02:45] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:02:46] David Hornik
Seems like there’s been more, but those have been big happenings.

[00:02:50] Craig Syverson
Yes. Right. And so how was south by Southwest? I’ve heard. I was reading up on. I didn’t go this year.

[00:02:58] David Hornik
It was a madhouse.

[00:02:59] Craig Syverson
Yeah, I heard it was like lots of obviously great music. It always is. Right.

[00:03:03] David Hornik
You know what’s interesting though, this is the thing about it. What hit us evolved from this music festival. This, that has some film and then this teeny little me. Interactive festival. To interactive now, as I understand it is the largest piece.

[00:03:20] Craig Syverson
In what way?

[00:03:20] David Hornik
In terms of 5,000 people came to participate in the interactive festival.

[00:03:27] Craig Syverson
That’s huge.

[00:03:28] David Hornik
Yeah, huge.

[00:03:28] Craig Syverson
I didn’t know it was that big.

[00:03:29] David Hornik
Compared to a relatively smaller music and film piece. And so even though it has historically been a. A music festival, basically it was an interactive media festival, Nerdfest. So that. Yeah, totally. So that was interesting. And just a pile of people. So that’s kind of exciting. I was on a panel called bust 2.0. You know, one of my favorite topics. It was basically intended to be provocative. This idea of, you know, 10 years from now, what will we. How. How will we feel? And. But there had to be five or six hundred people in the room, really. I mean, it was just huge.

[00:04:06] Craig Syverson
Well, I wasn’t there, but I pulled up a little transcript that somebody wrote up.

[00:04:09] David Hornik
Oh, Lord.

[00:04:10] Craig Syverson
Here’s the opening line. Lane Becker of Satisfaction probably opened it up. She said he or she.

[00:04:15] David Hornik
He.

[00:04:16] Craig Syverson
I lived through the first boom and bust. Are we headed through a bust 2.0? When is it all going to fall apart? And why? David Hornik. It all starts with a panel.

[00:04:26] David Hornik
Exactly.

[00:04:27] Craig Syverson
And they invite you back to these things. Provocative. You’re the one who’s like, well, you.

[00:04:33] David Hornik
Know, he’s the one who started it. Lane was one of the founders of Adaptive Path. And actually he and Jeff Veen and Janice Fraser and a bunch of really great UI designers and interactive experience user experience designers. And a lot of them, those folks who founded the firm but were really entrepreneurial by nature, have left. And so Measure Map, which was this web analytics company, was. Was started by that group within Adaptive Path and then spun out and Google bought it. And Jeff Veen is now working at Google. And then Janice recently left and I assume she’s going to start something. So Lane left and he and the folks from Ruby Red Labs, Thor and others are forming this company called Satisfaction, which is going to try and figure out the customer service problem. Basically, how do you do a better job of providing customer service for whether you’re Sprint or your know, a smaller.

[00:05:31] Craig Syverson
Company, not just the web presence of it, but just the whole experience?

[00:05:35] David Hornik
Well, they’re going to start. They’re going to start with a very web 2.0 kind of approach, and I’m pretty excited about it. I think they’re smart folks and they’re doing interesting stuff. So Lane is no longer. Now, he says of Satisfaction, and if nothing else, I think that is just such a great name for a company.

[00:05:52] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:05:53] David Hornik
I mean, you know, now they’re going to have to make a whole lot of money before they can license the music. But when they can, man, how good will that be?

[00:06:02] Craig Syverson
Well, they can get some status. They’ll have to maybe change the lyrics.

[00:06:05] David Hornik
A little bit, right? Well, exactly. They could get the Devo version. Okay, Give me do. Oh, Satisfaction. There you go.

[00:06:12] Craig Syverson
I’ve signed. Yep. Yeah, you did it. You slipped it in. Damn it. Oops. Darn it. I forget we have a clean. Do your kids listen to this show?

[00:06:25] David Hornik
No. Every so often they walk by me while I’m listening to the show, like Daddy’s listening to himself.

[00:06:31] Craig Syverson
He’s weird.

[00:06:32] David Hornik
What are you doing?

[00:06:33] Craig Syverson
We should apologize to your mother. I’m sorry. I’m Mrs. Hornick.

[00:06:36] David Hornik
Yes, exactly. God knows she’s never heard at me swear.

[00:06:39] Craig Syverson
No, no. So, yeah. So is there a bus 2 point? Probably the usual things you probably said. No, because there’s a lot of more professional investors.

[00:06:50] David Hornik
I did. I said the same thing. And then, you know, you know, there’s.

[00:06:52] Craig Syverson
That is the. I mean, one of the answers.

[00:06:54] David Hornik
Someone made, you know, someone made my point for me. They said, you know, like, oh, it’s not the public markets, it’s just the VCs or whatever. It’s just the VCs losing their money and to which I said, no one cares about me losing my money. They were all like, no, no, we actually don’t.

[00:07:10] Craig Syverson
Yeah, that’s your business, buddy.

[00:07:12] David Hornik
Yeah, that was. It was good.

[00:07:14] Craig Syverson
You leave them alone, they leave you alone.

[00:07:16] David Hornik
Right, exactly. Yeah, so. So that was good. Now, I’ll tell you, it’s been reported in the blog world or whatever, but you know what? Frankly, this year, south by Southwest was. I would call it the year of Twitter, of Twitter.

[00:07:28] Craig Syverson
That’s what I heard.

[00:07:28] David Hornik
It was Twitterific.

[00:07:30] Craig Syverson
Twitter madness.

[00:07:32] David Hornik
So have you seen this Twitter? Have you tried this Twitter?

[00:07:36] Craig Syverson
The Twitter?

[00:07:37] David Hornik
Have you twitted.

[00:07:38] Craig Syverson
I have not.

[00:07:38] David Hornik
Twitter.

[00:07:41] Craig Syverson
That I got.

[00:07:42] David Hornik
I’m sorry, Mom. It was the past tense of Twitter.

[00:07:46] Craig Syverson
I’m editing that out so much, dude.

[00:07:52] David Hornik
So have you Twittered?

[00:07:56] Craig Syverson
No, you know, I haven’t. I have friends of mine in the podcasting realm who are into it. They do everything new. This is Leo Laporte and Merlin Manor are the two worst guys for trying out everything. Best guys. Because I just listen to them talk about it, and then I realize I don’t have to do it.

[00:08:12] David Hornik
But, you know, I’m impressed because you tonight said, if we are going to do our podcast, you know, send me an sms.

[00:08:19] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:08:19] David Hornik
Which, you know, like, you’re way too old for that. Yeah, that’s pretty good, don’t you think? Just because you have a teenage daughter doesn’t mean you can use the sms.

[00:08:28] Craig Syverson
Well, I have a trio. You see. See, there’s the key. No pun intended, but there are the keys.

[00:08:35] David Hornik
All right.

[00:08:35] Craig Syverson
In fact, I’ve been polling her and her friends. I said, what’s the ratio of your speed of typing from a computer keyboard to your cell phone? I’m getting anywhere from. Takes me twice as long to five times as long as. As long, but twice. You know, that’s pretty impressive.

[00:08:50] David Hornik
Twice as quick.

[00:08:51] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:08:52] David Hornik
If they’re talking about an alphanumeric key value or just a numeric key.

[00:08:56] Craig Syverson
They’re just talking numeric. Yeah. No, only numeric counts.

[00:08:59] David Hornik
That’s unbelievable.

[00:08:59] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Or it’s exaggeration.

[00:09:01] David Hornik
Or they’re full of it.

[00:09:01] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:09:02] David Hornik
But so this Twitter.

[00:09:03] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:09:03] David Hornik
If you know this, those of you listening who haven’t played with or heard of Twitter, it’s basically the idea that you register yourself and your friends and can send a quick SMS message to Twitter that says what you’re doing, or just any message, and then it’s distributed to your set of friends.

[00:09:22] Craig Syverson
It’s like. It’s like an RSS type of thing.

[00:09:24] David Hornik
And so it’s, boom, you say so. And it’s supposed to be this kind of, hey, I’m podcasting now.

[00:09:30] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:09:30] David Hornik
Or I’m. I’m going to, you know, X Bar.

[00:09:33] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:09:33] David Hornik
Or just saw 300 and it was an awesome movie. Right. So it’s supposed to give you this. Just this little glimpse into what people are up to. Now. It turns out that if you got 100 people who are in your network on Twitter, and then they’re all at south by Southwest, and then they’re all, you know, Twittering what they’re up to, your pocket’s just a buzzing.

[00:09:53] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:54] David Hornik
But you know, could be fun.

[00:09:56] Craig Syverson
Well, it’s, you know, maybe this is the old fuddy duddy and me coming out, but I, I think it would be good at a conference thing in a situation like that where you’re trying to negotiate a connection. This is Austin. This is a large area, from what I understand. So it’s not like everyone’s packed in, but I’ve just got. I got a beef a little bit. I don’t know if it’s a beef, but it’s a concern. And it’s a concern for you in terms of business? Yeah, well, you know, I care, but I’m just feeling a tool overload here. I’m thinking like, how many more tools can we have? How many more little tools can we have? I just think there’s this saturation thing and what I wanted to ask or kind of look into is has it always been this way? Like in the history of investing and in venture capital, you’ve always got trends and you’ve always got things happening, like transistor radios. In the early days of venture capital, you were investing in solid things. And now the factor is so huge in all of these different things that are starting all these different tools. And I just see the Friendster MySpace Facebook phenomenon, where there’s just these migrations of like, what’s the latest nightclub that’s hot?

[00:11:20] David Hornik
Well, it’s an interesting question, right? I mean, we will for sure. It’s an open question. And when you look at companies like Yahoo and Google and others that are trying to figure out what to acquire, if it is this kind of location of the day, then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to buy it. On the other hand, you look at MySpace and it just continues to grow and, and has become some huge chunk of the total web attention, Web traffic, you know, it’s become the Walmart of, of the web. Right. I mean, just a fifth of every bit travels through it in some form or other. And so.

[00:11:55] Craig Syverson
But it’s not cool with my daughter anymore.

[00:11:57] David Hornik
And so that’s the interesting question. I mean, you know, I increasingly hear this, oh, it’s, oh, I’m sick of it. And for certain, if the kids move on to other things, then it’s going to be an interesting question. On the other hand, it turns out that 60% of MySpace traffic are. I forget what, I’m going to screw up the statistic, but I think it was 60% are people over 30. Okay, so, you know, who would have guessed? It’s like, it’s.

[00:12:22] Craig Syverson
Well, can. Is that validated it’s old people. Can that figure be confirmed on?

[00:12:27] David Hornik
Absolutely. I guess someone can confirm it. Hey, anyone who’s listening, if you can confirm, can you confirm or deny?

[00:12:33] Craig Syverson
Well, I mean, I’m just curious as to how they can determine the age. Maybe it’s an actual phone call.

[00:12:38] David Hornik
I don’t know what. I don’t know what the answer is there. So to your point, I mean, there’s.

[00:12:41] Craig Syverson
A critical mass that gets reached with certain things.

[00:12:43] David Hornik
Then. Then the network effects are so massive that they get to maintain scale, which.

[00:12:47] Craig Syverson
Is basically what happened to Yahoo and Google. Right, Right. I mean, I remember when Yahoo started out.

[00:12:52] David Hornik
Yeah, I remember it was lot Yahoo, Lycos and Vista was AltaVista. And no, but what’s. What did Disney bought? You remember? I forget that old thing. Was it 1997?

[00:13:09] Craig Syverson
My God.

[00:13:11] David Hornik
Oi.

[00:13:12] Craig Syverson
But that thing, yeah.

[00:13:13] David Hornik
Anyway, I mean, you know, there were a bunch of these portals and then, yeah, Yahoo survived. The other sort of Lycos is just an incredible story when you look at what happened to it. Just a powerful contender and just sort of went to nothing and sight literally fell away in the economic ruin of at home. And so interesting to watch. The one that I think is moving so quickly. Excuse me? Moving so quickly and really sort of this challenging space is the widget space, where the widgets that are working within these social networks are changing and morphing so quickly that to figure out, yes, it’s still for sure, slideshows are exciting and people like them, but there are all sorts of things. You know, now there’s voicemail, this kind of leave a voicemail on my MySpace page, my Bebo page, with my High Five page, whatever. Oh, really? That’s catching on like crazy. And video obviously has gone like crazy. And so keeping track of which of those things are interesting mebo and how people are going to use IM as a unified platform. And is it going to be a platform in and of itself or is it going to live like the. The Meebo widget that lives on your MySpace page or whatever. So I’m with you. I mean, I think that there will be a bunch of overload, but ultimately some of these things will emerge as achieving critical mass. And you know, I had drinks quickly with Katerina Fake, who was one of the founders of Flickr, and with one of the founders of Etsy. And I don’t know if you’ve seen Etsy, but I’ve seen Etsy.

[00:14:40] Craig Syverson
Yeah. It’s really beautiful.

[00:14:42] David Hornik
Right. So you can appreciate the aesthetic of this thing. It’s a marketplace for handmade goods and they’re approaching 200,000 users, registered users of Etsy. And Katarina was saying 200,000 is kind of the critical mass. It’s when things start changing. It’s when things started changing for us at Flickr, she said, I think it’s when stuff started changing at LinkedIn. I think it’s going to be this inflection point for Etsy.

[00:15:05] Craig Syverson
Now I would say Etsy’s different because it’s a website for one and it’s niche and it’s, I think it’s just right for a business. In other words, it’s like no one’s really going to copy it so much. Whereas Flickr, you know, you’ve got all these other photo things and other, you know, these other IM things. It just, it’s these tool, it’s the tools that’s bugging me. It’s all these.

[00:15:27] David Hornik
So it’s not, it’s not so much it’s a store, Etsy’s a store. But you’d be surprised. I mean Etsy is actually sort of a community. A lot of why it works is that it’s a community, it’s selling not just user generated goods, but also it’s selling the materials that are being used to make these goods and it’s creating a real community. But I take your point. I mean I think it’s going to be a very interesting question to watch and Twitter’s a poster child for that. I mean what is the end goal for Twitter and how will people continue to use it? Well, you get overloaded and more importantly, when you get your cell phone bill and it turns out that you’re charged for every incoming sms, will you literally vomit in the stun and horror of the $420 bill you get?

[00:16:15] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Well, was it this way earlier, like with, let’s say during the software years when software was people were building apps, were there as many software? I guess not. There wouldn’t have been this many software companies building stuff for Ms. DOS or whatever back in those days. I mean, I know you weren’t a VC back then, but.

[00:16:34] David Hornik
Yeah, but I think the answer is that the scale has the power of the web, is that it’s given the capacity for anyone to be a developer. And open source software makes it cheap and these tools make it easier. And so, so I think the pace of creation has increased over time, which.

[00:16:50] Craig Syverson
Makes your job harder, I would think.

[00:16:52] David Hornik
Well, it’s tricky because you have to figure out, okay, there are lots of These things which are the really meaningful and likely to be interesting standalone companies. Yeah, it’s ugly. It’s ugly.

[00:17:04] Craig Syverson
It’s ugly out there.

[00:17:05] David Hornik
Thanks for mentioning.

[00:17:07] Craig Syverson
Yeah, I thought sleep well, the dark program give you something to sleep about.

[00:17:14] David Hornik
Yeah, excellent.

[00:17:16] Craig Syverson
And then you went to ted.

[00:17:17] David Hornik
Yes, I did. I love ted.

[00:17:19] Craig Syverson
Yes, ted.

[00:17:20] David Hornik
How do I love thee? I so love ted. Ted, technology, entertainment and design. At least that’s the history. The history is technology, entertainment and design.

[00:17:30] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Where’s is it different now?

[00:17:32] David Hornik
Well, it’s still a lot of that. I’d say that Chris Anderson who now runs it and this is. So there are two Chris Anderson’s in the world. There’s Chris Anderson. Yeah, that’s all. That’s it.

[00:17:41] Craig Syverson
Just two.

[00:17:41] David Hornik
In my world there are two prominent Chris Anderson, there’s Chris Anderson, the editor in chief of Wired, and then there’s the Chris Anderson who runs ted, who runs a thing called the Sapling foundation, which came out of his creating the the Business 2.0 magazine and a whole bunch of other magazines in a thing called Imagine Media. So Imagine Media was a huge company and worth a pile of money for a period of time. And then they had a bunch of the Linux and gaming and all magazines and went through some tough times in sort of 2000, whatever. But in the process, Chris, who was running Imagine Media, had bought the TED conference from Richard Saul Wurman, who had created it, and then he had placed it in his foundation, bought it and put it into the foundation. And so when he sold off the rest of the assets of Imagine Media, he continued to run the foundation and as such continued to run the conference. He calls himself the curator. Yes, of ted. That sounds like a fun job, man, it’s so good. I mean, and now and then Chris hired, you know, one of my favorite people on the planet, a woman named June Cohen, who was one of the early hotwired people who we interviewed on our when we were at the Web 2.0 conference. So June. June has been helping with recreating the increasing the web presence and expanding the visibility of the conference beyond just the conference to the web. And in fact she previewed their new website at the conference. And it’s just going to be a really fun, interesting media experiment to help get out these speakers and increase the conversation because they’ve had this real challenge, I think as a group they’re very interested in sharing these ideas more broadly. And on the other hand, in order for the conference to work, it’s reached critical mass at about 1,000 people. And they tried Another venue just for a session. Not this year, but the year before. And it just didn’t work. It just wasn’t the right intimacy and the right kind of experience. And so they realized, hey, you know, the way to expand this is not to make the conference bigger. Now it’s interesting. I mean, what they ended up doing was increasing the price of the conference to try and decrease demand. So they took the conference from $4,400 to $6,000. Thinking, okay, well that’ll be better. We’ll have fewer people who are interested in going at $6,000. No, no, no, no. You know what happened? I think it would made it worse, right? Oh my God. Well, if it’s $6,000 and everybody wants to get in. And so they’re oversubscribed by hundreds of people before they even had this year’s conference. So this is for next year. This is for 2008. They have sold the thousand seats.

[00:20:18] Craig Syverson
It’s like be on wine futures or something.

[00:20:20] David Hornik
Yeah, exactly. At $6,000 a piece. And I think on the one hand that’s great for them. I think that that’s a testimony to what a fabulous experience it is. On the other hand, it creates other challenges for them because I think that the last thing they want is to make it feel like it’s this elitist experience, etc. So it’s a challenge. But putting all those challenges aside, what a great conference. Oh, my God.

[00:20:42] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:20:42] David Hornik
So good.

[00:20:44] Craig Syverson
You inspired or scared or.

[00:20:47] David Hornik
Well, you know, in this conference you’re kind of both. You’re always, you’re, you’re always inspired. You always leave feeling a little like you’re a total lame ass.

[00:20:55] Craig Syverson
Yeah, right.

[00:20:56] David Hornik
That’s sort of, you know, you’re like, wow, you know, hey, wish I had solved world hunger.

[00:21:01] Craig Syverson
Yeah, I got the recycling out this morning. I feel real good about that.

[00:21:06] David Hornik
See, it is, it’s these small. I should feel good about these small things.

[00:21:09] Craig Syverson
These small victories.

[00:21:10] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:21:11] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Well, I do have trouble watching these TED videos. I’m like, ah, wow, that’s awesome.

[00:21:17] David Hornik
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Sweet. Where’s my Nobel Prize? You know, what have I done lately? But I’ll tell you so. But it was great. I mean, just this incredible. You get to see. Oh, here’s here. I’m going to teach you about what the planets around Jupiter are like. Hey, I’m the person who landed this bot on, on the star, you know, and floating around. Yeah, Jupiter. And here’s what we discovered. And here’s a picture of the surface. And by the way, you Know, there’s like liquid gas and pools that look like, holy cow. That’s just incredibly interesting. And then you have the most incredible session, ended with Tracy Chapman singing. And I mean, I don’t know if you remember Tracy Chapman. And, you know, I got a fast car. You know, I remember loving Tracy Chapman’s music, but in this context, it was just incredible. She was just so stunningly eloquent, and so that was amazing. And then right after her was Isabel Allende, who really, I just was. I can’t even. I can’t even come up with words to describe how well spoken and interesting. And she was speaking about women and the power of women and the need for women to be empowered and all this. And I just. If I had only seen those two people play and speak, I would have left thinking that it had been an amazing conference. So. But then. So you said, oh, did you get scared? Well, John Doerr came and he had. He started. He scared us. He scared us. Well, you know, he started. He chose to do it. He started out his talk and it was something like, you know, I’m. I’m afraid. I’m concerned. I don’t think we’re going to make it. That was how it started out. We, as we the human race.

[00:23:00] Craig Syverson
Okay. Not just Kleiner Perkins.

[00:23:02] David Hornik
Kleiner. No, I think you’re feeling fine about Kleiner. It was like, you know, I’m talking to my daughter about global warming and, you know, by the way, we’re about to completely screw up the planet and, you know, we need to reverse this. And I don’t think. And now I’m going to talk to you about the ways in which we might reverse these problems. And no one thing, which, by the way, is a massive undertaking in and of itself will be enough. And therefore, I’m not sure we’re going to make it. And, you know, he was sufficiently, you know, sufficiently concerned about this and moved by the worry and the idea of not leaving a planet worthy of his daughter, etcetera, that he literally broke down in tears at the end of his talk as he sort of left the stage, you know, and we’re sitting there thinking, you know, wow, this is going to be a good morning. Thanks. Thanks, John.

[00:23:46] Craig Syverson
Wow.

[00:23:47] David Hornik
So that was interesting. You know, on the other hand, he’s also. One of his solutions is that Kleiner is going to pump a whole lot of money into this space.

[00:23:54] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:23:55] David Hornik
I don’t think it’s necessarily for the sake of the planet as much as for the sake of really get great returns, because there’s a whole lot of focus on this.

[00:24:03] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:24:03] David Hornik
But there’s that interesting dichotomy of, oh, you know, there’s a real problem here and we have to solve it. And by the way, I’ve got a lot of money and I’m going to help solve it. So there’s some of that.

[00:24:11] Craig Syverson
Yeah, that’s admirable.

[00:24:14] David Hornik
It was good.

[00:24:14] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:24:15] David Hornik
I hosted a dinner at the event and had really. Just a really interesting crowd. It’s always fun.

[00:24:20] Craig Syverson
Despite Bill Clinton.

[00:24:22] David Hornik
That’s right. Bill Clinton had his own private dinner at the same time. And he stole Paul Simon from me. Can you believe that?

[00:24:30] Craig Syverson
I hate it when ex presidents steal famous musician friends from your. Yeah, yeah.

[00:24:36] David Hornik
Don’t you think that’s wrong?

[00:24:37] Craig Syverson
Oh, yeah. I mean, when Mick Jagger was gonna come to my birthday party. Right. Dick Nixon was in town.

[00:24:44] David Hornik
You know, don’t be making light of my plight.

[00:24:48] Craig Syverson
I’m sorry.

[00:24:48] David Hornik
I mean, you know, it’s Paul Simon. How cool would it have been? I know Paul Simon. Come hang out. He had just played and he and Edie Burkel, you know, were there and you know, and.

[00:24:59] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:25:00] David Hornik
Then former president said, hey, you know, Paul, I’d like to have a little one on one with you and Edie.

[00:25:05] Craig Syverson
Oh, no, no. I’m going to David Hornik’s dinner.

[00:25:08] David Hornik
Well, he was. He was gonna go. Come on, that’s just wrong. Well, all right. But Paul, if you’re gonna. If you’re listening and you’re gonna be at TED next year, you’re welcome. You’re welcome to come. And I don’t think there’ll be any.

[00:25:24] Craig Syverson
No hard feelings.

[00:25:24] David Hornik
No hard feeling. Look, I love him.

[00:25:26] Craig Syverson
Gosh, you’re a generous guy.

[00:25:28] David Hornik
I know.

[00:25:28] Craig Syverson
That’s touching. Looking at the news, there’s been a lot of news. A lot of news. Blackstone going public. Did you read about that? No, this is kind of new. I thought I might have sprung it on you.

[00:25:41] David Hornik
No, that’s.

[00:25:41] Craig Syverson
Yeah, it was in today’s Journal, but I think they sort of pretty. But yeah, they’re thinking of doing an IPO of a private equity fund. Sort of an oxymoron based on what I learned from our last show.

[00:25:53] David Hornik
Exactly. Very interesting. I hadn’t heard that.

[00:25:56] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Yeah. So they’re thinking of, like, splitting off a bit, like something like 10% of the company or something.

[00:26:02] David Hornik
Well, I don’t know if you remember, but, you know, there was this kind of Draper Fisher Jurvetson y spin off y thing called me vc that was going to be the, like, public company vc Fund and.

[00:26:14] Craig Syverson
Oh, really? When was that?

[00:26:16] David Hornik
You know, that was in the late 90s and it was when everything was working. And that didn’t really work. Yeah, it didn’t end up being such a great plan.

[00:26:24] Craig Syverson
Advanced stages of planning an initial public offering of roughly 10% of its management company. According to people familiar with the matter, offering of that size would conservatively value the entire Enterprise at $40 billion.

[00:26:38] David Hornik
Well.

[00:26:39] Craig Syverson
Well, let me get this straight. These are the guys who are convincing companies not to go public, and they’re.

[00:26:44] David Hornik
Gonna take you private or take you.

[00:26:46] Craig Syverson
Private because it just sucks out there.

[00:26:49] David Hornik
Well, what they’re doing is saying, look, you know, tough times for public companies. We’ll take you private, we’ll give you some more ability to do some things, etc. But always the end goal is to get them public again.

[00:27:01] Craig Syverson
Is it?

[00:27:02] David Hornik
You need liquidity. Right. So the only way that you get liquid is to. Is to take it public or sell it. And when you’re at that kind of scale, the likelihood that it’s acquired as opposed to going public is pretty low. So.

[00:27:14] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:27:15] David Hornik
So. Yeah, but that’s very interesting.

[00:27:16] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Well, I think. I think your point of liquidity is well made because that’s. I think what they were saying is Stephen Schwarzman’s kind of the big guy there, and it’s because of this being able to have publicly traded shares, he could probably realize some cash, gain some.

[00:27:31] David Hornik
Liquidity from just a little.

[00:27:32] Craig Syverson
Yeah, so.

[00:27:35] David Hornik
Yeah, because you know what? Those private equity guys, not getting enough liquidity, they’re just not making enough cash. It’s terrible.

[00:27:43] Craig Syverson
Things are all tied up in these big companies and stuff.

[00:27:46] David Hornik
Yeah. Crazy.

[00:27:47] Craig Syverson
You can’t go to Safeway and say, I’ll give you 0.00007% of GM for this loaf of bread.

[00:27:53] David Hornik
Well, you know what? I think that they could probably buy bread with or without the public offering, but. So there have been a pile of acquisitions while we’ve been.

[00:28:06] Craig Syverson
Tell me.

[00:28:06] David Hornik
While we’ve been gone. I thought you were saying, oh, tell me, but. No, you mean tell me.

[00:28:11] Craig Syverson
Tell me.

[00:28:12] David Hornik
Yeah, tell me about it. No, I mean, tell me.

[00:28:15] Craig Syverson
That’s another Web 2.0 company. Probably.

[00:28:17] David Hornik
It was talked about. It was announced while I was at the Microsoft VC Summit. Baller got up there.

[00:28:24] Craig Syverson
I did not mean that as a joke.

[00:28:25] David Hornik
Oh, you didn’t? You just say, we’re saying, tell me.

[00:28:28] Craig Syverson
I meant that as a joke. Wasn’t that funny? I could not. No, I totally. I totally forgot about. Tell me.

[00:28:36] David Hornik
The thing about it is, it’s late it’s late. It’s like, you know, 20 to 12. So anyway. But that is funny. You’re good.

[00:28:44] Craig Syverson
Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I’ll be here all week. I’ll be here all night.

[00:28:49] David Hornik
I found out about the Tell Me deal at the Microsoft Summit, and Ballmer got up there, and he didn’t reference it. He didn’t specifically say, talk about or whatever. Although the interesting thing is his whole presentation was about M and A, about them acquiring companies. And he talked about they had a good year last year, and I forget what the total number was. 24 companies that had acquired 26 companies that two years before that they had had a bad year by only acquiring six companies. But that they were. That they believed that it was important for them to acquire companies. And they said, you know, and the big news today. And the big news, of course, was the $800 million acquisition of. Tell me.

[00:29:24] Craig Syverson
That’s a big chunk.

[00:29:25] David Hornik
It’s a big chunk. Big bunch of money.

[00:29:27] Craig Syverson
This is voiceover. It’s not a VoIP company.

[00:29:30] David Hornik
No, it’s. It’s a voice recognition stuff. It’s automating. Automating experiences using voice recognition. So, you know, the company’s a big company, had over 300 employees. It had, you know, kind of $100 million in revenue. It has long been considered a company that has done well. You know, in recent years, there’s sort of been a sense of how quickly is it growing? Which is always a concern when you’re trying to break into a market where there’s a bunch of activity already or. Or to interest someone like Microsoft. But obviously, listening to Ballmer talk about it, they’ve had a long history of looking at voice recognition and thinking about how these services can plug into other pieces of their software and infrastructure. And so it sounds like it just was sort of in the right place and the right time. And so they. They got paid a lot of money for it, but they raised a pile of money. Raised over $200 million.

[00:30:21] Craig Syverson
Tell me. Yeah, I did read that.

[00:30:23] David Hornik
Which is a lot. Big chunk of money.

[00:30:26] Craig Syverson
So they needed a big buyout.

[00:30:29] David Hornik
And then everything else has basically been bought by Cisco.

[00:30:32] Craig Syverson
Yeah, WebEx.

[00:30:33] David Hornik
I mean, WebEx. That’s crazy.

[00:30:36] Craig Syverson
That’s one of their bigger acquisitions.

[00:30:38] David Hornik
Big. What. It was at 3.2 billion or. I don’t remember.

[00:30:41] Craig Syverson
They didn’t print it out.

[00:30:43] David Hornik
Just something point something.

[00:30:44] Craig Syverson
A big number.

[00:30:45] David Hornik
It was a bunch of money. And they just bought one of our portfolio companies, a company called Neopath, that’s doing.

[00:30:51] Craig Syverson
Congratulations.

[00:30:52] David Hornik
Yep. Thank you. That was My partner Vivek had worked with that company and doing kind of routing of storage information so that you could have a bunch of disparate storage devices attached to a router that would send the data to the right device based on a set of criteria. So that’s kind of interesting. And then what I’m really curious about is that Cisco has recently bought two kind of web 2.0 social media things. They bought a blogging of sorts, company called 5 across, and then they bought the.

[00:31:23] Craig Syverson
Not to be confused part. Okay, five across, got it.

[00:31:28] David Hornik
No comment.

[00:31:29] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:31:29] David Hornik
And then they bought the assets of Tribe.

[00:31:33] Craig Syverson
Oh, so I did read about Tribe. Yes.

[00:31:36] David Hornik
The whole, you know, so I mean, we’ve talked about Tribe and the whole. And there’s been this back and forth and Mark Pincus, who started the company, had taken it back over and so they just sold it off to Cisco, or rather they sold the assets. Which means that there was, I don’t know, buying the assets means you don’t buy any of the liabilities, you don’t buy any of the other, you know, the history of the company.

[00:31:55] Craig Syverson
You just buy the stuff, I assume the intellectual property.

[00:31:59] David Hornik
Yeah, the stuff being the intellectual property, I don’t think, you know, you buy, I guess you buy the six servers, but you’re basically buying the underlying intellectual property of the company. And so it will be very interesting to me to see what ultimately happens, what Cisco’s planning to do with this stuff.

[00:32:13] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:32:14] David Hornik
And then more to the point, if you’re Cisco and you’re going to buy these sorts of things, why do you buy a 5 across instead of a 6 apart? Why do you buy a Tribe instead of a Bebo or whatever? I mean, it just, it’s just interesting to me to think that here’s this significant corporation that’s paying a huge amount of money for a WebEx and then buys, you know, these very small assets in the social media space. So I guess they’re probably dipping their toes in, but it’ll be fun to watch. I’m curious.

[00:32:41] Craig Syverson
This does seem to be a theme about communication and connection. I mean, obviously that’s one of Cisco’s, but more of a personal thing rather than a B2B thing.

[00:32:50] David Hornik
Yeah. Which is interesting.

[00:32:51] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:32:52] David Hornik
That’s not historically been their thing.

[00:32:54] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Short of linksys, that they’ve been pretty much a bigger.

[00:32:57] David Hornik
But that’s a lot of activity. I mean, it’s always good to see M and A activity and interestingly large M and A activity, at least from a venture perspective and from an entrepreneur’s perspective. You know, it’s good news for public offerings as well as for liquidity through acquisitions. So let’s hope it continues. Who’s next?

[00:33:13] Craig Syverson
Public offerings. It’s good for public offerings.

[00:33:16] David Hornik
Well, it’s good. It invigorates the market. You know, if there’s a sense of excitement and energy and value in technology companies, then it can often invigorate both markets, which I hope that’s the case.

[00:33:29] Craig Syverson
What do you think about venture debt?

[00:33:31] David Hornik
What do I think about venture debt?

[00:33:33] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:33:35] David Hornik
Well, I like it. Give me some of that venture debt.

[00:33:39] Craig Syverson
This is an article in the Journal recently about venture debt versus venture capital.

[00:33:44] David Hornik
Craig, you’re so prepared.

[00:33:45] Craig Syverson
You know what? I printed stuff out too.

[00:33:48] David Hornik
Sweet.

[00:33:48] Craig Syverson
I’m on a new kick.

[00:33:50] David Hornik
You’re actually going to. Yeah, I noticed that. Usually you come in, you pop open a computer, you got some tabs or whatever. Today you got the paper.

[00:33:57] Craig Syverson
My wife and I are trying to experiment. We’ve realized we’ve been too holed up in the sterile, isolating world of the computer and that we’re both people who love materials and matter. We both trained in various arts. Today we decided we’re gonna kind of change. We both work at home. Yep. And we’re gonna. We’re gonna get real physical about our work experience.

[00:34:18] David Hornik
Craig.

[00:34:19] Craig Syverson
No, no, no. I’m not.

[00:34:22] David Hornik
At home. You’re gonna be. I don’t want to know about it.

[00:34:26] Craig Syverson
But yeah, it’s this whole thing to get it out and work with paper. Paper. It’s really interesting. Non electronic light reflecting material.

[00:34:35] David Hornik
Cool. I’m a big fan of the paper. But I gotta tell you something. Listen to this. For the first time in, I don’t know, maybe a decade or something, next week I’m going on a field trip with my 9 year old up to the gold country. No cell coverage, no computer, nothing. Do you for three days.

[00:34:54] Craig Syverson
Are you gonna check with your doctor first and have some medication with you?

[00:34:58] David Hornik
I am incredibly concerned. I can’t, honestly. It’s like making it. I’m freaking out just thinking about it. It’s horrifying. Will you read my email for me?

[00:35:09] Craig Syverson
Yes, if you like.

[00:35:10] David Hornik
So it’ll feel. It’ll be red. It’ll feel red.

[00:35:13] Craig Syverson
I’ll send carrier pigeons up to you so you can. I’ll just send you the highlights. I can see it. You’re gonna have Mary, like trouble. Your assistant doing this crazy stuff to get you.

[00:35:24] David Hornik
How good would that be? Yeah. Do you think she’d be annoyed?

[00:35:26] Craig Syverson
Skywriting?

[00:35:27] David Hornik
It’s only a three hour Drive. But, you know, at the end of the day, if you could meet me with a packet of stuff, because I really. Because basically I’m freaking out.

[00:35:37] Craig Syverson
Many, many years ago, and I think there was. Since it wasn’t really true ip, I think I can talk about this. There was some brainstorm I was having at IDO for some clients about the future of. I think it was the future of tourism. I hope I’m not. This was so long ago. I think it’s even past the statute of limitations. And they hated the idea anyway.

[00:35:53] David Hornik
Yeah, right.

[00:35:54] Craig Syverson
Because it was mostly one of those brainstorming ideas. It’s crazy. But, you know, they were saying, you know what an eventual destination be. And I thought it will be a place that is like a huge Faraday cage. Right. Where there will be absolutely no electromagnetic fields anywhere.

[00:36:11] David Hornik
Yeah. Can’t come.

[00:36:12] Craig Syverson
And I didn’t think of it as much as a sanatorium as it’s sounding like it would be for you, but more of a peaceful, blissful place. And that was way before. I mean, I am a visionary.

[00:36:23] David Hornik
Yes.

[00:36:24] Craig Syverson
You understand.

[00:36:24] David Hornik
Of course.

[00:36:25] Craig Syverson
Way before all this other stuff happened. But I thought, you know what? It’s going to be an overload at some point. Just like I’m having a tool overload now. Maybe it’s just me.

[00:36:31] David Hornik
Well, meanwhile, my next home. I will be very careful to make sure that there’s none of this lath and plaster crap. So you can’t run wireless in your house. When was this house built?

[00:36:42] Craig Syverson
Yes.

[00:36:43] David Hornik
What’s behind this drywall? I need to know. So obviously I haven’t. It’s an illness.

[00:36:49] Craig Syverson
Yeah, it’s an illness. You’ll be fine. We go to my wife’s parents house in Rochester, New York. They have a home built in 1918 or something. I bought him an airport and it’s in her father’s office, which is in the corner of the house. And the airport coverage is her father’s office in the corner of the house.

[00:37:06] David Hornik
Because it’s like, that’s about it.

[00:37:08] Craig Syverson
The signals can’t get out.

[00:37:10] David Hornik
We would love to go further, unfortunately. It’s like living in a chicken coop. You can’t get a pass when we.

[00:37:17] Craig Syverson
Visit since we have a similar affliction. I bring my Airport Express and then plug it in. Plug it in the room. It’s like within line of sight of both where I’m sitting and the other thing. And we can actually get a signal that’s good.

[00:37:30] David Hornik
It can bounce to you.

[00:37:31] Craig Syverson
All right, pop quiz. That is basically a leading question. But in the form of a pop quiz. What is the single largest institutional investor for new companies in the United States?

[00:37:46] David Hornik
Intel.

[00:37:48] Craig Syverson
Maybe I didn’t phrase that right. What is, what is the largest entity. That is a. That’s good. That’s good answer, Professor.

[00:37:55] David Hornik
Thank you.

[00:37:56] Craig Syverson
Maybe not Institute. What. What is the largest body of thing entity?

[00:38:03] David Hornik
CalPERS.

[00:38:04] Craig Syverson
Pretty close. But, but, but for, for new companies.

[00:38:07] David Hornik
For new companies.

[00:38:08] Craig Syverson
For Risk Direct. Yeah. For. For taking risks on new companies.

[00:38:13] David Hornik
U.S. government.

[00:38:13] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Here you go. What part.

[00:38:16] David Hornik
Hey, how do you like that?

[00:38:17] Craig Syverson
I’m fair. I’m impressed.

[00:38:19] David Hornik
Yeah. So I assume it’s the Small Business Administration.

[00:38:22] Craig Syverson
Pretty. I. Oh, you know, I don’t know the answer, but. No, I do know the answer. That’s not the correct answer, but the correct answer is the National Science Foundation.

[00:38:31] David Hornik
Ah, interesting. NSF grants.

[00:38:33] Craig Syverson
Yes. And the SBIR program.

[00:38:34] David Hornik
Yep.

[00:38:35] Craig Syverson
And the reason I know this is because I was out there last week on a technology review panel for the SBIR and I learned a lot. It was really, really interesting process. That’s.

[00:38:47] David Hornik
Now that must be a lot of money they’re putting to work.

[00:38:50] Craig Syverson
They are. They have a $100 million a year to put out. So as a single institution, that’s more than any other single institution, I think in terms of putting out cash. And I’m just talking about probably total.

[00:39:04] David Hornik
Number of entities touched, I suspect that it’s a smaller amount per entity over $100 million. So when you aggregate that up, it’s however many thousands of new companies per year that are touched.

[00:39:17] Craig Syverson
But it’s a very interesting program. And one of the reasons I wanted to go was just to see what it was like, but also to give some service, you know, to look at you.

[00:39:26] David Hornik
You are.

[00:39:27] Craig Syverson
I mean, it’s. I really wanted. That was a true thing.

[00:39:29] David Hornik
It was like really, because I’m leaving my body to science. That’s my. It’s sort of my. It’s a sort of a posthumous give. You know what I’m saying?

[00:39:37] Craig Syverson
Well, I hope it’s posthumous for your.

[00:39:39] David Hornik
Sake and for science’s sake, frankly.

[00:39:42] Craig Syverson
Here’s science, here’s my leg. I’m still using it, but you can have it. Exactly what impressed me was how deeply integrated the NSF is with private enterprise and that it was just a real part of the puzzle or part of this whole thing that puts the world together. And I never thought of the government being involved in innovation and in funding startups. So it was a really interesting thing to be exposed to and really interesting process. There were. Our panels consist of half academics at half Capital or commercial people. It was a very rigorous process that we reviewed these grant applications and it was like being. I would imagine it would be like what an angel investor is because these are earlier stage companies than what you will see, for instance. But it wasn’t just like, hey, we’re the government, we’re going to toss out the money. I mean, these guys are serious that they want to put the money into something that’s going to push innovation and also that something that has a chance of actually being a viable business.

[00:40:40] David Hornik
So you got to. You basically got to fly in and be the judge of the business plane competition.

[00:40:46] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:40:47] David Hornik
And you sat down and. But difference was you got to give out real dollars of the US government’s money.

[00:40:53] Craig Syverson
Not personally, I didn’t.

[00:40:55] David Hornik
There were a panel of you and you guys reviewed some stuff and you said, we give these set a 10, we give these sevens, we give these twos. And. And then, and then they’ll make a decision.

[00:41:04] Craig Syverson
They’ll make a decision based on their entire recommendations. Right. Cool.

[00:41:07] David Hornik
So that was a real service, actually. It’s like doing jury duty.

[00:41:12] Craig Syverson
Kind of. Kind of was. But the interesting thing too is the relationship of NSF and venture capital was a bit more integrated before the boom happened and venture capital lost interest in these little guys.

[00:41:25] David Hornik
Right.

[00:41:26] Craig Syverson
But there’s a real opportunity there for VCs and the NSF to work together because, I mean, it’s all about deal flow. They get as they see a lot of stuff come in.

[00:41:34] David Hornik
Yep.

[00:41:34] Craig Syverson
And so there can be a synergy there. Yeah, that’s what I kind of want. I wanted to make sure.

[00:41:40] David Hornik
Cool. Well, you’re consider yourself officially knighted.

[00:41:45] Craig Syverson
Right. Here come the proposals.

[00:41:46] David Hornik
If you see some cool stuff. Yeah, you know, I got some money.

[00:41:50] Craig Syverson
Okay, man.

[00:41:51] David Hornik
That’s what I’m, you know, that’s what I do. As I mentioned. No. Well, I’ve got your capital gig where I, you know, I look for like the cool companies and then I give them some money. Oh, that’s pretty much what I do.

[00:42:01] Craig Syverson
Well, I got this thing where I’m recycling popsicle sticks and making like little. I mean, listen up.

[00:42:07] David Hornik
You’re just the conduit.

[00:42:08] Craig Syverson
Oh.

[00:42:08] David Hornik
You’re not the recipient.

[00:42:11] Craig Syverson
What do I get? What’s my cut?

[00:42:13] David Hornik
You know, we haven’t mentioned my mother enough. So I should say that she has this, you know, cockamamie scheme that she comes back to me periodically. You know, hey, you’re the money guy. Got this idea. Mom, it’s not happening.

[00:42:26] Craig Syverson
We’ll send her to the nsf.

[00:42:27] David Hornik
Yeah, they Might. Particularly if you’re there as a.

[00:42:31] Craig Syverson
Right. That’ll be good.

[00:42:33] David Hornik
Oh, Betsy Hornet? You bet. She. She’s. That idea is unbelievable. Her son told me.

[00:42:38] Craig Syverson
Right. And then I’ve got Dr. So and so from, you know, NYU sitting next to me going, I don’t think so, Craig.

[00:42:45] David Hornik
What are you crazy?

[00:42:46] Craig Syverson
I don’t know.

[00:42:47] David Hornik
I really. I think it’s compelling.

[00:42:49] Craig Syverson
I did. I actually there. There was one. I mean, I can’t, obviously can’t go into detail, but there was one company that I was really into, and the idea. And they were like, okay, we’ll hear what you have to say. I mean, there were some serious guys there. These are like the PhD guys, and then other venture capital guys, and it.

[00:43:07] David Hornik
Was just like, okay, well, here’s one those brainiacs.

[00:43:09] Craig Syverson
Yeah, it was fun. It was really fun and it’s really impressive. So there you go. The government, doing good. Doing good things for all of us. So anything else? I think we’re good.

[00:43:24] David Hornik
Can I just say this, though, to the folks listening, thank you. Thank you for listening.

[00:43:28] Craig Syverson
Right, but see, they’re not up right now listening.

[00:43:30] David Hornik
I know. Well, sure. It’s not live. I’m just saying, you know, I’ve talked to a bunch of people recently that, hey, I listen to your podcast. It’s no small commitment to listen to our podcast.

[00:43:39] Craig Syverson
That’s true.

[00:43:40] David Hornik
It’s freaking long.

[00:43:41] Craig Syverson
It is long.

[00:43:42] David Hornik
It’s quality. I’m not saying it’s not quality. So folks who are listening, I’m just saying. I appreciate that.

[00:43:49] Craig Syverson
Where can people hear you next live? What’s your next.

[00:43:52] David Hornik
Oh, coming up. Yeah, the O’Reilly E. Tech conference.

[00:43:55] Craig Syverson
You’re gonna talk there and something.

[00:43:56] David Hornik
Yeah, sort of. I mean, you know, I’m running a session with Dave McClure that’s really kind of an improv comedy thing. It’s basically you get a couple of random words that become the name of the company that you then have 15 minutes.

[00:44:11] Craig Syverson
Oh, I did that last year.

[00:44:13] David Hornik
Yeah, we did it at Food Camp this summer, and we’re going to do it at the E. Tech Conference. It’s really fun. Totally fun. So I’m looking forward to that.

[00:44:22] Craig Syverson
I want to go. Where is it?

[00:44:24] David Hornik
It’s in San Diego.

[00:44:25] Craig Syverson
Okay, we’ll see.

[00:44:26] David Hornik
It’s not so far. Yeah, so that’s good. And then after that, then we got the Web 2.0 Expo. I think that’s going to be a big fun event. I mean, it’s going to be an expo. So it’s going to be piles of companies, service Providers and new companies, whatever, all gathering together to talk about this whole thing we call the web 2.0. And that one, actually, I’m giving a talk sort of on syphilis. Sort of on syphilis.

[00:44:55] Craig Syverson
A little bit. I see.

[00:44:56] David Hornik
A little bit.

[00:44:57] Craig Syverson
Definitely a 2.0.

[00:44:58] David Hornik
Yeah. I’m talking about social. What we. Social issues. No, we can. Talking about what we can learn about viral marketing from actual viruses.

[00:45:08] Craig Syverson
Oh, that talk.

[00:45:09] David Hornik
Yeah.

[00:45:09] Craig Syverson
I mean, that idea.

[00:45:11] David Hornik
That’s good talk. Okay, so it’s gonna be fun. So I forget it’s what I learned from syphilis or something, but you should check that out.

[00:45:18] Craig Syverson
This is firsthand experience.

[00:45:19] David Hornik
Yeah, right. No, Greg, I’m just saying my buddy Dr. Enoch Choi, who’s a great blogger and doctor character, and he. Enoch and I sat down and we talked a lot about. I’ve been thinking about this for a bunch of time, so I’m going to hopefully have some concrete things to say about the characteristics of successful viruses in the real world and how they can be applied to the online world.

[00:45:46] Craig Syverson
Snow Crash. Have you read it?

[00:45:48] David Hornik
I have not read it.

[00:45:49] Craig Syverson
I have not read it.

[00:45:50] David Hornik
I have not read it.

[00:45:50] Craig Syverson
You cannot give this talk without reading Snow Crash. It is an order.

[00:45:54] David Hornik
How long is it?

[00:45:55] Craig Syverson
It’s long. I am ordering you, sir, as a techno geek like, person. This is like. This is the Bible, man.

[00:46:05] David Hornik
All right. Yeah, thank you.

[00:46:07] Craig Syverson
And related to viruses and I’ll check it out.

[00:46:09] David Hornik
I have read the Hot Zone. No. Holy cow, is that a great book about the Ebola virus, man. Oh, man.

[00:46:19] Craig Syverson
Oh, that’s a scary virus.

[00:46:20] David Hornik
That’s such a good book, though. I’m telling you.

[00:46:22] Craig Syverson
Did you hear the Ebola’s taken out, like, the major chimpanzee and gorilla population?

[00:46:28] David Hornik
Oh, no. Recently?

[00:46:29] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Like major. Like 90%.

[00:46:32] David Hornik
Oh, not good.

[00:46:33] Craig Syverson
Yeah.

[00:46:34] David Hornik
So I talk about the Ebola virus. And just to give you a little preview, the reason the Ebola virus actually is not a great virus. I mean, it’s an unbelievably deadly virus, but it’s not a great virus. Why? It kills too quickly. How can you go spread it if you’re going to die?

[00:46:49] Craig Syverson
Right.

[00:46:50] David Hornik
So anyway, that’s just a little teaser. Back to the Web 2.0 Expo and you can get some more of that.

[00:46:56] Craig Syverson
And what city is that? Great.

[00:46:57] David Hornik
It’s here in this. It’s in Moscone here in San Francisco.

[00:47:00] Craig Syverson
Cool. I’m going to be speaking at. On the new media side at the GEAR Media Tech Conference.

[00:47:07] David Hornik
Wow. Gearhead.

[00:47:09] Craig Syverson
Yeah. Later this month. I think it’s the 23rd. I don’t have it written down, but it’s something that Leo Laporte and Scott Bourne, Alex Lindsay are doing at the zm.

[00:47:17] David Hornik
Oh, cool.

[00:47:18] Craig Syverson
And so if folks out there interested in learning about new media and podcasting and the whole tech thing, it’s going to be a really, I think it’s be very good, deeply hands on and technical and content level discussions on how to do it. And I’ll be giving some session on video.

[00:47:34] David Hornik
All right.

[00:47:34] Craig Syverson
And then I’ll be at NAB in April.

[00:47:37] David Hornik
That’s right. You’re the. You’re the NAB man and NAB man.

[00:47:40] Craig Syverson
Giving a talk there on the radio group.

[00:47:42] David Hornik
Awesome.

[00:47:43] Craig Syverson
Yes. All right, enough, enough plugs.

[00:47:46] David Hornik
That’s right.

[00:47:46] Craig Syverson
But you know, it’s conference season, so. So until next time when it’ll be sunny outside, I hope.

[00:47:52] David Hornik
I think we should try and do this during the day next, but if we can’t, we can’t. Look, I’m committed. I felt badly about missing this two weeks ago. We tried.

[00:48:01] Craig Syverson
We did try many times.

[00:48:02] David Hornik
And so I wasn’t going to let that happen again. Y. I’m glad that we can. We could do it.

[00:48:07] Craig Syverson
Yes. Thank you for listening. Thank you to Cash Fly for providing the bandwidth for our show. See you next time. Right now at your colorizer dealers, dial the color harmony of your creative tomorrow. Dial the wonders of the world of color. The harp string of beauty, the keyboard of movement. Sam.