Category Archives: Business

Another great article by NYT’s Evelyn Rusli and Ben Protess:

“Wall Street, as always, is going where the money is — and right now that is Silicon Valley. The latest Internet boom means there are more newly minted millionaires, and even billionaires, than at any time since the technology bubble a decade ago.”

And one more quote for the road:

“Financial firms are salivating over the wealth being created. Facebook is readying an initial public offering that will most likely value it near $100 billion. Employees and directors at Zynga own more than a third of the online game company, which went public in December at $7 billion. The list of prospects is long: Groupon is worth $12.2 billion; LinkedIn, $6.8 billion; and Pandora, $1.9 billion.”

Sell a company and Wall Street will start knocking on your door. They might even have some tickets to a show or exclusive access to Tesla’s factory to reel you in.

Should any of us be surprised? The fees generated by managing multiple multi-million dollar accounts adds up. And with Facebook’s impending IPO, there’s going to be a lot of new money flooding the Bay Area.

The question is whether it’s going to last. Is Silicon Valley the new nexus for wealth creation, or is it about to be hammered hard by the markets? We’re about to find out.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Bea Ackles

Entrepreneurship is blossoming all over the world, but it faces significant threats from an unstable international economy and the rise of ideas that don’t push the envelope far enough. What should entrepreneurs be prepared to face in 2012?

Entrepreneurship in 2012 was the subject of a 17 minute presentation I delivered this year at the LeWeb Conference in Paris. During my talk, I discussed some of the big social, local and mobile trends that would play prominently in the next year. I also touched on the biggest problems that will face entrepreneurs in 2012 and concluded with my advice on how entrepreneurs can weather the stormy seas of startup life.

I left one more surprise for the end of my talk. When LeWeb and Seesmic founder Loic LeMeur came back on stage, he asked me about my plans post-Mashable, I told him that I am working on a startup… and I convinced him to invest right on stage!

(I think I’ve discovered a new strategy for pitching angel investors!)

While Mashable and the world of journalism have been the three best years of my life, entrepreneurship is in my DNA and I can no longer resist the calling. I’m still going to be writing and commentating, but I will be focusing my time on advising and consulting with entrepreneurial companies while we get our startup off the ground.

I hope to have more to announce regarding the startup sometime next year. Until then, if you want to chat about entrepreneurship, you can always find me at ben[at]benparr[dot]com. You can also send me an email at the same address if you liked my talk and are interested in having me speak about technology, entrepreneurship or media at your event.

~ Ben

The rapid rise of the web has created two parallel yet distinct worlds in the physical and digital realms, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt claims.

Schmidt took the stage at LeWeb 2011 on Wednesday and, after an extensive demonstration of Android Ice Cream Sandwich, decided to put on his philosophy cap and discuss some of the fundamental issues affecting the web.

One of the topics that piqued my interest was his argument that the proliferation of the web has created two separate worlds, governed by separate rules. The first is the “real world” — the physical realm that is bound by the rules of governments. The second is the “cyber world” — a new world with its own distinct culture and rules.

Because the two worlds are separate, Schmidt argues that the happenings in one world doesn’t always reflect what happens in the other. His example was the European financial crisis, an issue that is slowing down economic growth worldwide and has the unfortunate potential of plunging the real world into recession.

Schmidt claims that the financial crisis isn’t having the same effect on the cyber world, though. The cyber world is booming, Schmidt says, due to the web’s open nature and the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation in the tech sector over the last few years.

While Schmidt believes the two worlds are currently separate, he does claim that they will eventually merge and integrate.

“My conclusion, by the way, is that each of these two worlds merge in an equilibrium that improve each other,” Google’s Chairman said on stage.

From what I can gather, Schmidt is arguing that the cyber world has grown so fast and independent of the influence of world governments and the real world that it has developed a culture, identity and economy of its own. The result is that it’s partially insulated from what happens in the real world.

That won’t last, though. Governments are trying to influence and tax the web more and more. But while governments try to reign in the wild west that is the world wide web, the cyber world’s emphasis on openness and free speech will permeate throughout the real world. We’ve seen this phenomenon with the Egyptian and Tunsinian revolutions.

Schmidt is right: the real world and the cyber world are merging, and the end result will be a better society. But before that happens, there are going to be a lot more struggles, growing pains and revolutions.

The $400 million Google-Admeld deal has closed, giving Google even greater power and reach in the display ad business.

From the Google Blog:

“In June, we announced that we are acquiring Admeld, a New York-based company that helps large publishers (also known as the “sell-side” by people, like me, who live and breathe display advertising) maximize their revenues from online advertising. We’re pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice has today cleared this deal. We’ll close the acquisition in the coming days and then start the real work—building improved products and services that help our publisher partners to make more informed decisions across all their ad space, and to grow their revenues.”

Essentially, Google now controls one of the major systems advertisers use to choose where to place their ads. Expect the search giant to link AdMeld’s technology to DoubleClick, making Google an even bigger force in web advertising. With competition like AOL and Yahoo, it won’t be long until Google dominates display advertising, too.