Churchill Club Top Trend: Millennium Generation Rule
May 21, 2009
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Churchill Club Top Trend: Why D.C. Is A Bad VC
May 21, 2009
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Tesla Motors Chief Downplays Fisker Automotive Plug-In Sedan
April 8, 2009
Fisker Automotive's Karma plug-in hybrid sedan is sportier than Tesla Motors'
Speaking at the Churchill Club last night, Tesla Motors chief Elon Musk downplayed rival’s plug-in sedan.
“Fiskers is building a plug-in hybrid [more on that on another post]… it’s [the Karma] a sportier sedan than ours,” confided Musk.
However, for Musk Tesla’s S all-electric sedan is intended to be very functional with a lot of cargo space, carrying 5 adults in comfort and potentially 2 kids – yes, that’s 7 total! – and still have room for luggage.
And did I forget to mention, it’s all-electric… no gas!
“And we’re roughly at a $50,000 price point and they’re around $80,000 starting price after the tax rebates,” adds Musk.
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Musk: After Paypal, SpaceX, Tesla Motors? Nano-fusion, Prefab Highways, Electric Plane
April 7, 2009
Elon Musk next ventures could be a nano-fusion reactor, prefab highways and an electric plane!
Despite having his “mind full” with Space X, Tesla Motors and family matters (5 kids!), uber entrepreneur Elon Musk has still a bit of time left to think about his next big ideas which includes nanoscale fusion, prefabricated highways and a supersonic all-electric plane!
“At some point in the future, I will take a look at fusion. That’s a tough problem. But I think it’s something humanity can solve. And maybe there’s something I can be helpful there,” said Musk speaking tonight at a Churchill Club event hosted at Microsoft’s Mountain View. Calif.- campus.
The co-founder of Paypal is also dreaming of double-decker highways made of “prefabricated sections” with very efficient metallic structures that could withstand the worst of earthquakes. “The trick will be making it light, strong and inexpensive. And I think I know how to do that,” added Musk.
Finally, Musk, which went from surviving on $1 a day to being one of Silicon Valley’s billionaires and perhaps the modern day Jules Verne, have this idea of an electric supersonic jet. “I have to ban that idea from my mind… [because] it’s very exciting.”
Here’s Elon Musk talking about his next dreams:
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With 40% Of Global Wealth Gone, Do Not Expect A Quick End To The Downturn
February 19, 2009This is a balance-sheet downturn, quips Stanford law professor Joseph Grundfest.
This is a balance sheet contraction, says Joseph Grundfest
Bank assets are marked down, stocks crashed and home values have fallen. In the past two years, 40 percent of the world’s wealth disappeared, Grundfest calculates.
“The problem is bigger than government,” he said Thursday at a Churchill Club gathering on the financial crisis. “We shouldn’t fool ourselves into believing (government spending) is going to lead to a vibrant economy in three years.”
If there was one message from the club’s panel discussion it was exactly that: don’t expect a quick turn around. Several panelists predicted the global decline that accelerated in December would last for years.
“This is a drastic resetting of everything,” said Patricia Sueltz, CEO of the startup LogLogic and a former Salesforce.com executive. “We’ve got to lower our expectations.”
There is a drastic resetting of everything, says Patricia Sueltz
While governments in the U.S. and elsewhere hope to spark consumer and business spending with stimulus packages, adjusting product prices will take the market place time.
It is not irrational that banks don’t want to lend into such as environment, says Grundfest. They respond, this “is not in our self interest,” he said.
Bill Coleman, CEO of Cassatt and founder of BEA Systems, predicted that it is possible the U.S. can avoid double-digit unemployment.
But he said the Dow Jones Industrial Average may not stabilize for another couple months at a price not lower than 6,000.
1 Comment | economy, news | Tagged: Bill Coleman, churchill club, Downturn, economy, Joseph Grundfest, Patricia Sueltz | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
Bill Joy Sees Enormous Opportunity In Thin Film Solar Cells
February 13, 2009Enormous opportunities lie ahead for thin-film solar cells, said Bill Joy, partner at the venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
But the fall in the price of oil threatens a generation of green-energy entrepreneurs, setting back the nation’s efforts to combat global warming, Joy said this week during an on-stage interview at the Churchill Club.
We take the climate status quo too lightly, say Bill Joy
Joy, a co-founded Sun Microsystems who now invests in clean-tech startups at KP, said the government could bring stability to alternative-fuel markets by demanding a percentage of the country’s energy come from renewable sources.
At the same time, Silicon Valley can play a role in developing thin-film solar cells because of its expertise with semiconductors, he said. But the valley will not be the only center of innovation in green tech, Joy added, suggesting Boston, Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Germany have specialties to harness.
At Kleiner, partners have been working with former Vice President and climate crusader Al Gore to find solutions to global warming. – and investment ideas.
The alternative is letting the planet become inhospitable. “We take the status quo too lightly,” said Joy.
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Posted by Mark Boslet
Twitter CEO: Unprofitable Popular Internet Companies Don’t Go Away; YouTube Founders Sold To Google Fearing Hollywood Lawsuits
December 5, 2008
No worries for the CEO of Twitter. If they can't succeed making money, they'll probably get bought!
Talking earlier this week at the Churchill Club in San Francisco, Calif., Twitter’s CEO pointed the fact that in the last 5 years none of the very popular Internet services have gone away because they could not make money.
Those really successful Internet companies would get acquired but not disappear or die.
A reference to the San Francisco startup of course that is still looking for ways to monetize its growing user base; which now total 6 million subscribers.
To prove his point, Williams cited YouTube and Paypal as two popular Internet companies that also had trouble – YouTube still is - monetizing their success.
“YouTube sold to Google because they were going to get their pants suit out. If that wasn’t the case, then the founders and their backers wouldn’t want to sell because it’s the future of television in the U.S. They had some unique things working against them,” said Williams.
And Williams knows the topic fairly well having sold Blogger to Google in February 2003 and recently rejected Facebook’s $500 million offer!
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Hot Gadgets For Your Christmas List (Hint: They Are All Mobile)
November 18, 2008
The Blackberry Storm is on Walt Mossberg's list
They include a phone, a printer, an underwater camcorder and an electronic reader – and they were all shown off at the annual hot gadgets night at the Churchill Club on Tuesday.
The theme this year is mobile. Everything was made to be portable.
According to The Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg, “the most interesting thing this holiday season is the keyboard-less Blackberry,” which is to go on sale November 21 from Verizon.
This touchscreen iPhone knockoff is called the Storm and it has a more haptic sensibility than the iPhone. When pressed, its screen gives a little to offer the feeling that a button or key has been hit.
It will cost $199 after a $50 rebate.
Also on Mossberg’s Christmas list is the Flip MinoHD camcorder, a shirt-pocket-sized device capable of taking high definition video. The video clips “come out (and) they’re great,” said Mossberg.
The camcorder has the capacity of about an hour and sells for about $229.
Greg Harper, co-founder of the gadget conference Gadgetoff, says he is in love with the first OLED (organic light emitting diode) picture frame for the consumer market. This Kodak product should be available online in time for the holidays and displays an exceptionally vivid, sharp image. “It’s a beautiful screen,” says Harper.
OLED makes a great picture frame, says Greg Harper
List price is $999.
Another of Harper’s favorites is the Panasonic SDR-SW20S, a $399.99 camcorder that can shoot underwater to depths of five feet.
Also keep your eye on Plastic Logic, a Mountain View company making a razor thin electronic reader scheduled for release in early 2009, says Evan Williams, CEO of Twitter. It is the size of an 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of stationary and is as thick as a pad of paper, with a large display.
Then, too, “I highly recommend the Kindle” reader from Amazon, says Williams.
Here are several other ideas:
*The RichardSolo 1800 backup battery for the iPhone. Cost is $69.95.
*The ClickFree automatic backup drive. The device plugs into a USB port and automatically backs up a Windows PC – no software to install. A 120gb version costs $75.
*The Planon PrintStik portable printer for computers and Blackberry cell phones. The device is no longer than a ruler and only 1.5 inches high. It prints using Bluetooth and costs $299.99.
6 Comments | computers, hardware, news | Tagged: blackberry, churchill club, Evan Williams, Flip MinoHD, Gadgetoff, Gadgets, Greg Harper, iPhone, Kodak, Panasonic, Plastic Logic, RichardSolo, Storm, Twitter, Walt Mossberg | Permalink
Posted by Mark Boslet
[Ballmer @ Churchill] Microsoft CEO Admits To Windows Vista Flaws (video)
September 26, 2008
Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft
This is perhaps one of the very first time that the Microsoft CEO has publicly admitted to Windows Vista incompatibilities and flaws. That was after a question from a disgruntled Windows users who asked Ballmer to “fix” the flawed operating system.
“Richard I encourage you to grab me right afterward and I’ll come fix your PC myself”, joked Ballmer.
The Microsoft executive went on to say that “statistically” every version of Windows is better than the version before. Which for most Windows users doesn’t say much really on the quality of the current and future versions of Windows as the past ones were equally poor inspite the 5,000 or so Microsofties that everyday are working on improving the reliability of Windows.
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[Ballmer @ Churchill] Apple is a Blip in the Enterprise. Still Just 3% of the World PC Market. But Complains About Software That Cripples Windows PCs (video)
September 25, 2008
Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft talking about Apple
When asked about Apple inroads in the enterprise, Microsoft’s CEO quickly reminded the audience that Apple is still just 3% of the world’s PC market and that the Redmond, Wash., company will work with the PC industry to make sure Apple remains a blip in the enterprise.
“Because Apple believes in putting hardware and software together, it doesn’t believe in allowing a lot of people to make it, it doesn’t invest itself in infrastructure that support enterprise scenarios. I’m not saying it’s not a competitive threat. But if we – where ‘we’ includes not only Microsoft but companies like Dell and HP and Lenovo and others – do our jobs right there is really no reasons why Apple should get any real footprint in the enterprise”, Ballmer said.
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