Tag Archives: Polaris Venture Partners

Snowmobiles and Cell Phones

Posted on January 30, 2007 by Simeon Simeonov

I’m at the Polaris Digital Media Summit in Deer Valley, UT. It’s great event with a good mix of portfolio and industry execs. Since snowboarding is not allowed in Deer Valley, a few of us went snowmobiling yesterday. The weather … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Media, Mobile | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Bob Metcalfe on Internet Video

Posted on January 8, 2007 by Simeon Simeonov

Beet.TV caught up with my partner Bob Metcalfe and did a nice interview on the evolution of the Internet to the video Internet. Bob makes three key points: The Internet has been getting richer since the days of uppercase ASCII As communication … Continue reading →

Posted in Digital Media | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Monetizing Social Networks

Posted on December 1, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

The MIT VC Conference is tomorrow. I’m taking part in a panel on monetizing social networking businesses. It promises to be a very interesting discussion, judging by the emails that have been flying between the panelists and the caliber of … Continue reading →

Posted in startups, VC, Venture Capital, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Of Supercomputers and Contrarian Bets

Posted on November 8, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

WSJ reports on the launch of SiCortex, a company I’m involved with. Talk about a contrarian bet–to back a “supercomputer” company in the age of Linux clusters and to spend non-trivial amounts of capital on developing sophisticated chips, interconnects and enclosures when everyone else gets … Continue reading →

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Picking & Funding Winners

Posted on November 2, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

One can argue that the rules for picking winning startups have evolved over the last ten years. In Bubble 1.0, you could have used a dart against a Broadview market map. Bubble 2.0 is all about consumer online/mobile plays, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Automattic, VC, Venture Capital, Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Botnets, Herders and Money Mules

Posted on October 19, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

The current issue of eWeek has a good story on the underground economy around botnets, their masters and the money mules that help them cash in on phishing fraud (in a related story). Windows is, of course, the target platform … Continue reading →

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Ouch, that hurts

Posted on October 6, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

Jeff Nolan points out in Venture Chronicles that East Coast VCs just don’t get it when it comes to Web 2.0. Harsh words but then he asks “where are the Web 2.0 companies on the East Coast?” Is it case … Continue reading →

Posted in Automattic, SaaS, startups, VC, Venture Capital, Web 2.0, WordPress | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Not Web 2.0, Bubble 2.0

Posted on August 30, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

Just like in the Bubble 1.0 days, the mainstream press is starting to question some of what’s happening online these days. If I recall correctly, how it proceeds from here is as follows: more questions combined with more interest, exuberance, irrational … Continue reading →

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Metcalfe’s Law: more misunderstood than wrong?

Posted on July 26, 2006 by Simeon Simeonov

The industry is at it again–trying to figure out what to make of Metcalfe’s Law. This time it’s IEEE Spectrum with a controversially titled “Metcalfe’s Law is Wrong”. The main thrust of the argument is that the value of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Web 2.0 | Tagged , , , , , , | 31 Comments