Startups

The Wall Street Journal story on February 19 about startups valued at more than a billion was pretty fascinating (I thought).  There were a lot of stories I was already aware of -- in particular, I'd heard the founders of DocuSign, Eventbrite, and Taskrabbit (the first two in the billion dollar club) speak engagingly at a "Tech Founders Forum" event sponsored by Fortune magazine a few weeks back.  In the "fascinating" category was the claim that Jessica Alba's company Honest Co. was among those valued at more than a billion.  I had that info-bit in my mind when having a really enjoyable and inspiring conversation with the founder and owner of Magic Fairy Candles, flying from Colorado back to Oakland last Thursday, hearing her story about how her business had grown and her initial statement that she was far from that startup world, and then realizing that her business was in fact part of that "eco-system" because she's in fact part of the same world (natural beauty and spa supplies) as Honest.  Maybe the distinction that's been drawn between sole proprietor retail small businesses and the rarefied air of startups is not so hard and fast anymore, and maybe all it takes is an openness to possibilities to be part of the disruptive wave that's happening in technology, commerce and capitalism.  I'm wondering, anyway.

I don't see Greece going anywhere good...

Greece can't finance its public expenses internally on its own (at present, and given a famously corrupt system of tax collection).

But Greece isn't willing to take the actions demanded of it to enable further external lending from the eurozone.

Further lending by the eurozone, while it would improve conditions for the Greek public which is clearly hurting so badly it'll vote for anything, won't do much of anything to make Greece better able to finance itself later (through real economic growth or real reduction in corruption).

Ergo, the eurozone shouldn't lend to Greece unless Greece does take the actions required of it.

If the eurozone doesn't lend to Greece, no one else will (look demonocracy's graphic of Greek debt over the past few years for a truly sobering view).

If the Greek government has no other sources of funding, it must either default on its promises to the population, or confiscate wealth internally (and this follows logically even if somehow Greece were to continue putatively to be a member of the eurozone).

If Greece leaves the eurozone, the Greek government will be required to confiscate wealth in the form of bank capital simply to make a conversion back to the drachma possible, in addition to any confiscations required to keep their dreamy promises to their voters.

Now I understand how communist and socialist governments wind up where they do, in complete economic dead ends, even if they don't want to (and I don't think most of them do want to).

I got up this morning

And maybe it was because my laptop was probably destroyed when I spilled a dollop of beer on it, losing all the work I've not backed up on it in the past three years, but somehow I felt free enough to check into my blogs and add to them.  For multiple years I've been staring at them occasionally, wondering how best to deal with them -- pick up a thread? delete them? start new projects as futile as the past ones?  This morning I realized these are just places to put notes to myself, relevance not known in advance, and let the connections if any happen as they will.  Which doesn't mean the connections will happen.  Nevertheless, here I am again.