SOPA shelved until ‘consensus’ is found

After the Obama Administration publicly opposed against the act, SOPA has been shelved: Though the administration did not issue a formal veto threat, the White House’s opposition signaled the end of these bills, at least in their current form. A few hours later, Congress shelved SOPA, putting off action on the bill indefinitely. Putting SOPA …

Don’t be Evil (TM)

Mocality, Kenya’s largest business directory, received some confusing calls by customers in the directory. A bit of analysis led to Google, who was doing anything but not being evil: Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been …

Startup lessons from a crime boss

Interesting things happen when we cut out the middleman. In addition to reducing cost, we often end up creating an internal byproduct that can be productized and sold to a completely new customer. (Amazon Web Services is an example of this.) Sometimes the middleman’s market is so huge, that a freaking enormous business can be …