Google Capital Raise

I think it's a very smart move for the long run. Personally, I would raise even more than the $4 billion currently contemplated. With a nearly $80 billion market cap and about $3 billion in cash on hand, Google is sitting pretty. Why does it need more money?

For starters, the stock is probably fully valued and getting some greenbacks in the bank is probably a very smart hedge against this aggressively bullish market. Granted, these 14 million new shares will depress the price but that should be only a blip in the overall picture. Does Google know about or see something in the advertising economy that we don't know about?

That may be one reason, but I also think the plan is to take over the world. They just bought Android, the mobile device software company. And, I suspect that they will continue to play toward owning the customer interface. Unlike Yahoo, it doesn't seem that Google wants to deal with content, rather they seem to be positioning to control the interface layer - the space above the operating system (where Microsoft and Symbian lie), but below the content network (where Reuters and Yahoo lie).

I guess, we'll just have to see.

Trust is Everything

Brad Feld points to a post at Always-On by Bernard Moon that I feel obligated to comment on. He blogs:

Partner with people you trust. My first piece of advice for any budding entrepreneur, and one I always overstate is, "Trust is essential." If you have any doubts about a potential partner, clear the air or steer clear completely. As John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers puts it, "You must ask, 'Are these the people I want to be in trouble with for the next 5, 10, 15 years of my life?' Because as you build a new business, one thing's for sure: You will get into trouble."

Trust is quite possibly the most critical component of business, in many aspects. Companies must instill trust in their brand for people to buy product, large employers must instill trust in the institution for people to want to work, deal-makers must instill trust in participating parties for transactions to happen, management must instill trust in the financial community to find capital, religious leaders must instill trust that their deity is supportive to followers, governments must instill trust in the system to attract the capital markets, and entrepreneurs must instill trust in everyone around them to succeed.

An entrepreneur must foster trust to recruit & retain top notch staff, raise early financing, close early customers, and build a product brand.

On a more individual note, at the end of the day, no matter what legal counsel says, we as individual people succeed (in work, socially, and otherwise) only because of our word & reputation. Trust is golden.

Bret Swanson Blogs

Over the past days, I've been reading my friend Bret Swanson's new blog (disco-tech) and I'm glad that he's finally joined the blogosphere. His latest post on Mundell and Laffer's supply-side policies and globalizing economies is true to heart. The single point that rings truest to me is that "only in America is it [supply-side economics] really still controversial." Frankly, quite a few (ok, a lot) of our fiscal and social debates are silly to the rest of the world. But, hey, I guess that's what happens when the revolutionary gets fat & content.

Friedman on Congressional Policy

Tom Friedman, of the New York Times, posts a hilarious but debatable singularly focused column on the topic of wireless connectivity.

I've been thinking of running for high office on a one-issue platform: I promise, if elected, that within four years America will have cellphone service as good as Ghana's. If re-elected, I promise that in eight years America will have cellphone service as good as Japan's, provided Japan agrees not to forge ahead on wireless technology. My campaign bumper sticker: "Can You Hear Me Now?"

I began thinking about this after watching the Japanese use cellphones and laptops to get on the Internet from speeding ullet trains and subways deep underground. But the last straw was when I couldn't get cellphone service while visiting I.B.M.'s headquarters in Armonk, N.Y.

But don't worry - Congress is on the case. It dropped everything last week to pass a bill to protect gun makers from shooting victims' lawsuits. The fact that the U.S. has fallen to 16th in the world in broadband connectivity aroused no interest. Look, I don't even like cellphones, but this is not about gadgets. The world is moving to an Internet-based platform for commerce, education, innovation and entertainment. Wealth and roductivity will go to those countries or companies that get more of their innovators, educators, students, workers and suppliers connected to this platform via computers, phones and P.D.A.'s.

This is hilarious, but I'm not sure it's enough of a platform on which to build a mayoral campaign. I don't know, that's just me. This is a free market issue, not a government policy issue.