Month: April 2012

The New Deadmau5 Track and the Internet: The Way of the Future

About a month ago, Deadmau5 (pronouced Deadmouse) was creating a new track.  Instead of hiding for a month in a studio and then releasing the track to the world, he decided he would live stream video of his creative process.  He’s always been a pioneer in fan interaction and using the internet to grow his fanbase, so this was his logical next step to bring fans closer to his music. His entire process of creating the track from start to finish would be available online, for free, to anyone, live.

Twitter was abuzz.  As the track was coming along, Deadmau5 said that his next step would be to create some vocals.  Chris James, an aspiring dj/producer in the UK was watching and decided to throw something together.  He pulled some audio together and created some vocals.  Next, he tweeted at Deadmau5 to share his creation.  Deadmau5 talked about the tweet briefly on the broadcast, but didn’t listen to the track.  Other viewers kept tweeting saying the he had to listen. It was that good.  He obliged and was blown away, tweeting “DUDE… YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? god DAMN!”

Deadmau5 knew he had something amazing.  Within minutes he got Chris on the phone, gave him writing credits and told him how to improve the vocals.  All within 20 minutes.  The next day, they integrated the vocals.  A month later, Deadmau5 released The Veldt ft. Chris James, which I think is one of his best tracks in a long time.  Two years ago, this sort of collaboration would never have happened and we wouldn’t have this awesome track.

I firmly believe that this Deadmau5 story is just the leading edge of the phenomenon, and that its not just limited to music.  The internet gives those with something to offer unprecedented access to do amazing things.  Whether its collaborating with Deadmau5, connecting with entrepreneurs, journalists or artists, anyone with a good enough idea has the power to get noticed.  It’s an incredible change that is revolutionizing how we connect, create and live.  We can reach out and collaborate to create amazing things, publicize injustices and change the world.

We no longer have the excuses “if only I had the right connections” or “it’s too hard, nobody will listen to me.”  Just start.  Do something awesome, be persistant and the rest will take care of itself.  The internet has leveled the world. We all have the power to reach out and make our mark.  There’s no better time than now to get started.

Watch the streamed creative process here:

Listen to the complete finished track here:

Entrustet Acquired by SecureSafe

I’m excited to announce that Entrustet has been acquired by SecureSafe, the market leader in secure storage of digital information and digital inheritance.  Since Jesse and I started Entrustet in a spare classroom at the University of Wisconsin, we’ve had one vision: to build a system to help you to create a plan for your digital assets that you can be assured will be carried out when you pass away.

We’ve done everything in our power to make our vision reality.  We’ve created a product that works and helped people in over 20 countries protect their digital assets.  We’ve helped families of the recently deceased find, access, transfer and delete online accounts and computer files. We’ve shed light on the entire topic of digital estate planning to the general population. We’ve worked with attorneys and legislators to help carve out some legal clarity in an evolving area of estate law.

Over the past three years, we’ve gotten to know the SecureSafe team very well.  They are based in Zurich, Switzerland and their service is used by various Swiss Banks.  We’ve gotten to know a great team with massive experience, and a very similar vision. As we worked together, we realized that SecureSafe had everything that we wanted in a partner.  Their service is top notch and has more features, all backed by the Swiss banking privacy and security they are known for.

It’s a clear win-win: they share our vision of helping you securely store your online accounts and computer files, making them securely accessible anywhere in the world and enabling you to transfer or delete them when you pass away.  Jesse and I will be continuing to work with the SecureSafe team to make sure everything goes smoothly.  We’re both excited to see what our next steps are in our professional lives.

Looking back, Entrustet has been an incredible experience.  I owe so much to Jesse for being an amazing partner.  We have very complimentary skill sets and see the world through a different lens, but at the end of the day we share the most important things in common.  His relentless optimism and ability to take a step back from situations and analyize them have taught me so much.

I still remember the day he pitched me Entrustet in the Wisconsin Business School library with a very rough powerpoint.  I jumped in and we spent the next three years becoming amazing friends.  I really couldn’t ask for anything more in a cofounder, and as Jesse put it, I’ll remember our times outside of the office even more than inside.  What an incredible three years.

Helping start an industry and becoming thought leaders in the space. Seeing users actually benefit from our service, including helping families access and transfer online accounts after someone passed away.  Getting more press than we could ever imagine and meeting tons of incredible people.

Entrustet changed my life.  I learned so much from every part of running the business, but especially from Jesse.  Entrustet took me to New York, San Francsico, Chicago, LA and Austin.  It led me to Chile as part of the beta round of Startup Chile where I met amazing people and discovered a beautiful country.  I got to speak at South By Southwest and even gave a speech in Spanish to Chile’s president at their equivilent of the White House.  Entrustet led me to start Capital Entrepreneurs, Forward Technology Conference and to making tons of new friends.

But we didn’t do it alone.  There are so many people and organizations who helped us get to this point.  We owe so much to our investors, our advisers, Joseph Boucher, Tom Juszczyk, Allan Stern & Adaptive Engineering, Merlin Mentors, our 2010 intern class,  Nathan Dosch and so many more.  I couldn’t do this without the support of my parents who’ve always told me “do what you think is interesting and makes you happy, just as long as you don’t ask us to pay your bills!”  Thanks to my friends who have put up with digital death talk for the past three years and those who were there with me through the ups and downs of startup life.  It’s easy to take risks with family and friends who supports you.  It’s been a great ride and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

The US Economy Needs Chemo

There are two huge trends affecting the world economy.  First, the world is going through the biggest economic shift since the industrial revolution.  New technology is changing every industry and it’s happening fast.

Second, the enormous credit expansion that has fueled the world economy since World War II is beginning to topple over.  It’s taking ever more debt to marginally increase our GDP.  These two macro trends are causing our economic chaos.

The US economy has cancer.  Government and personal debt are massive.  They are unpayable without monetizing the debt or in plain English, printing money.  Unemployment is at record levels and the lowest amount of working age people are in the workforce in decades.  Our government isn’t functioning well.  The stock market is recovering as the Fed prints money, but main street is suffering.

The Democrats under the direction of Barack Obama believe that we can spend our way out of our problems. They believe that if we simply print more money and put it into the economy, we’ll revive the economy and everything will take care of itself.  That’s why they passed the stimulus and believe its best to keep interest rates at nearly zero.  If all else fails, start the printing presses!  The vast majority of the trillions of dollars that have been printed have going into consumption, which doesn’t help the economy long term.

That’s the road to inflation, or hyperinflation.  To me, that’s like a doctor saying, “yeah, you’ve got cancer, just take these pain pills, drink some alcohol and live the good life and things will get better.”  In reality, you might not feel the pain by continuing your behavior, but in the long run, you’re gonna die.  But hey, we postponed the pain as long as possible.

The Republicans believe that the debt is the problem.  They believe that if we cut spending, balance the budget and get out of debt, everything will be ok.  That’s suicidal.  If we just cut, cut, cut, we’ll go into depression.  Their cancer cure is to hack off the offending body part, without anesthesia, in the middle of the forest with a dull instrument.

The Democrat’s plan will burn us to death in the long run via inflation, while the Republican’s plan will freeze us to death with huge recessions, if not depression.  There is a third way, but I believe both sides are too partisan to take it.

Instead of treating our economic cancer with alcohol and painkillers (printing money), or chopping off our leg in the middle of the forrest (austerity), we need chemotherapy (targeted reforms).  We need specific medicine that will actually have a chance of working.  The US’s economic cancer is fairly advanced, so even targeted remedies may not work, but it’s at least worth a try.

Instead of actually looking for targeted solutions, or taking a bit from both sides, both parties continue to toe the “either/or party lines” of “we can spend our way out of it” or “we can cut our way out of it.”  But it’s not bipartisanship.  It’s a third way.

So what is the third way?  It’s realizing that while we do need to shrink government, its not about just cutting monetary outflows.  It’s about cutting the money that’s printed and then put into consumption.  We need to be investing in projects that will actually net a positive return.  We don’t need more consumption.  We need infrastructure, investment in new technologies and education.  We don’t need spending, pork projects and transfer payments.  We need high speed Internet everywhere.  We need better transportation. Better schools.

The cuts come in spending cuts, while we increase investment. We need a new roof on our house, not a trip to the Carribbean.  Spending on consumption won’t work.  Draconian cuts won’t work.  It has to be investment. The only way it happens is if we demand it. We have to start now. We have a 7-10 year window to really get started and give it our best shot.

I Don’t Want Bipartisanship

My post a few weeks ago on Why I’ll vote for Obama in November was one of top five most popular posts I’ve ever written in terms of traffic.  I got tons of feedback in the comments, on Twitter, Facebook, via email and even some phone calls.  Most was positive, but some was very negative.  I realized I didn’t explain what I wanted in a politician well enough and that there were many misconceptions about bipartisanship and my solution to the problem.

Even though I don’t agree with much of what Obama has done and believe he’s been a bad president, I’m going to vote for him because he has the biggest chance to actually push for the big changes that we need and the current Republicans are a disaster. If he wins, he won’t do much more damage and might actually make change.  If not, we give the Republicans a second chance to come up with a potential game changing candidate.

Lots of people felt the same, but others disagreed vehemently, either supporting Obama’s agenda or saying that the Republicans had it right.  Many wished for more bipartisanship.  I don’t want bipartisanship as we’ve come to know it today.  The current definition is one side comes up with a proposal, the other side says they don’t like it, puts in a few recommendations and we pass a watered down bill that doesn’t actually change anything.

That’s not what we need. Bipartisainship used to work because each party had big ideas that they believed in, but individual politicians were allowed to have their own opinions on the rest of the issues.  Both parties were “big tents” where everyone generally agreed on the big issues, but smaller issues were left up to the politician’s good judgement.

Republicans used to believe in small government, a strict interpretation of the Constitution and generally conservative attitudes, but the individual members could stake out other “liberal” positions on tax policy, social issues, environmental protection and many others.  Democrats used to believe in larger government and a more fluid interpretation of the Constitution, but could take all sorts of other more conservative positions on individual issues.

Now, to be a successful politician, you have to be monolithic in support of your party.  You have to be lock step with them you’ll draw the ire of the party activists.  You must agree on everything or you’re voted out.  Because of jerrymandering in the House, we get more and more “true believers.” Joe Lieberman was basically kicked out of the Democratic party because he sided with the Republicans on Israel and defense.  The independent minded Republicans have all been voted out. Both parties have become irrationally tied to their positions, co-opted by hyper partisan politics instead of making things better.

I do not want bipartisanship.  I don’t want a president who leads from the right or from the left. I want someone with an independent mind.  Someone who can for example support a simplified tax code, a new look at the drug war, cutting the defense budget, a look at the prison industrial complex, civil rights and investment, not spending.  Someone to take the best from the Republicans and the best from the Democrats ad go for it.

That’s how we get out of this mess.  We don’t need compromise, we need someone who is willing to break away from working in lockstep with a party.  Someone who recognizes a good idea when they see it and throws their support behind it.  We need a rejection of both party’s lock step agenda.  We need to reject the idea of bipartisanship in its current definition and break the lockstep grasp that both extreme wings of each political party has on our country.