Thirty minutes later, someone spotted them.  It was a pod consisting of a large male, a mom, a baby and a few other smaller males.  I rushed to get my iPhone to snap some pictures, but they were so fast!  It was hard to catch them!  I got some decent shots but nothing turned out that great.  If you didn’t know what they were, you mighta thought they were something on one of those lake monster specials on the history channel*. I was a little disappointed.  After sharing the killer whales on Facebook and Twitter, my pocked buzzed a few times as friends liked, commented, tweeted, and retweeted.

Cruising back, I should have been really happy.  I’d gotten lucky enough to see something amazing that most people don’t get to see, but instead I felt a little disappointed my pictures didn’t come out well.  I realized that I spent the entire time trying to snap a picture of the killer whales so I could show my friends what I’d seen.  I ended up watching the whales through a little electronic screen, focusing on getting a picture, rather than simply enjoying their majestic beauty of what could be a once and a life time experience.  I really didn’t like those implications.

About the same time, I realized I’d been slowly increasing how many times per day I looked at and updated Facebook and Twitter compared to three months ago.  When I was in a car, a taxi, the subway, waiting for a meeting, riding the bus, or just sitting around, I was checking Twitter and Facebook.  Sometimes I found myself looking at my phone at meals or with friends, something I HATED when others did to me.  I was taking more pictures and sharing the daily minutiae of my life.  I found myself going through the day hoping to find interesting things not just because they are interesting, but because I wanted to share them.  As a reluctant convert to smartphones, I feared something like this would happen at some point.

On the plus side, I found out about important news really quickly.  I kept closer track of what my friends were up to.  I found funny stories and was up to date on sports, memes, technology and politics.  But, I spent way too much time with my head down, looking at my iPhone and getting carried away in the minutiae that is social media, seeing what people ate for breakfast, what celeb was in rehab and what random thought crossed their minds.  And some of my friends felt slighted when I didn’t like their status, retweet their tweets or tweet at them.

Facebook and Twitter have a value, but I didn’t like that I was almost obsesively checking Twitter and Facebook whenever I had downtime.  I was consuming unimportant content and over sharing meaningless parts of my life. I realized something had to change.  Social media wasn’t adding to my enjoyment of life, it was taking away from it.  So about three weeks ago I decided to experiment.  I deleted Facebook and Twitter from my iPhone and replaced them with the Kindle app.

I replaced my iPhone Twittering/Facebooking with reading books or keeping my phone in my pocket.  In the last three weeks, I’ve read two books and stopped checking social media as much and my life is so much happier.  I still get emails when people interact with me on Twitter and Facebook, but it’s much more passive.  And if I really NEED to use Facebook or Twitter, I can use the browser to get what I need done, but its slow and cumbersome so I don’t check as much.

Since I’ve deleted the apps, I can count the number of times I’ve been to the mobile sites on one hand.  It’s been a big change.  Freeing me up from oversharing and overconsuming has pushed me to read interesting books during my downtime.  Or just observe the world and interact with everyone around me.  And now that I’m mostly off Twitter and Facebook during most of the day, my friends can’t complain I’m not paying attention to their updates.  Because I’m not paying attention to anyone’s.  For me, life is so much better without the constant pull of social media!

Yes, I’ll miss out on knowing things really quickly, but a quick perusal of Twitter and Facebook after work so far has done the trick.  For example, I found out Prince Fielder signed for a $200m contract 10 hours after it happened.  But so what? I’m only sharing the most important things and cutting out the rest.  My Klout score is going down and I’m adding followers at a slower rate, but my life is more calm, free and easy.  I’ve been living more in the real world instead of living through a little 4.5 x 2.25 inch screen.

So think about it.  Are you walking through life with your head down, getting validation from social media instead of whats happening in front of you?  Are you tweeting and facebooking to show off and make your friends think “wow, what a cool life?”  Are you oversharing? Are you missing the killer whales live, so you can show your friends a picture of them later?  If you are, and I think lots of people are, think about taking a step back, deleting Facebook and Twitter and see if your life improves.  I know mine did.

In reality, nobody cares about the minutiae, its all about your impact on the world.  So stop oversharing, overconsuming and go out and live life!

*Thanks Polsky!

                          

Since I first started traveling more in November 2010, Forrest Woolworth has taken over leadership of CE.  He’s done an outstanding job finding sponsors, adding entrepreneurs, standardizing the membership process and adding additional events like Build Madison and CE Pitch Days.  CE members have also been behind the Forward Technology Conference.  Besides for Forrest, credit should also go to Justin Beck, Chris Meyer, Scott Resnick and the rest of the original CE members for making our founders group what its turned into today.  I’m so proud to see Madison’s entrepreneurship ecosystem continue to grow and hope 2012 is even better than 2011!

From Forrest’s Capital Entrepreneurs 2011 Year End Review:

Capital Entrepreneurs companies are curing cancer, preventing suicides, and organizing community groups. They are making mobile apps and games used by millions, revolutionizing the digital music industry, making sense of social media, shaping some of the world’s largest brands, and much more. Capital Entrepreneurs companies participated in prestigious startup incubator programs including Y Combinator, TechStars, Startup Chile, and 94labs.

Over the last year, Capital Entrepreneurs companies were featured in news outlets around the globe. These included The New York Times, NPR, Mashable, TechCrunch, CNN, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, MTV, Sports Illustrated, AdAge, and more. Locally, Capital Entrepreneurs companies were the topic of two Isthmus cover stories, and were featured in the Wisconsin State Journal, Madison Magazine, and InBusiness.

                          

SOPA and PIPA are two bills pretty much written by the movie and music industry lobby to ostensibly limit illegal downloading, but they are so broad and poorly written that they allow people to be jailed for up to 5 years for illegally downloading a single song.  They’d force companies like Twitter and Facebook to censor user posts.  And they’d force search engines like Google to not show “offending” websites or face big penalties.  For more info, read my full post on SOPA and PIPA from last month.

Kids, if you have homework due tomorrow and thursday, get it done in the next few hours because Wikipedia won’t be able to help you!

                          

Now, as the American electorate is being introduced to Santorum, their first reaction will be to run over to Google and type in “Santorum” or “Rick Santorum.”  Many will not like what they find, but not just for political reasons.  If they Google “Santorum,” the first 2 results and 6 of the 10 results on the first page will refer to the aftermath of a specific sexual activity (full definition of Santorum here, I warn you, its really gross).  If you Google “Rick Santorum” #3 refers to the same activity.

Santorum got its alternative meaning in 2003 after he made anti-gay comments, including comparing being gay to bestiality.  Sex advice columnist Dan Savage proposed renaming a sex act with Santorum’s last name to forever stain his name with his antigay comments.  I remember reading the original columns in The Onion and thinking it was pretty funny, but never thought that the campaign would actually catch on like it has.  Savage set up a website and it quickly went viral.  I cannot hear his name without thinking of the other meaning and now Google is introducing millions more to the alternative meaning.  Savage offered to take down any references to the other meaning if Santorum stopped his anti gay rhetoric and then donated $5m to marriage equality causes, but Santorum turned him down.

So what does this mean for Santorum the candidate?  And what does his story mean for the rest of us?  I think Santorum’s original comments in 2003 ruled him out from winning a Presidential election, so in the grand scheme of things, it won’t really change his chances of winning.  But it does make him answer uncomfortable questions.  And I think it’s the start of a trend.

Google and other social media have become such powerful tools, especially for people with influence.  It shows that if you piss off the wrong people on the Internet, you too can be synonymous with something equally disgusting.  Before, people were accountable for only what people could remember, or what they could find in librarian’s archives.  Now, anyone with a voice can share their opinion.  And their opinion is there forever.  Google and the Internet never forgets.

What happens when my generation decides to start to run for office?  We’ve had Facebook, Twitter, blogs and personal websites since our teens.  It’s going to be really easy for people digging up dirt to find photos of us wasted or doing stupid things (more likely both at the same time.)  What about old status updates and non-mainstream political ideas?  Bad jokes we made to friends that can be taken out of context?  We’ve all got it and if you don’t you’re either incredibly private or really boring!  People will either disqualify presidential candidate with these “problems” or they will realize taht everyone has similar posts and decide that it’s just part of life.  I sure hope it’s the former or we’ll have some really boring people in office!

The other issue that’ll affect all of us, not just politicians, is that the Internet never forgets.  Before the internet, we could reinvent ourselves, change our opinions, do dumb things when we were young and nobody besides the people involved would know your past.  We could start fresh.  It’s part of what made us human.  Now our past is all out in the open for anyone to find. From blogs to twitter to tumblr and now the Facebook Timeline, anyone with enough time or curiosity can find exactly what I thought in 2005 via my Facebook Timeline, my political views in 2007 via my blog and dumb things I tweeted to my friends in 2009.

In the past, we could change our opinions when presented with new facts.  In fact, that’s the most admirable trait that I think someone can have.  Now, if you change your opinion, you’re branded a “flip-flopper” or you “don’t have strong convictions.”  I think that’s bullshit.

Eliminating the ability to change and reinvent ourselves is going to be a really big change for humans.  There’s no way to put a wild past, a flirtation with a non-mainstream ideology or simple youthful exuberance behind you.  There’s always a record.  I’m not suggesting that it’s good that people can lie about their past, but I don’t think its healthy to be able to get as specific as the internet allows you to.  And Santorum is  one of the first public figures to experience our new reality.

                          

I still can’t see myself living there. It’s too spread out, traffic is horrendous (1 hour backup getting into LAX at 11pm on a Friday) and its very status conscience. I still don’t like those parts of LA, but I started to discover some of the more laid back, interesting parts of the city.  As my friend Weber put it, “LA is a magical place that gets a bad rep in my opinion from a little bad traffic and a few fake people.”

This trip, I mostly stayed in Santa Monica, Venice and Marina de Rey, with a quick trip south to Long Beach and a day in Pasadena for the Rose Bowl. I really enjoyed Santa Monica: its reasonably priced, has great restaurants and interesting places to go out. I went to the 3rd street promenade and had some creative food at Misfit. The highlights were a lobster slider with fresh tomato and a creamy aoli and a spicy chorizo mussel dish. Another big plus: most restaurants and bars have GREAT beer on tap. Much bigger variety than in other big cities I go to.

I spent new years in Marina del Rey at a friend’s beach house, then went out to a great bar with over 50 interesting beers on tap at decent prices. I went out in Santa Monica and found people to be more laid back than downtown or Hollywood, which is much more my style.  People seemed much more approachable and willing to just have fun.

On new years day, my parents took me whale watching. They’d gone on the same trip last year, but they only saw dolphins. This year, it was a beautiful sunny day and we headed out of Long Beach. We saw huge pods of dolphins as soon as we cleared the breakwater and were steaming out looking for grey whales. The captain sighted a grey whale off in the distance, but got a radio report that there were a group of killer whales five miles away. The passengers voted to go chasing them. 45 mins later, we found them.

We found a big pod including a mom and a young baby. It was incredible to see them up close, surfacing, coming close to the boat. The captain said he’d been doing these tours for 10 years and had only seen killer whales one other time in his life. I apparently have very good luck looking for animals: when I was in south Africa we saw the ONLY cheetah in the national park, and the ranger who was taking us out had never seen him before in his year-plus working there.

On Jan 2nd, I organized a pre Rose Bowl party for 25 friends and family outside the game. We set up shop around 945 in the golf course that’s just north of the stadium with thousands of other tailgaters. I really liked the setup, even though there were thousands of cars, they spread it out enough so that we each had our own spaces. The weather was perfect an it was great to see my friends from all over who I hadn’t seen in a really long.

We spend the day eating, drinking and playing games, then headed into the stadium. I ended up sitting in the Oregon section with two of my friends and although we were the only red people in our section, all of their fans were really nice to us. We had a lot of fun talking back and forth and besides for the final result, I couldn’t have asked for a better game. Just like last year, a few badger mistakes cost them the game. I’d love to see a Wisconsin-Oregon series again like from 2000-2001. We hung out in the golf course for a few hours after the game waiting for the traffic to clear; the weather was perfect.

Although the Badgers lost for the second year in a row, I’ve got a newfound appreciation for LA and am excited to check it out again sometime soon.

                          

2011 was an amazing yet tumultuous year.  I rung in 2011 in Pasadena, CA at the Rose Bowl with my family and friends.  Although the Badgers lost, I got to see a friend I hadn’t seen in three years and had a great time.  The next week, I did an hour long interview for NPR for the first time while San Francisco for Entrustet.  I returned to Chile with Jesse to continue working on Entrustet in the Startup Chile program.  As 2011 rolled on, I got closer to my new friends from Startup Chile and now consider them some of my closest friends in the world.

Salar de Uyuni

I continued to travel, going all over Chile and into Bolivia.  The Salar de Uyuni still is the most beautiful place I’ve seen on earth, closely followed by Torres del Paine in Patagonia, which I visited with my brother and one of my best friends.  My parents made the trip to visit me in Chile and we explored Pucon and the lakes region.  Two of my best friends from Wisconsin came to visit and we went to La Serena and Valle del Elqui.  I got to Mendoza, Pichilemu, San Pedro de Atacama, Buenos Aires, Hawaii, Austin, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

2011 was a banner year for Wisconsin sports.  Although the Badgers lost in the Rose Bowl to start the year, they were in the National Title hunt for most of 2011 and I find myself going back to Cali (Cali), for another new year.  The Packers went on an improbable run to win the Super Bowl from the sixth seed.  I watched with an international group of friends in Santiago as the mostly pro steelers crowd changed “roth-leeees-bour-geeer” over and over.  The Brewers had their best regular season ever, winning 96 games and getting within two games of the World Series.  The Packers are 14-1 and are favorites to repeat for the Super Bowl.  2011 might well be the golden year for Wisconsin sports.

Entrustet continued to grow, but slowly.  We continued to get press and were mentioned in over 125 publications in 2011.  We continued to sign up lawyers and work with insurance companies to try to help people protect their digital assets.  Jesse presented at South by Southwest and I moderated at panel on the Chilean Startup Scene.  We even had our first user pass away, proving that our system really works.

Friendsgiving 2011

On a personal level, I learned Spanish, made some amazing new friends and really grew a ton living outside my comfort zone abroad.  I have a new appreciation for the simple things in life like being able to coast through mundane life situations and watching as things come easily for me.  I  traveled back for Friendsgiving, the annual gathering of my best friends from college.  It was amazing to see all my friends I hadn’t seen in a long time.  I saw some great music in 2011, going to Lollapalooza Chile, South by Southwest in Austin and many others and I ended my time with Startup Chile by giving a speech to the President of Chile, completely in Spanish.

Looking back, 2011 has been the year of big changes.  I left Madison, traveled all over, continued to be an entrepreneur, found myself growing and changing, loving, making new friends.  If 2012 can match how much I enjoyed 2011, I know I’m doing something right.  I have no doubt it will.

Favorite Posts

A Tribute  – My favorite post of the year

How to Live Before you Die: What I Learned From Running Entrustet

How to Talk to the Media and Get Quoted in Press

Disconnecting

The Customer is not Always Right: Sometimes He’s an Asshole

Apologizing

Overcoming Self Deception

A Reflection on Living Abroad

                          

I arrived in November 2010 and stayed for six months.  I decided to return to Chile in September and now have been living here for 9 of the last 12 months.  I’m back in the US for a combination holiday/business trip and as I’ve met with my friends, family and new people, most want to know what’s different about living abroad compared to the US.  These nine months in Chile have been some of the most fun, amazing, rewarding months of my life. They’ve also been the most challenging and certainly the most frustrating.

For most of my life, things have come very easily for me.  Being immursed into another culture forced me out of my comfort zone and made me learn, grow and examine things from new perspectives.  It’s certainly made me a better person.  I’ve developed a deep respect for the culture and empathy for people who immigrate to other countries.  None of these differences make the US or Chile better than each other, just different.  I’ve already covered nearly all of the things I love about living in Chile in previous posts and wanted to share some of the things I struggled with while living abroad.

The biggest difference between living in the US and abroad is that in Chile, my brain always has to be turned on.  I learned to speak decent Spanish and understand nearly everything thats going on, but I can’t coast through mundane situations.  My brain always has to be focused, engaged.   I have to really pay attention to do things I take for granted in the US:  interact with waiters, my friends, business meetings and random conversations going on around me.  I find myself focusing for a much higher percentage of the day since I can’t just do things on autopilot.  It’s mentally draining.

The first thing I notice when I get off the plane returning to the US is that I immediately understand all of the conversations going on around me.  I process them all without any effort.  I’m immediately more relaxed because I don’t have to pay close attention or think about simple things.

The next thing I notice is banter.  Even with my decent spanish, I still struggle to tell descriptive stories or be funny.  While in Chile, I realized that most of my humor is based on quick word play, being sarcastic and witty turns of phrase.  It really hit me when I was at dinner last night.  To order I said something like “I’ll have the braised pork and that comes with sweet potatoes, right?” The waitress gave me a big smile and said “ohhh great choice! That’s my favorite!”  I answered back with a joke which led to a short conversation and fun banter during the meal.  I lose that in Spanish.  In Chile I’d say “I want the braised pork” and if the waitress replied the same way, I probably would say something like  ”cool” and smile back.  End of interaction.  In Spanish, I’m focused on just getting things done and I’m still not quick enough yet.

The same thing happens when I’m with friends or in a business meeting.  In the US, I’m used to being a leader, the one who’s making plans for my group of friends and being in the middle of everything we do.  In Chile I found myself taking a backseat to my Chilean friends.  In the US, things come easily for me.  Living in Chile, most of the time I was the “weakest” one and it was nearly impossible to take on the same role that I do with my friends in the US.  I didn’t know the cool places, the upcoming parties.  My friends had lived in Santiago their entire lives, I didn’t know much in comparison.

I can keep a conversation going with 1-2 people in spanish, but once theres more than that, its gets much harder.  I still understand what’s going on, but its hard to break into the conversation.  Add in loud music, drinking, people getting excited and talking about people and things I don’t know but they all do?  Now add in tons of slang that could mean multiple things?  So frustrating.  The absolute worst part is when I want to add something to a conversation, or I’d have a great story to tell, but by the time I figured out what I wanted to say and try to break in, the conversaion had already moved on.  I found myself being quieter than normal.

An example: I was at a bbq with one of my friends and people started talking about a new business idea.  The beer was flowing and people were getting excited.  I’d researched a similar idea while in the states, but couldn’t break into the conversation very often because people were talking so quickly.  I got a few words in, but nothing like I would have in English.  So frustrating.

The third big adjustment is cultural differences.  Living abroad made me rethink things that I’d always taken for granted and see very different perspectives. I pride myself on being observant and many times I’d notice that people would react to my actions very differently than people would in the US, but I couldn’t figure out why.  I’d realize that something was different, but wouldn’t get the significance.  I wouldn’t even know the right question to ask so a friend could explain the differences.  I’d try, but friends either wouldn’t understand what I was asking or they’d just say “oh thats how it is.”  Some examples:

There are many cultural differences: being on time, splitting checks at meals, making plans, dating, class interactions, gender roles, business deals and so many more.  For example, multiple times, I’d ask friends if they wanted to meet up on a Friday.  They’d say, “im busy, im going to my friends party.”  I’d make other plans with other friends.  My friends wouldn’t end up going to their friend’s party and be curious why I didn’t invite them to whatever I did.

Another interesting one was a friend would invite me to a party on Saturday.  On Saturday, I’d call and say, ok what time are we going.  They’d say, “oh no, we’re not doing it anymore.”  At first I thought some of my new friends just didn’t like me that much, but most of my foreign friends saw the same things over and over.  In the US if someone says they have plans, they have plans.  If you make plans with someone, it’s rude to cancel.  In Chile, plans are much more fluid.

I’m not sure what to call this, so I’ll just go into an example.  One day, I set a meeting with a potential partner.  He told me to show up at his office between 2pm and 4pm and call him when I arrived.  I got there at 3, called.  No answer.  I waited around, calling and texting every so often. No answer.  Finally at about 430, I found his assistant walking out and asked if he was in.  The assistant showed me right in.  The guy I was supposed to meet was sitting in his chair, cell phone on his desk.  He didn’t act as if anything was out of the ordinary.  I just thought he was being rude, but this type of behavior happend fairly often.

A friend of mine got an xray taken by a doctor who was a friend of a friend.  The doctor told him to come to his office between 10-12  the next week and he’d come down to the lobby to show him his results so that he wouldn’t have to pay for the visit.  My friend arrived, called and texted the doctor, no answer.  He got frustrated after waiting awhile, called the doctors office, scheduled an appointment for 2pm, went to lunch.  He walked in and the doctor greeted him warmly.  He didn’t even mention ignoring the calls and texts and acted like they were best friends.  After awhile, we all got used to this and took it in stride.

There are huge cultural difference between dating in Chile compared to the US.  I could fill an entire post with all of them.  I’ll share the one my good friends found the most ironic: if you’re at all serious about dating a Chilean girl, you have to formally ask her to be your girlfriend and do it fairly soon into the relationship.  I didn’t realize this until I’d been in Chile a long time.

In the US if I’m seeing a girl for a few months and I ask her “will you go out with me? or I want you to be my girlfriend”, she’ll either laugh and think I’m incredibly cheesy or it would lead to a fight along the lines of “are you serious, what do you think we’ve been doing for the past month or two?”  In fact, that’s exactly how I reacted when the girl I was dating brought it up.  It wasn’t until I talked with more Chilean friends that I understood what was going on.  I look back on all of the differences and try to laugh about them now, but going through it was so frustrating.

My biggest frustrations living abroad were when the language barrier interacted with cultural differences. If I misheard something in spanish, people would assume I didn’t really understand much and talk much slower and more simply around me.  They’d think because I wasn’t talking much, I was bored or uninteresting.  The absolute most frustrating is when people form an opinion of you based on cultural misunderstandings and language barriers.  There were so many times when people thought I was being rude/weak/unfunny when I was doing the “right” thing in the US cultural context.  I did the exact same!  There were so many times when I thought people were rude/weak/unfunny when they were doing the “right” thing in Chilean culture.

I’m thankful that I’ve gotten the chance to experience living abroad.  It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life and I’ve learned a ton about myself muddling through learning a language and the cultural differences that come with living abroad.  I’ve made close friends that I know I’ll keep for life and seen places that I’d only dreamed of.  I wouldn’t change anything, besides starting to learn Spanish before I arrived and asking more questions of my Chilean friends from the very beginning so I could understand more quickly.

Have you lived abroad?  What did you learn while living in a foreign culture?  Did you have similar experiences to me?

                          

I’ve gotten to know a bit about Chile and the entrepreneur ecosystem and wanted to share my thoughts.  Parts of this post may seem harsh, but remember, I could write a similar post about Madison, WI or any other city not named New York or San Francisco.  I’ve summarized Kohavi’s main points about Chile and the entrepreneur ecosystem (read the entire interview) and tried to respond to each one.

Chile is less dynamic than Asia because it is controlled by a handful of rich families who don’t care about the young or the poor.  They give money to support entrepreneurship, but it’s only in Spanish and they do it to stroke their ego.  Conservative organizations like Opus Dei and a bigoted older generation don’t encourage social ascension. Chile’s main problem is mental isolation, not just geographic and Chilean startups have to move abroad to be successful.  The investors are private equity guys who don’t know entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs. In 10 years and with education, Chile can be dynamic, but its not ready yet. That’s why I’m going to Singapore.

So is Kohavi right?  For him, leaving makes perfect sense because he wants to make money NOW and I’m not sure Chile actually needs a real Series A fund right now.  It needs more mentoring and smaller infusions of capital on the angel/micro angel scale.  Kohavi’s business model was not correct for the time in Chile.  I think if he experimented with business models, he could have made a name for himself and his fund, but instead he chose to go to Singapore.  Nothing wrong with that at all.

Next, he hits a wide range of issues affecting Chilean culture and the entrepreneur ecosystem and its potential for growth.  Has he been fair to Chile?  Lets take a closer look based on what I’ve seen over the past year.

I believe that there are huge opportunities for home grown and foreign entrepreneurs in Chile and Latin America.  They are just harder to execute.  Chileans are smart, talented and hard working and there are some great Chilean entrepreneurs.  I don’t see Kohavi’s article as an attack on them.  In fact, I respect Chilean entrepreneurs even more because they are able to succeed in a tough environment. Entrepreneurship is hard enough in Silicon Valley. Adding in Chilean cultural barriers and a developing ecosystem adds many additional roadblocks.  It’s harder to be an entrepreneur in Chile than in the US.

Kohavi is right, Chile is a very conservative country controlled by a few powerful families, supported by a small, wealthy upper class.  Many of these powerful families have natural resources connections.  Chile is very class stratified and Kohavi is right that class ascension is not encouraged.  Its not quite overtly discouraged, but it’s extremely common to hear “what high school did you attend, what’s your last name, are you related to so and so” in social conversations and even business meetings. People know their place and the classes really don’t mix.  In the US we have the American Dream which states that if you get a good education and work hard, you can move up in society.  Whether the American Dream is actually true anymore or is now just a myth is very debatable, but upward mobility is instilled in us from the time we are 5 years old.

Like Sarah Lacy says, Chile’s wealthy are no different from old monied elite in the US, Europe, or anywhere else in the world.  Most elites like their power, their money and their lives and try to stay where they are and amass more land, money and power.  It’s normal.  But Chile is unique because the elite group is small enough that innovation can be stifled.  For example, I have a friend who wanted to implement a new process to save a few large companies lots of paperwork, time and money.  These companies could pass on their savings to consumers or earn more profit.

He got the right meetings through business associations and government contacts, but when he went to the sales meeting, the big wigs who organized the meeting trashed my friend’s idea in front of his potential client.  A few months later, my friend found out that the big wig was good friends with the guy who currently made a bunch of money managing the paperwork.  My friend’s solution would speed up commerce, save consumers money and time, but at the detriment of this guys friend.  This behavior is normal in all countries, but Chile is small enough that it can kill startups right in the beginning.  You don’t need the elites to buy into entrepreneurship, but it sure helps.

Chilean culture punishes failure and taking chances.  As the founder of a startup, people look at you like you’re unemployed, bouncing around with no direction in your life.  Companies are very conservative and there’s lots of red tape, paperwork and bureaucracy.  There’s also a very Chilean behavior, the “soft no”, where companies won’t say no directly and they’ll explore a deal for months on end with no desire to actually do anything.  I’ve also noticed that many Chileans are stubborn and very very unwilling to admit that they are wrong, as losing face/honor is more looked down on than in the US or Europe.  When working in startups or trying to make sales to large companies, this attitude is very hard to overcome.

People also are very open about nepotism.  In the States, one of my good friends got a job because his father was friends with the CEO of the company.  He does everything he can to hide that fact and works even harder to prove that he belongs.  In Chile, I see many people getting jobs because of connections, just like in the US, but in Chile people are proud that they’ve gotten the job that way.  It’s almost like a badge of honor.  That’s not good for a merit based startup ecosystem.

I’ve noticed a huge difference in attitude between Chileans who have lived and worked in the US, Europe or Australia compared with Chileans who have never been abroad for significant amounts of time.  Most who have lived abroad realize that being stubborn and refusing to admit they are wrong will not get them anywhere.

Kohavi is right on about most Chilean investors.  I spoke to just about every Chilean VC and angel network and the vast majority were bankers and private equity guys who knew nothing about startups.  They were investing in ideas, not entrepreneurs.  They tried to get the most equity possible (sometimes up to 60%!) and looked at it like a zero sum game, not as a partnership.  Industry standard is 20-35%.  This approach kills motivation in entrepreneurs and kills returns for investors.  But this it’s normal for a growing ecosystem, all of the VCs are learning on the fly.

So where do we go from here?

Chile has smart entrepreneurs, talented developers, great potential employees and has seen some successes (Needish, Zappedy, Welcu, Plataforma Arquitectura and others), but what makes life easier for entrepreneurs and really develops the Chilean startup ecosystem?  It’s not a bad thing that entrepreneurs have to leave Chile to succeed.  That’s how it is in most places not named New York, San Francisco and Austin.  The key is to create the development ecosystem so that companies can hire good talent and make entrepreneurship a viable model for a higher percentage of people so that the ecosystem grows over time.

Startup Chile

Startup Chile was founded to help change the culture by bringing foreigners, but they realized they were wrong to exclude Chileans after our first round.  Since then, they’ve accepted at least 55 Chilean startups.  The program is having some success: 8 of 23 startups in my round stayed and Chile is now on the world stage for its innovative program.

There are some downsides.  First, Startup Chile is going for quantity and critical mass over quality.  If it were me, I would have invited 25 high quality startups per round to avoid poor quality founders and people just looking for an adventure.  Creating the critical mass was not always in the plans, but after Vivek Wadhwa’s visit in 2010, plans changed.  To cope with the increased scale, they outsourced the judging to a group composed of many academics who don’t seem to understand startups. There are no interviews anymore, which leads to some companies who don’t deserve to be selected to slip in and some who would get selected in an interview to miss out.

Its unquestionable that Startup Chile has been a force for good. Unquestionable.  The team is incredibly dedicated and hard working, but I believe that the program won’t be as big of a success as it could have been, mostly because its brought too many lower quality startups because of focus on quantity, and the outsourced judges reliance on degrees from fancy universities instead of top notch entreprnerus who know how to get things done.

Global Connection

I would expand Global Connection, a government program to take Chilean entrepreneurs to foreign countries, to place smart, promising Chileans in top internships and jobs in the US, Europe and Australia.  I would select 300+ young Chileans every year and give them grants to encourage them to go abroad.  I believe that it’s not good enough to bring foreign entrepreneurs to Chile and give some Chileans money from Corfo.  It’s a start, but only part of the solution.  Chile needs to develop its intellectual capital and I think the best way to do it is to encourage Chileans to work abroad and then return home to share their experiences.

An ICQ like Success

Israel’s startup scene took off after ICQ was acquired for a ton of money.  Same thing happend in Madison after Jellyfish.  It showed everyone that they could start a startup and that it was a real career.  Chile needs a similar success.  Culture will not change without examples of success to show that entrepreneurship is a viable path.  It will be even better if the huge success comes from someone who’s already tried another startup and it did not succeed.

Overall, I think Chile is one of the most interesting places to start a business.  It has smart people, an involved government, lots of problems that need solving.  There are cultural issues that are holding many entrepreneurs back.  Some of these challenges are normal in a growing startup ecosystem, while others are particular to Chile.  I think Kohavi was naive about what to expect in Chile and I don’t read his interview as a knock on Chilean entrepreneurs.  I love this country and look at it as my second home. I still see huge potential in Chile and an ecosystem that’s made huge progress in the year since I arrived.

What do you think?

Here’s some other people’s comments on Kohavi’s comments:

Sarah Lacy – Attention World Don’t Give Arnon Kohavi Your Money

Mariano Amartino – De Chile, Startups y Oportunidades en Latinoamerica

Fayerwayer – Inversionista de riesgo abandona Chile

                          

I forget who said it, but one of my aunts or uncles said something about how whenever there was anyone in need, grandma tried to help them. As I was listening to everyone’s memories, I knew I wanted use the bit of money that she bequested me to carry on her legacy. I wanted to spend it in a way that she would be proud: helping people and making others’ dreams come true. I’ve tried to follow your example and it took me over two years to find things that I think you would have liked. Grandma, here’s a few of things I’ve used your bit of money to make the world a better place.

In August 2009, two of my best friends, were getting married. They were the first of my close friends from college to married and all of my friends were really excited. One of our best friends who lived on our dorm floor freshman year was living in London. She had decided to travel the world after college, instead of getting a boring office job (awesome!). When she got the wedding invite in London, she realized that she wouldn’t be able to come home for the wedding. All of her savings were tied up in money for rent, food and were going to be used to continue traveling.

I asked our friend from London if I could make her my wedding gift to my friends. She refused, she wouldn’t let me. After weeks of convincing, she finally relented and I made it happen. We didn’t tell anyone. At the rehearsal dinner, I asked my friends if I could give them their gift early. They looked at me strangely, but agreed. I made the signal and our friend walked down the stairs. It was incredible and I know you would have loved to see it.

A month later, I was messing around on Facebook and a post from a college friend caught my eye. She was a teacher for Teach for America in New York City and posted that her class really wanted Time for Kids subscriptions, but couldn’t afford them. I loved reading these types of magazines when I was in school and think that they helped me stay interested in current events, politics and history to this day. Grandma, you gave me subscriptions to National Geographic for Kids, Smithsonian, Science and Discover for Christmas growing up and I loved getting them each week. I knew passing this gift on to more kids was a perfect use of your money. Since then, I’ve used Donors Choose to pick out a bunch of education projects that I know you’d support too.

In December, I found another cause that I knew you’d like. Since my sophomore year in college, I followed an online wisconsin-themed sports message board. It’s where I go to keep up to date on Wisconsin sports. A few years ago, one of the regular posters started a Holiday Fund, a message board wide drive to raise money to buy gifts for families who need help. Each family is screened by a charity and then submits a list. The message board community donates money, then some of the active posters buy the gifts. We used your money to help bring Christmas cheer to families that wouldn’t have otherwise been able to buy any presents.

A few months later, I read Three Cups of Tea, an amazing book about Greg Mortenson’s quest help educate rural Pakistan and Afghanistan’s girls. He was climbing one of the worlds tallest mountains and ended up in a small village called Korphe. He promised to build them a school and did. Fast forward fifteen years, Mortenson has built over 131 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, educating over 55,000 students. We used to look at National Geographic and watch The Learning Channel growing up and I know how important education was to you. I know you’d like to know that some of your money is helping educate girls in Afghanistan.

In January 2010, a huge earthquake decimated Haiti. UW alum and ex marine Jake Wood took matters into his own hands and led a team into Haiti to help people. His team beat the traditional aid organizations and was helping people within 36 hours of the earthquake. Team Rubicon was funded by people who read his blog and I knew I had to donate. Grandma, your money went to support the Hatian relief effort. After Jake got back to the states, he formalized Team Rubicon as a non profit with two missions. First, to help bridge the gap in disaster relief and second, to help war veterans transition back into society. Your money is helping Jake change the world and make it a better place.

In March, my friend Becky told me about Going For Ten Thousand, her goal to raise $10,000 to donate to Multiple Sclerosis research in honor of her mom and a family friend. I helped Becky set up her website and donated some of your money to help get her started. I’d like to think that our early donation helped motivate Becky to keep going. Two years later, she’s raised over $40,000 and become a force for good on the UW campus. Your money not only is helping scientists research MS, but helped inspire hundreds of students.

In January, a friend started a nonprofit to help women in India start small businesses. She needed a bit of money to help get her business off the ground. I used a bit of your money to help her meet her goals. Since then, thousands of other donations have flowed in and her non profit has helped hundreds of women start micro businesses that have changed their lives. I’ve also used your money to make loans on Kiva to microbusinesses in Tanzania that allowed a family to purchase more inventory for her store, which in turn let her make more money so she could send her children to school.

Grandma, I’ve used your money to support a friend walking to raise money for breast cancer research, to take a trip with an awesome girl that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to, to support our local library and support some promising small time entrepreneurs I met while in Chile and South Africa. I’ve used it to see my family and friends and make it home in time for my brother’s graduation. I’m very thankful that I have the luxury to use your money this way, Merry Christmas Grandma!

                          

If an IP holder, for example Warner Brothers, believes that a website is harming their rights, it can demand that search engines block the “offending” website in search results, payment processors stop processing credit card transactions and advertising networks stop displaying advertising and sending payments.  They can even demand that the domain name be blocked in the United States.  All for one link to potentially protected IP content.    If these companies comply, they are immune from any damages relating to copyright infringement.

“Offending” websites have five days to respond. This means that if Facebook has one link to an illegal download of a Warner Brothers movie, Warner Brothers can demand that search engines, payment processors and ad networks stop doing business with the ENTIRE company.

Facebook is now a huge company and would fight back, but imagine Zuckerburg getting a letter from Warner Brothers in 2003.  He’d have to buckle to Warner Brothers’ demands immedately because he didn’t have the resources to fight: he was building Facebook into a billion dollar business that now employs over 3000 people.  SOPA will kill innovation and job creation.

SOPA and PIPA replace DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which passed in 1998.  It was a compromise between the content industry and the technology industry that has worked really well.  It provides four safe harbors, immunity, for companies that follow the rules: if they are notified of offending content, they can ban the user who is posting it and remove the links.  Now websites are liable for the content their users post.  This is a horrible idea.  DMCA has worked really well for the past 14 years, but the music and movie industry wants more power.

They’ve used their lobbyists to write a broad, vague bill that eliminates these safe harbors and concentrates power with large companies at the expense of free speech and startups.  Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Reddit, Blogger, Google and many others are at risk.  Individuals who download content or stream videos face criminal prosecution.  Some examples that will be illegal under SOPA: posting a remixed song to soundcloud, posting a video with copyrighted music in the background, covering a copyrighted song and posted it to Facebook.  It’s crazy, someone who illegally downloads a Michael Jackson video could face a longer prison term than the doctor who killed him.  There’s even talk that Justin Bieber’s original cover songs on YouTube could have been censored.

The consequences of these bills are huge.  It has the potential to end the internet as we know it.  It will kill startups.  It will unfairly punish individuals and artists using copyrighted material in remixes, videos and art.  It will allow large companies to block access to websites they find objectionable without a full court order and a transparent appeals process.  If a dictatorship was proposing a similar law, the US would be running to condem it.  This law uses similar techniques to China’s great firewall to get what it wants.  It’s not democratic, its probably unconstitutional and will harm one of the last job creating industries in the United States.  SOPA signals the end of the Internet as we know it.

In the last week, Congress has stopped trying to ram these bills through, mostly because of outcry on the internet.  You can do your part.  Share posts like this, look at companies that are supporting SOPA and think about contacting your representative.

For more information check out Hollywood Finally Gets A Chance to Break the Internet and Stop America Censorship.  They both make a better case against SOPA than I do.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.