We’ve just released the results of our informal industry survey. More details on our news feed. I’ve also included a link to a PDF with a summary of the results. Thanks to the David James Agency for conducting this for us. My takeaways: folks are cost cutting all around; public companies seem to be more [...]
Good article in the Wall Street Journal about the carnage as more startups are shut down, or sold in fire sales. You know it’s bad news for private companies when you suddenly see Martin Pichinson — famous for his many deals selling off the carcasses of dead Dot Com firms — is again being quoted [...]
It seems like it’s not all doom and gloom out there. Despite what seemed like a record day for layoffs Monday (by one count, over 75,000 jobs lost) it seems like a number of local high tech companies are talking about great Q4 quarters. Central Desktop just told us about a great Q4, mobileStorm also [...]
Frank Peters, podcaster at the Frank Peters Show and chairman of the Tech Coast Angels, always has informative and in-depth interviews. Frank recently talked with Clearstone’s Jim Armstrong about Jim’s views on how the economy is affecting both startups and the venture capital business, and it’s well worth a listen to get an idea of [...]
I’ve mentioned this a few times in the last few weeks, but — despite what you see about layoffs and the economy — there seems to be a great hunger for employees at many local Southern California companies. Richard Rosenblatt of Demand Media (Richard’s best known as having been the Chairman of MySpace) said today [...]
Jason Calacanis, the CEO of Santa Monica-based Mahalo (and oft-quoted Silicon Valley tech celebrity), has a fix for the economic downturn: work harder. Calacanis, in a post to his mailing list (and blog), says: If we’re going to have any chance of bringing America back to greatness, we’re all going to have to work 20% [...]
Here’s an interesting tidbit, from a number of sources: despite the worries over the economy, apparently e-commerce retailers aren’t feeling it, with comScore reporting today that Cyber Monday sales set a record and were up 15% from last year. Orange County’s Buy.com also saw very positive results, telling us yesterday that Monday was the firm’s [...]
In the cycle of grief over the current state of the markets (public and private), where is Southern California’s high tech community right now? Denial? Anger? Depression? I think we’re still early in the cycle–in the denial stage–where, based on many entrepreneurs I’ve talked to, people are in denial that the economy is going to [...]
I’ve always been surprised by how current the commercial real estate brokers in the region are in terms of high tech startups and venture fundings. You’d be very surprised, as they tend to be the first to hear about new companies, new startups, and venture fundings. So, it’s not all that unusual to see they [...]
Among the rampant fear the bouncing market has instilled in entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, there are more than a few people hyperventilating about what that means for the high tech market. On the other hand, there are some who are trying to take an objective view on what this really means, in the long term. [...]
Thoughts and commentary from Benjamin F. Kuo, publisher of socalTECH.com.
