Standing up to an Internet Bully - why we support Private Equity Events

For several years now the iBreakfast group has run low-cost Angel pitching events of its own where the winner gets a free seat at one of Mike Segal's Private Equity Forums. So on that basis I can speak to this issue. 

Mike Segal's Private Equity Forum events are always sold out and are packed with real investors and entrepreneurs - often from outside of New York.

In most cases, these players are worlds away from Calacanis and Digital Media. They never get the attention of the Fred Wilsons, the Esther Dysons, the DFJs and so on. They tend to come from energy, engineering, biotech, transportation, waste management – all the stuff that doesn’t make it to the blogoshpere. They are also usually older and let’s face it - you don’t see too many gray hairs in the digital Start-Up world. When they do, the seniors rarely get funded. 

At Segal’s events these participants are, for the most part what I call pedigree start-ups – people with 10 or more years of experience in serious business and technology fields. Their plans are not too sexy or too wildly conceptual and they will never be the next Facebook or Twitter. But they often have real customers on tap and genuine backgrounds in the field with deep relationships and so on. They tend to come from areas in the hinterland that are not flooded with investors – so presenting in New York means something to them. 

Should they pay what they pay? That’s their calculation. Does Mike have a right to charge them? Ask them? They know the cost and resources they need to reach out to investors – and there really are investors here – and so they make that decision.

The bottom line is they will never get an invite to Fred’s office, they won’t get a “free” invite to Techcrunch or any other hackerthon or techie start-up fest. And guess what, this is not a socialist country - people have a right to charge and you have a right not to show up.

So why the libel?

Has anyone stopped to ask what Jason gets out of this crusade of his? Free publicity for his ridiculous people-powered search engine, Mahalo that now answers your every lame question. Jason is the same idiot who dropped over $200,000 on a late night TV poker game and then claimed it was really publicity for Mahalo because he wore a logo shirt. Some publicity! See Calacanis Poker Face.

Last year, after he got into a fight with his partners at TechCrunch, he went after Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. While the site has its flaws it is nowhere as evil as Calacanis made it out to be. But he was after his usual cheap publicity. I don’t recall any Egyptians saying “Thank you Mahalo.” Even the so-called “founder” of the revolution, a Google executive, said “Thank You Facebook.”

I have met Mark’s dad, Dr. Edward Zuckerberg so I know what it is like from his perspective to be slandered by the likes of Calacanis who has never found a cheap shot not worth taking. It is not only an unpleasant thing but almost impossible to respond to because he hogs the conversation. I even saw him hold up a gun of some sort when talking to a Keiretsu exec. Hardly a fair fight.

I am all for choice. If you can get a free ride as a Start-Up, for heaven’s sake take it. But most entrepreneurs heed some help and one way or another they are going to have to pay for it.

What I can’t abide is a bully. Calacanis made his mark as a champion of NY’s Silicon Alley in its salad days (remember that?). He picked battles when no one else would and paraded about with his trademark bulldogs – which made him look like a good guy to some people. That was 10 years ago. Flame throwing is OK when you’re in your 20s. Being a Tae Kwando black belt when everyone else is a geek is intoxicating all right. But this act is getting old – a touch of the Mubarak. In reality, Jason is rapidly becoming a slander machine that mistakes dirt-dishing for publicity and thinks it makes Mahalo and his various conferences look good. 

If he can make money doing what he does good luck to him. But here’s an amazing reality: the Private Equity Forums have never been fuller – precisely because they fulfill a need that others don’t offer. Apparently, Calacanis is just singing to his choir hoping they’ll pay for more of his web-thumping. Watch out, if he thinks there’s a publicity angle, he could come after you!

Is Apple the Evil Empire?

Is Apple Really Evil?
As an old Apple person - I mean old as in covering Apple from way back in the now dead-and-gone Apple trade publications like MacWEEK, I can answer this very simply. They are not a technology company, they are a religion. They are giving us "cool people's technology" and they charge a tithe - about a 10% premium over non-Apple products - where they compete - and much, much more - where they don't. They expect followers to pay in blood sacrifice to be the first in line and rarely apologize when they abuse them for doing so. Likewise, their followers never really complain.

Some people say Apple is a cult - and they certainly are. That is why no one can really compete with them because they don't understand what it means to be a cult: You have to be very good, very important - you have to die in public - and then come back to life. That describes Steve Jobs and with him, Apple. No one in their right mind asks for this role but if it is foist upon you and you thrive - ordinary mortals cannot compete against you.

Apple is just competing against ordinary, grubby mortals: number-crunching tech execs, power-mad entertainment execs, government flunkies and shabby lawyers. Apple almost always wins - or at least wins in the public relations arena.

However Apple is more than a cult because they are just as passionately loved by ordinary users as they are by the geeky priest class. That makes them a religion. Because of that, Apple could survive the passing of Jobs.

So if you think religion is evil, then Apple pretty much is evil. You want technology heaven? You follow their path. That's how religions work. At least Apple delivered us from the temptation of illegal downloading, the darkness of Crackberry, the demon of Vista and so on. Then they made a deal with the devil - AT&T. This is like the cool early Christians, some gnostic - most not - teaming up with the Roman Emperor, Constantine. He made them bigger, established and formidable but something got sacrificed with that.

What got sacrificed is just what people like Mahalo's Jason Calacanis is complaining about. The cool open web is now a closed garden. It is the formal church. Just as Constantine threw out the heretics who would not hew to the canon - you can't just do what you bloody well want on an iPhone. No Google Voice, says Jason. No porn. No unapproved apps. No holy spirit other than AT&T. In return, you pay your dues, confess at the genius bar over sins against machine and pray for the high holy days of new product releases.

That's the deal we make with regular belief systems and Apple will not change any more than your favorite religion will. At least not fundamentally. So if you are talking about competing with Apple then you'll need some religion of your own because you can't seriously do this by numbers, or by the book.

Look at Microsoft - they were never better than Apple - but they got richer because they were anointed by a higher Power a/k/a IBM which gave them the exclusivity of owning their operating system. (Watch out AT&T!)

So all those Google/Android/Palm Pre iPhone wannabes take heed. You can do OK against Apple by offering better features, better mobile carriers, lower prices and blah blah blah. But you can't win unless you're willing to be great, die and come back to life - in public. Or get a higher power to anoint you. Become the official phone of the Obama White House with one free call to the man. Or put yourself at the heartbeat of youth culture - say, by buying up every major record label and film company. Or better than that, finance their talent directly..... Or pay for every kid's online college education.....

Then maybe.