Priceline started in the backwoods of Connecticut. It started in Stanford. Jesse Fink: In Stanford, yes. Steve Blank: So here we are. When did it start? Jesse Fink: We started working on it in '96 and we went out in '98. Steve Blank: So there were lots of interesting technology...
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How much is this to make money for your investors, and how much of it is your passion? Is it a combination of both? You could have set this up as a nonprofit. Jesse Fink: Right. Steve Blank: Hopefully, it won’t be one. Jesse Fink: Yes. Like you, Steve, and like everybody here, I...
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So when I think about clean tech investing, when I think of solid oxide fuel cells or new thin film semiconductors or solar concentrators or something else, I’m getting a feeling that all those words you just used for the last two minutes doesn't mean that. Jesse Fink: Right. Steve Bl...
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The question is early investors in this sector may not have been as returned focus as they were trying to move things along from a mission perspective per se. Has that changed? You’re absolutely right. If you look at just the volume of capital that is going into the market and you look...
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I think we’re at a point now, you can see it in what is being written. You can see it in Bill Gates' speech at Davos last week, that you could see it in the things that Google is doing and the Skoll Foundation and all these wonderful individuals and organizations out here, for the most ...
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If you look at my career, I was never in the same industry twice - maybe semiconductors. There’s nothing about a business that isn't rocket science to understand well enough within a certain period of time. I'm not asking you to become a heart surgeon, but it's not that hard to understand the to...
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Unless some of you have been working in a specific domain for the last 20 years or so, the odds are that anything you’re thinking about customers and markets are nothing more than a guess. And you go, "Oh no, the buddies in the dorm. They liked it! And look, you know I put it up and I got 300 hi...
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When I first started at Convergent Technologies, the founder, Alan Michaels, had left Intel and he believed he was going to be making a single board computer. Computer that fit on one circuit board back in the early 1980’s was a radical notion. And what Alan did was he went around to computer co...
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Any of you read TechCrunch? Any of you read some other blogs? What’s another good technology blog? Venture and Gadget, etc. Isn't it cool if like you start your company, the first thing you do is like, TechCrunch mentions you? Wouldn't that be the coolest thing ever? I got to tell you, if I'm on...
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