Random notes by slowblogger

Paul Graham’s lessons for startups. These are great lessons.

An interesting issue on copyright. If people got permission before creating and distributing a derivative work, there would be fewer disputes. But people usually don’t work that way.

“…giving the system much needed new equity capital, which, at this time, can come only from the government.”

I am not sure what you mean by agreeing to the statement.

Here is a question. Let’s say you auction an insolvent bank, starting price being $0 and lowering the bid price to be negative (meaning removing some liability obligation). If the bank is too large, you could divide it into pieces and sell them. Do you think there won’t be any bidder other than the US government?

Are you saying “no” to this question or “yes” but a temporary owner is necessary for the process to find new owners?

Successful innovations tend to start as a complementary good to the incumbent. So, they create a new market, adding to the existing and sometimes helping the incumbent. It is necessary strategically, to avoid direct competition with the strong incumbent and find a room for growth.

However, some, if not many, of them will start substituting the incumbent over time, depending on whether it remains different (remaining a complementary) or becomes similar, meaning addressing the same problems (becoming a substitute).

The reason why the TV study mentioned in the post can be misleading is that being a complementary is rather a predicted path in the beginning. A more relevant question is “will it remain complementary or start replacing the incumbent?”

Same can be applied to Google Docs (vs. MS Office), Twitter vs. Blog, or Skype vs. traditional phone. Do the study and you’ll find that they are not substitutes and even complementary. It is predictably counter-intuitive. But that does not mean they will remain so.

Greg Mankiw seems a very reasonable and balanced economist. I started reading his blog.

You have to survive, to do whatever good. I guess that’s the message.

This book may be for Korean parents, too.

Yes! Give freedom to entrepreneurs and we will make the world better!

Remove required capital (which is huge) to start a new bank. The worst regulation of all is “barrier entry regulation”. Allow a guy with an idea and little money to start a new “different” bank. The government officials (at least in Korea) did not grant a license even if you do have the initial capital, saying they need to protect the financial stability. This is non-sense. Small banks won’t create the dilemma of “too big to fail”.

And, add “Art” to your list. I am working on it.

I really agree with you. There are some problems (opportunities?) to address.

- Discussions don’t last long. This is a major problem. Some topics (such as market vs. regulation) deserve much more than just 2 days of popularity. There should be slow-pace solutions.

- The discussions can happen anywhere, which is good and bad. It would be great if one can see interesting discussions in one convenient place.

- When a discussion gets popular, similar comments can be made here and there. I would like to see similar comments first, so that I can determine whether I really need to elaborate or just approve existing one.