Curt Doolittle

Theme: Productivity

  • (From elsewhere) Net/Net: 70% of vc still software. In Software, geography doesn

    (From elsewhere)

    Net/Net: 70% of vc still software. In Software, geography doesn’t matter. (Look what’s come out of little estonia’s micro-population. Look how little has come out of Germany.) So I look for (a) access to talent, (b) low cost of talent, (c) low cost of bureaucracy. (d) technical universities, (e) “Young Ambitious” culture. In my experience western europe is relatively hostile to entrepreneurship compared to the States and eastern europe. I can’t believe what a burden the UK banking and taxation system is. There isn’t even a legal equivalent of the USA’s S.A.F.E. agreement for investors. Lawyers, if you can find one that can think outside the box, are far less sophisticated. Regulatory accounting expensive and lacking all business value. European investment community is far less sophisticated, and far less experienced, and tends to ‘think small’. I’ve bought and sold companies across north america and europe and there just isn’t any comparison. That said i prefer european CULTURE, and european EMPLOYEES, and european LIFESTYLE, and that is why I prefer to develop software in Europe (rather eastern europe, or even russia).

    Hopefully that adds some color.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-05-11 12:52:00 UTC

  • Women aren’t evil, they’re just practical. As men, it’s our function to reach be

    Women aren’t evil, they’re just practical. As men, it’s our function to reach beyond the practical in the hope of producing extra returns.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-05-10 18:49:00 UTC

  • ideas are easy and cheap. execution is hard and expensive. and without money exe

    ideas are easy and cheap.

    execution is hard and expensive.

    and without money execution is impossible.

    and without customers money is unobtainable.

    All of us have ideas. Few of those ideas are not ‘stupid’. Few of those not-stupid ideas are novel. Few of those novel ideas are valuable to others. Few of those that are of value are valuable enough to pay for. Few of those valuable enough to pay for are economically or technologically possible. Fewer of us are industrious. Fewer of us will make the extraordinary sacrifices. And those that do try to execute with as little money as we can – usually our own, that of family, and that of friends. Few of us who can collect the money can execute well enough to survive until we have enough paying customers to profit.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-05-09 10:43:00 UTC

  • My sister is spinning wool. On a spinning wheel. Watching Norwegian women spin w

    My sister is spinning wool. On a spinning wheel. Watching Norwegian women spin wool directly from sheared sheep. And I am thinking (with some degree of seriousness) that the industrialization of farming was a good thing – farming is hard and unnatural for man. And that it’s hard to argue with the value of electricity that freed women from the hard work of washing and cleaning. And it is very hard to argue with the value of electronic information systems. But as far as I can tell, there is very little in this world that has benefitted from industrial manufacturing and assembly. Wood and Brick were much better for us than steel and concrete and glass. And one hope I have for ‘printing’ is that printed things, assembled by hand, or designed and assembled locally will eradicate the centralized and industrialized capital that has been so bad for us.

    Source date (UTC): 2017-05-07 13:03:00 UTC

  • Insight Into Money: Tokens for Hydrocarbons.

    Apr 21, 2017 10:43am THE USD and EURO function as the Reserve Token Money for the purchase of the commodity money: hydrocarbons, and the USA uses its premium for the financing of the world military, and the Europeans use their premium to delay the onset of the collapse of their generous redistribution scheme. Now, what happens if say, iran or russia or both are able to determine obtian sufficient control over hydrocarbon distribution that they can require hydrocarbons are purchased with their token money? Well the USA and Europe will no longer be able to sell their token money. And so the USA will not be able to apy for its military, and europe for its generous redistribution scheme. The USA and canada can produce sufficient hydrocarbons and if necessary nuclear energy without going to the internatinoal market for additional supply. But europe cannot, and must in turn become a client state of either russia, iran, or both.

  • Insight Into Money: Tokens for Hydrocarbons.

    Apr 21, 2017 10:43am THE USD and EURO function as the Reserve Token Money for the purchase of the commodity money: hydrocarbons, and the USA uses its premium for the financing of the world military, and the Europeans use their premium to delay the onset of the collapse of their generous redistribution scheme. Now, what happens if say, iran or russia or both are able to determine obtian sufficient control over hydrocarbon distribution that they can require hydrocarbons are purchased with their token money? Well the USA and Europe will no longer be able to sell their token money. And so the USA will not be able to apy for its military, and europe for its generous redistribution scheme. The USA and canada can produce sufficient hydrocarbons and if necessary nuclear energy without going to the internatinoal market for additional supply. But europe cannot, and must in turn become a client state of either russia, iran, or both.

  • Why Do We Hate Keynesians?

    WHY DO WE HATE KEYNESIANS? —“All I know is that if you’re on Zerohedge you have to yell about Keynesians.”— If you are an investor of any kind, Keyensians (a) deprive you of interest, (b) do random unpredictable policy shifts that you can’t plan for that costs you and our clients all your hard earned money, (c) force you speculate and take risks, just so the government doesn’t destroy your hard earned money. and (d) incrementally drives the economy and the society into higher and higher risks, with large and larger boom and bust cycles, while killing off every safe haven available; and (e) Guarantee that at some point in the near future there will be a global collapse and that all investment for the past century will be wiped out, the dollar and our economy destroyed, and generations will suffer for it.

  • Why Do We Hate Keynesians?

    WHY DO WE HATE KEYNESIANS? —“All I know is that if you’re on Zerohedge you have to yell about Keynesians.”— If you are an investor of any kind, Keyensians (a) deprive you of interest, (b) do random unpredictable policy shifts that you can’t plan for that costs you and our clients all your hard earned money, (c) force you speculate and take risks, just so the government doesn’t destroy your hard earned money. and (d) incrementally drives the economy and the society into higher and higher risks, with large and larger boom and bust cycles, while killing off every safe haven available; and (e) Guarantee that at some point in the near future there will be a global collapse and that all investment for the past century will be wiped out, the dollar and our economy destroyed, and generations will suffer for it.

  • The Burden of Immigrants

    One parasitic burden immigrants often impose is overconsumption. Prosperity requires productivity. Productivity requires accumulated capital. Capital requires savings and investment. When a people become prosperous on account of their propensity to save and invest, that attracts immigrants from less prosperous areas, with less prosperous qualities. Even if they only consume what they produce, (that is, even absent redistribution and entitlements) they did not accumulate the capital which now enables them to produce. And if they do not save and invest at rates comparable to the natives, but consume all of their produce (or more) then they are not adding to the capital structure of their new home, but depreciating it, and eroding the conditions which temporarily allow them to enjoy higher incomes and standards of living than they formerly did. Without those immigrants, the native people could retain exclusive use of that capital structure, and its full productive output, in the form of higher wages for their labor, while continuing to add to it.

  • The Burden of Immigrants

    One parasitic burden immigrants often impose is overconsumption. Prosperity requires productivity. Productivity requires accumulated capital. Capital requires savings and investment. When a people become prosperous on account of their propensity to save and invest, that attracts immigrants from less prosperous areas, with less prosperous qualities. Even if they only consume what they produce, (that is, even absent redistribution and entitlements) they did not accumulate the capital which now enables them to produce. And if they do not save and invest at rates comparable to the natives, but consume all of their produce (or more) then they are not adding to the capital structure of their new home, but depreciating it, and eroding the conditions which temporarily allow them to enjoy higher incomes and standards of living than they formerly did. Without those immigrants, the native people could retain exclusive use of that capital structure, and its full productive output, in the form of higher wages for their labor, while continuing to add to it.