it’s called the vintage ad browser (www.vintageadbrowser.com) and it does what it says. you can search for and browse through over 100,000 vintage ads. this is what mad men fans like myself live for (i bet the writers for that show knew about this site way before we did)

here are some of my favorites:

this one i couldn’t resist. gotta love the floppy disk he’s holding up…

and, this sure looks like a great deal. 64K RAM for $1,495!

this was the predecessor to Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum – my first computer that i started coding BASIC on when i was 9… oh, good old days…

believe it or not, i still have that Sinclair ZX Spectrum. it’s hanging on the wall in my office. here’s a picture of it.

vintage ads also have a sister site called coverbrowser (http://www.coverbrowser.com).

enjoy!

sometimes starting a company is like playing house… especially when you’re setting up your office.

both my co-founder tyler and i have always felt strongly that the environment we set up now will play a significant role in shaping the culture and the values of the company we’re building at carsala. we are also both pretty frugal to a fault, so we started off for our interior decoration with a very (VERY) limited budget.

we ended up with some pretty cool looking desks with trestles and somewhat comfortable chairs, each under $100.

next challenge was to find some art for the walls.

my pick for the technology and marketing room was the photograph above by renowned photojournalist w. eugene smith called “dream street”. i felt it was very appropriate for a handful of people who have set out to change the single largest retail segment of the US economy (44M used cars are sold every year, representing $365 billion).

the entrepreneurial spirit is really one with the spirit of the dreamer… the pursuit of  creation of something out of nothing… the pursuit of something better and greater…

“dream street” embodies this entrepreneurial spirit – the spirit we have at carsala.

It was a very thought provoking and educational day. I have below my detailed notes from the sessions I attended. But before moving on to those I’d like to synthesize some of my key takeaways:

• There is no silver bullet to the climate change/energy crisis problem. It is more of a silver shotgun (owing this analogy to Blake Simmons from JBEI). Another nice analogy is David Sandalow’s cathedral thinking approach (read on the notes for details)
• Corn ethanol is doomed. Alternatives must be explored, conquered.
• China is a significant part of the problem and must be a significant part of the solution.
• Climate Change & the Energy Crisis represents the greatest issue and the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes. As a software developer in the 90’s I’d felt that we were going to change the world with the Internet. And we did. I felt the same vibe from the young minds at BERC.

Here are my detailed notes:

…
Opening Remarks by David Sandalow:

David Sandalow is the author of Freedom from Oil. He is regarded as an insightful expert on how to limit USA’s dependence on (foreign) oil. I must emphasize that his focus seemed to be on reducing the dependence on foreign oil rather than reducing greenhouse emissions. Here are the key highlights from his opening remarks:

Plugging cars into the grid:

• To reduce dependency on oil, we must connect cars & trucks to the electric grid. This is why:
  • Cars & Trucks receive 96% of their energy from oil. 60% of that oil is imported.
  • Only 3% of electricity production comes from oil.
• He argues that coal-powered electricity plants are more efficient than the internal combustion engine, therefore plugging cars into the grid would reduce greenhouse emissions.
• Plug-in Hybrid cars are the next solution for the auto industry. They get 150 miles/gallon today. GM is investing heavily in Chevy Volt which should be on the roads by 2010.
• Biofuels have a role in this as well, however the pendulum has swung on this. There is a lot of skepticism on the economic viability of scaling biofuels.

Mass Transit & Commuting:

• Widening a road to fix traffic congestion is like loosening your belt to lose weight.

Cathedral Thinking on Climate Change:

• Climate change and the energy crisis are bigger problems than what a single generation or nation can fix. We have to approach it as how cathedrals were built where it took multiple generations of people to build one. The stone mason probably lived a 100 years before the stained glass guy. This is the way we have to approach the climate change and the energy crisis as it will take a lot of smaller steps to fix the bigger problem.

China & India:

• China & India will have to be key components of the solution as they are (and will be) a significant part of the problem.
• China adds 50-100 gigawatts of plant capacity every year.
• Beijing alone adds 600 cars/day. And almost none are scrapped. Whereas in the US, for every 10 cars that go on the road, 9 are scrapped and taken off the road.
• Although India is critical, China has to have the main focus. China is 3X less energy efficient as India.

Nuclear Energy:

• The three key issues with Nuclear Energy are: 1) It’s VERY expensive. Needs gov’t subsidies to happen. 2) The obvious non proliferation issues, especially from an int’l perspective. 3) Waste problem is still not solved.
• Despite these lingering and significant issues, it will be a mistake to turn the door on nuclear power.

John Doerr Keynote:

John Doerr was the afternoon keynote speaker. Very engaging speech with some good data points. Just a reminder that Al Gore has joined John Doerr’s firm as a partner.

Why invest in Green:

• Google took $25MM to be profitable
• Alternative Energy firms will take 10x that.
• BUT, the opportunity is 10x as well. Tech opportunities are in the billions whereas energy opportunities are in trillions.
• “There is a time when panic is the appropriate response.” – Eugene Kleiner
• Going Green = Making Green
• Crisis = Opportunity
• Greentech will be bigger and more profitable than the Internet
• “Going Green is the largest economic opportunity of the 21st century.” – John Doerr
• He has invested $300M in 30 companies in this space.

Approach:

John Doerr sees 3 C’s to attack:

1. Coal
2. Car
3. Conversation & Efficiency

For coal, we need to find better alternatives. For cars, we need better cars and better transportation methods.

On Wal-Mart:

• Heating, Lighting & Refrigeration are the 3 top sources of energy usage at Wal-Mart.

On Biofuels:

• John Doerr believes biofuels is the silver bullet. This is in direct contrast to many others in the field. This is understandable as John has invested a lot of money in ethanol. Another person who believes biofuels is the silver bullet is Vinod Khosla – another VC that has invested millions in ethanol :)
• Every other speaker in this symposium has downplayed and lowered expectations on ethanol and biofuels.
• Brazil has replaced 40% of its oil consumption with ethanol. They have 29,000 ethanol pumps across the country, compared with only 700 in the U.S.

On Government Investment:

• US Federal Investment in Renewable Energy: $1B
• DoE investment in Geo-Thermal: $5MM
• NOT ENOUGH!

On China:

• China’s CO2 emissions will be double US’s by 2050.

Call to Action:

1. Put a cap and price on carbon.
2. Extend ITC (Investment Tax Credit) on Renewable Energy for another 10 years.
3. Increase Federal R&D budget.

On Solar-Thermal vs Renewable Energy:

• Solar-Thermal will be quicker to market, BUT, renewable energy will have a bigger impact overall.

General Unsolicited Advice:

• Network (1-person/day everyday for 10 mins)
• Integrity is a binary state
• Find and sustain mentors

Panel: Biofuels & Bioenergy

This was a panel on Biofuels & Bioenergy. You can see who the panelists were on the BERC page. But here are the key highlights that I noted:

Case against Corn Ethanol:

• “All the world is waiting for a substitute for gasoline, the day is not far distant when, for every one of those barrels of gasoline, a barrel of alcohol must be substituted.” – Henry Ford 1916.
• US Consumption of Ethanol in 2007: 7.8BG. Up from 1BG in 2001.
• To replace 12% of oil consumption in the US with corn ethanol, we would need 50% of the corn production in the US.
• Corn has very high fertilizer requirements.
• Corn ethanol reduces greenhouse emissions by only 12-20% compared to gasoline.
• HOWEVER, it drives deforestation in the developing world, therefore possibly offsetting any greenhouse benefits.
• Solution: Alternatives to Corn – Switchgrass, miscanthus, other cellulosic alternatives.

Doug Cameron – Chief Scientific Officer, Khosla Ventures:

Doug downplayed ethanol, which is interesting as his employer, Vinod Khosla, has been an ethanol advocate for a long time. Doug went on to walk us through the high-level categories of their renewables portfolio:

• Oil: Corn/Sugar Fuels, Cellulosic, Future Fuels
• Coal: Solar, Wind, Geothermal, Natural Gas
• Efficiency: Electrical, Mechanical
• Materials: Tools, Water, Plastics, Building Materials

i am taking game theory this semester, the most demanded course in the berkeley mba curriculum… not only due to the intriguing subject matter, but mostly due to the professor who teaches it, and the awards he has won for his teaching: professor john morgan. this course plays a key role in teaching us to be strategic thinkers, to look forward and reason back before our actions and many other tools that any strategist will need throughout their careers… john morgan is an incredible lecturer, and a very smart man, we’ve all been pretty amazed by our experience so far…

in our most recent game theory lecture, we discussed the browser wars (ie vs netscape) of the late 90’s and the impact of IE being free (bundled with windows) and the role it played in crushing netscape. after the class, i felt chris anderson’s free article would be relevant, so i forwarded it to john morgan… and his response confirmed by man crush on john morgan:

“How much will the book cost?”

I would love to hear chris anderson’s and his publisher hyperion’s response to this, and see if they actually would have the guts to walk the talk… my gut says they wouldn’t…

this week rim announced that they’ve had an unexpected surge in subscriber growth for blackberry devices (WSJ article), in the meantime apple has significantly cut down its orders for the flash memory chips that it puts in its iphones and ipods (link)…

i still need to mention that my claim encompasses the enterprise and consumer smartphone markets put together. iphone will probably be stronger on the consumer side, but rim will not lose the enterprise battle – the bigger, more profitable and predictable part of the smartphone market.

lately i’ve noticed that folks at facebook are actually trying to get smart(!) with their advertising. well, depends on your standards for smart…

a few months ago, i’d tested their banner advertising and click thru rates were dismal. a lot of posts in the blogosphere had agreed with the results of my litmus test…

what i’ve noticed lately is that the sponsored ad in my newsfeed is based on my status.

yesterday, i updated my status to say: “Raif is revolutionizing car buying.” – in reference to an entrepreneurial project we’re working on with a classmate at berkeley.

as soon as i did that, i started seeing ebay motors ads and car classifieds in my newsfeed. yawn…

and later on the same day, i went to town on some domino’s pizza and updated my facebook status to reflect my accomplishment: “Raif just had his 5th slice of domino’s… he’s going to have to wear his fat jeans tomorrow…”.

and suddenly the ebay motors ads were replaced by an ad for a baseball cap company. i guess if i’m eating a lot of pizza, i must be wearing a lot of baseball caps… yawn…

you know, with a $15B valuation, $250M of microsoft cash and all the hype that facebook’s got in the valley, i expected a lot more, i still expect a lot more. my 5 year old standard schnauzer would be more creative with all of the data, traffic and userbase that facebook has…

time to find a shirt to go with my fat jeans and head off to work…

not a chance…

iphone may take a good chunk of the consumer end of the smartphone pie, and it already has, but i don’t see it beating rim in the enterprise game.

and the enterprise is where it matters for rim – only a little over 25% of their subscriber base is consumer (source: rim annual report). revenue and margin per sub is a lot higher for enterprise customers too – thanks to higher device prices and related software sales (BES).

future versions of iphone are said to include more enterprise type functionality, but cracking the enterprise space is not as simple as building some features…

most enterprise blackberries today are actually owned and supported by the IT departments of companies. they are handed out to the employees that are deemed to need mobile email (which by the way is debatable in a lot of the cases).

let’s walk through the reasons why i don’t believe that iphone will kill the blackberry (in order of importance):

1. IT investment: most corporations have already invested in rim/blackberry. they have bought the blackberry handhelds for their employees. they have purchased licences for the blackberry enterprise server that seamlessly integrate with their microsoft exchange servers that run their email. there is no way a CIO can justify ripping that infrastructure out and replacing it with iphone.

2. IT support: The Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) enables automated provisioning of blackberry devices by IT departments everywhere. iphone does not have this capability and will not for a long time. Without the proper provisioning tools, no sane IT dept will commit to supporting an iphone platform.

3. IT re-training: IT staff across corp america have been trained on blackberries. They are able to support it. They are now comfortable with them. Getting to train this workforce on another platform and device is a significant investment that will be very tough to justify.

4. sales & distribution: rim, the maker of blackberry, has deep relationships with most of corporate america – whereas apple doesn’t. sales and distribution will be a major issue and barrier to entry for apple.

5. functionality: iphone simply lacks significant functionality that blackberry users have had for years.

(i) Microsoft Exchange: iphone does claim to support microsoft exchange via imap, but ask anyone who’s tried to use it – it sucks big time.

(ii) Integration is beyond email. Blackberry syncs seamlessly with your calendar, to do’s and contacts in your outlook/exchange. iphone doesn’t and i don’t how it will since it runs iCal.

(iii) Cut/Copy/Paste: the fact that I just can’t cut/copy/paste text in the iphone is simply silly.

(iv) Real keyboard: the touch screen keyboard is cool, but it’s a serious barrier to adoption compared to the real keys on the blackberry.

In conclusion, blackberry is an enterprise product, rim is an enterprise company and most of its revenue come from enterprise sales. iphone is a consumer product. apple is a consumer goods company. blackberry’s turf is uncharted waters for apple. it’s the same battlefield where it got killed by microsoft years ago.