[LUAU] The VC Squeeze, Desktop Linux and Hawaii's future

[Hawaii Linux Institute]

Jim Thompson wrote:
> Just some ideas, a bit more "bomb throwing" @ 4am.
As someone who is looking at his career/life from a rearview mirror, I 
probably should keep my mouth shut.  But we used to represent an 
out-of-state VC, and it was equally frustrating for us to try to find 
good candidates here.

One suggestion I may make is to loiter at MIC at least once a while.  
Digital Islands, WordPlace, and a bunch of other tech companies all 
started there.  Actually I used to chat with founders of DI and WP when 
both were essentially on-man ops.  I understand that MIC is getting very 
crowded now.  & it's good to know.

As you are aware, different VCs have different operational 
philosophies.  This particular VC that we were associated with was 
mostly interested in acquiring companies with a good "market access".  
Hawaii itself is a very small market, but there is something else that 
makes Hawaii potentially a very big market.  I don't want to go into it, 
but I believe you know what I am talking about.

Another hot topic in the VC circle that I am familiar with is the 
"China-connection".  It's very difficult to imagine that some country 
(if you combine China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan) could amsss a cash reserve 
in excess of $1 trillion USD in such a short period of time.  This 
number is too big to make any sense to most of us.  But to many VCs, it 
does.  & one of the keys of getting some VCs interested is probably to 
develop a product/technology that will sell in China.  If anyone can 
combine China and Japan in the same conversation, it's even better.  (US 
companies oursource software development to India, & Japanese companies 
to China, more particularly to the city of Dalian.  This is something to 
keep in mind.)

Now the question, what will sell in China, especially wrt to open source 
software?  A few years back, when I mentioned Linux or Red Hat or 
Mandrake or whatever in China, no one knew what I was talking about.  
Nowadays, everyone wants to show/sell me the Linux-based technology that 
have developed (& I am suddenly reduced to a technoignoramus--don't 
laugh, they apply the same label to anyone from the US who mentions Linux).

Thus, how to define a "sellable" technology is something that needs to 
be diligently discussed.  One of the reasons that I am interested in 
Solaris/OpenSolaris is that not too many people are aware of it, yet.  
Will that get me somewhere?  I don't know.  But I feel prouder talking 
about OpenSolaris than Linux, that's for sure.   Wayne