The Digital Nomad Life: Combining Work and TravelOn a recent afternoon in Medellín, Colombia, a group of 22 out-of-towners gathered to brainstorm and then met up with locals. They weren’t on vacation. Nor had they met by coincidence. They were participants in a program run by Unsettled, a new start-up that organizes 30-day co-working experiences around the world for creative people, entrepreneurs and other professionals seeking to combine work, travel and redefining themselves. The company is one of dozens of new work-tourism programs that aim to help workers known as digital nomads navigate living and working in far-off places. “If we could be somewhere, experiencing the world in a beautiful setting while working, challenging ourselves, growing professionally, enjoying a community of like-minded people and connecting locally, what’s stopping us?” said Michael Youngblood, 32, who founded Unsettled with another digital nomad, Jonathan Kalan, 29. [ NY Times ] Legendary Investor Bill Gurley of Benchmark at LAUNCH Festival The pace of seed investments in New York City slowed again in Q1 2017, as VCs maintain the cautious pace that began to settle in last year. We now find ourselves squarely in the midst of the “normalization” period that industry leaders have been predicting over the last several quarters - a not unwelcome respite from the furious and overly frothy investment pace of 2014-2015. The 35 NYC seed deals reported for Q1 rang in a total of $58MM, down 16% from Q4 and 50% YoY, though average deal size has continued to increase. The average check in Q1 was $1.7MM, up 6% from Q4 and 31% from Q1 2016. Surviving a SlumpBruce Cozadd was a musician in his early years, but a passion for science and business led him to enter the biopharma industry. Venrock partner Camille Samuels talks to Cozadd, now CEO of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, about his journey to co-founding Jazz and the people who helped him along the way. He shares the joys of starting Jazz with a team that had worked together in the past, but also highlights the downside: that his team lacked diverse prior experiences to rely upon while building a company. When Jazz’s stock price fell to just $0.53 a share, Cozadd persevered and relied on grit and determination to turn the company around. He also shares his wisdom about managing people through all stages of their careers, and reveals what his mentor taught him about treating people well no matter how difficult a situation the company is in. [ Venrock ] TaskRabbit is looking into selling itselfThe gig economy startup has hired advisers after a possible purchaser surfaced during a recent funding process. TaskRabbit is exploring a sale after the company received inbound interest from a strategic buyer, CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot confirmed. “It’s opportunistic,” said Brown-Philpot in a brief interview, in which she declined to provide more details about the process. There is now more than one buyer interested, said sources. Recode had contacted the company after hearing of the talks from sources, as well as a hiring of Bank of America Merrill Lynch as advisers, which came as the San Francisco-based on-demand chore service was in the process of raising another round of funding.The company has raised close to $38 million so far, from venture firms like Shasta Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and Founders Fund. Sources said it did another small financing last year from an international investor. [ Re/code ] Walt Mossberg is retiring in JuneIt was a June day when I began my career as a national journalist. I stepped into the Detroit Bureau of The Wall Street Journal and started on what would be a long, varied, rewarding career. I was 23 years old, and the year was 1970. That’s not a typo. So it seems fitting to me that I’ll be retiring this coming June, almost exactly 47 years later. I’ll be hanging it up shortly after the 2017 edition of the Code Conference, a wonderful event I co-founded in 2003 and which I could never have imagined back then in Detroit. I didn’t make this decision lightly or hastily or under pressure. It emerged from months of thought and months of talks with my wise wife, my family, and close friends. It wasn’t prompted by my employer or by some dire health diagnosis. It just seems like the right time to step away. I’m ready for something new. Over my career, I’ve reinvented myself numerous times. I covered the Pentagon, the State Department, and the CIA. I wrote about labor wars, trade wars, and real wars. I chronicled a nuclear plant meltdown and the defeat of communism. I co-founded a couple of media businesses. [ The Verge ] Stripe’s Patrick Collison says no to an IPO any time soonYou can imagine that Stripe CEO Patrick Collison is asked a lot about whether his San Francisco-based payments company plans to go pubic any time soon. Last year, the seven-year-old company raised $150 million in a deal co-led by General Catalyst Partners and CapitalG that valued the startup at $9.2 billion, almost double the valuation it was assigned in 2015. Why 2017 is the year to invest in blockchainBlockchain Capital was one of the first funds to invest into blockchain-enabled companies, and has been been our sole and very successful focus since 2013. With nearly 4 years of investment experience in this emerging, yet extraordinarily significant industry, we believe that 2017 will see strong mainstream consumer adoption of blockchain technology. From a worldwide movement towards decentralization to technology finally catching up with the ideas, all pieces of the puzzle are finally lining up. There has never been a better time to invest into this industry. Right before their IPO, Okta's cofounders received a sign from the heavensOn Friday morning, Okta crossed over from the startup world into the big-leagues and became a public company. Its stock market debut went well, with shares pricing at $17 and opening up 40% at $23.56. It's been an exciting journey for Todd McKinnon and Freddy Kerrest, who launched their company in 2009 right after the economy melted down. [ Business Insider ] Showing up to work naked or suddenly speaking French in a meeting–dreams seem like senseless stories that fill our sleep. While they’re easy to ignore, they’re actually vital messages from our subconscious, says Kelly Sullivan Walden, author of I Had the Strangest Dream: The Dreamer’s Dictionary for the 21st Century. |