As a VC in Pittsburgh I have gotten to be good at spotting buzzwords that make for bad investments. Here is a short sampling of my current list (believe me, the real list is much longer):
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Neural Networks
Cluster Analysis
Fuzzy Logic
Non-parametric Modeling
Tree Regression
Bayesian Networks
I have an aneurysm anytime I see these words independently, or yikes! – in [...]
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Today is Google Day in Pittsburgh – and I am doing my part by VOTING to bring ultra-broadband to Pittsburgh. I also passed an invitation to Google Voice along to a partner – what the hell are you doing?
So today is the first of two GOO* FRIDAYs – GOOG FRIDAY, next week being [...]
For investors who are brave enough to challenge the conventional wisdom that all of the good ideas are in Silicon Valley, the current supply/demand imbalance of early stage capital may present a window of opportunity in Pittsburgh.
Having likely raised much more equity from angel investors than anyone else in the Pittsburgh region, Mel Pirchesky, President of Eagle Ventures, is a long-time Pittsburgh entrepreneur. He’s raised over $60 million of equity for more than 30 deals from individuals located mostly in the Pittsburgh region. He completed a $9 million financing [...]
I have written a bit before about business accelerators, and I sit on the board of a local accelerator here in Pittsburgh called AlphaLab. There is a pretty significant national trend afoot right now for every town to put up their own accelerator, and you are seeing them pop up everywhere. I think this is [...]
In the past week, I attended two events where I had to evaluate startup pitches delivered to investors: a boot camp for the upcoming 3RVF conference in Pittsburgh, and the interim demo day at AlphaLab. Both events were dry-run practice sessions so that presenting companies could be more polished when they were actually on the [...]
A couple weeks back, I gave a presentation at McKinsey, the consulting firm where I used to work. It was great to see and talk to some old friends whom I hadn’t seen in such a long time, and to meet the new faces – the highly talented core of consultants that McKinsey is so [...]
Someone recently told me that he didn’t think our region celebrates enough of the achievements of the growing community of tech companies in Pittsburgh. He guessed that it was because many of the companies are still small, and therefore don’t make it onto the radar of the established media in Pittsburgh. [As a side note, if you're [...]
Just to prove that this blog is actually written by two separate people with their individual points of view, here’s a follow-up post to Alan’s Edible Robots post.
Alan’s hypothesis is that Pittsburgh’s technology sector is more heavily weighted toward research than commercialization, and that Pittsburgh’s startup community often seems to consist of researchers who think that a scientific breakthrough in itself is [...]
OK – don’t say I didn’t warn you about getting your dander up…
Pittsburgh is fortunate to have a couple resident journalists from Big Media who cover the local scene, and often get us “above the fold” – witness today’s front page article (below the fold) in the Wall Street Journal entitled, Pittsburgh Puts Robots to [...]