Over the past three years, the number of noncompete lawsuits has increased by 43%; over the past decade, the number has nearly doubled.
Who says these things don’t matter ?
Month: March 2008
Ceremony – Joy Division
My post about Ian Curtis yesterday put me in a Joy Division state of mind. This song brings back so many memories.
11-17-70 is without a doubt my favorite Elton John record. It’s simply amazing from beginning to end.
Day Without Me – U2
Sometimes I forget just how incredible U2 is. This song was written almost 30 years ago. It’s from their debut record “Boy”.
It was inspired by the suicide death of Ian Curtis. At the time Bono believed that Ian Curtis was the best lead man in rock. Joy Division is one of my favorite bands so that claim might not be a stretch in my world.
We had a fun night after our annual LP mtg. We went to Jillians with all of our LPs for a night of bowling and pool.
David shooting pool at the Spark LP post mtg party
Do You Remember Rock & Roll Radio – Ramones (demo version)
For me rock & roll radio is alive and well thanks to my friends on Tumblr and Hype Machine. Long live rock.
Thinking about competition
In the late 90’s there was a lot of talk about Microsoft and their monopoly on the desktop.
They were absolutely feared at that time. And it wasn’t that long ago. Less than 10 years ago actually. During those days there were plenty of people that strongly felt Microsoft needed to be broken up into separate companies.
I never agreed with that idea. First, I’m not really comfortable with the government coming to the rescue on technology market matters. And it also felt that politicians that were making the boldest breakup MSFT speeches were being supported by MSFT’s competitors (sun, novell, etc) in their home market.
But the main reason I opposed a forced breakup of MSFT is that ultimately the innovation market takes over.
The competitve landscape in Microsoft’s world and media & technology broadly has changed in many more ways that anyone could have predicted. Certainly in the timeframe we have been talking about. Consider:
-Traditional media companies under attack (daily) by newcomers
-Traditional media companies reinventing themselves
-Walled gardens coming down everywhere
-Phone companies under attack by newcomers
-Google going after Microsoft’s desktop app market
-Microsoft going after Google’s search market
-Telco’s launching payTV services
-Cable companies launching telephone services
-Satellite operators going into the consumer electronics business
-Carriers opening up their networks
-Music market turned upside down again and again
That’s why I almost never ask startups I meet why Google or Microsoft won’t stomp them out of the universe.
Innovation will surely happen even faster over the next 10 years.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
working Sunday morning at Spark
You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will – Snow Patrol (cover)
Lovely song for this Sunday morning. Original by Bright Eyes.