6 ms·

What Happened in 2014?

111 points by ninago 12y ago

petercooper 12y ago
I've always admired Fred's way of laying things out without any nonsense and seemingly quite transparently. I'm very keen to found out what he thinks 2015 will bring tomorrow (and anyone else in the know, really..)
- rubiquity 12y ago
  Hopefully 2015 will be the year of capitalizing the first letter of the first word in a new sentence.
  - bootload 12y ago
    "... capitalizing the first letter of the first word in a new sentence. ..." Faster to type, easy to run a bit of code to achieve.
    - qznc 12y ago
      It is not "easy [...] to achieve", e.g. try the code on this sentence, Dr. bootload.
      - Retr0spectrum 12y ago
        Shouldn't it be "Dr. Bootload" anyway?
        samatman 12y ago
        It is certainly Dr. bell hooks.
      - bootload 12y ago
        The only real constraints are sentences with first non-alpha. I'd try something like: converted is store for modified text new paragraph is store for modified sentences abbreviations is list of common abbreviations (eg,nb,dr...) paragraph is split by newline '\n' for each newline in paragraph /* abbreviation check using '.' seps */ if fullstops in newline greater than one check newline for abbreviations and replace /* break down para into newlines by '.' */ split newline into sentences by '.' for sentence in sentences if sentence starts with word replace first letter with upper else move to first word, replace with upper /* build up paragraphs */ append sentence to new paragraph /* modified text */ append new paragraph to converted write converted to display tricky bit is 'abbreviations & dots' [0] & preserving the format. Will fail on names (eg: J.A. Smith) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_abbreviations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_abbreviations
  - fredwilson 12y ago
    ha! that's great. i don't think i'm going to do that though.
    - rubiquity 12y ago
      You did it![0] 0 - http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to-happen/ http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to-happen/
sysk 12y ago
I love hating on VCs as much as the other guy, but I must admit I'm envious of the ability of Fred Wilson (and VCs in general) to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I wonder if that's a skill that can be learned/taught.
- fredwilson 12y ago
  yes, absolutely. when you do something every day for 25 years, you get good at. i could not do it one bit when i started out. it's a learned skill not something you are born with
- vinceguidry 12y ago
  A VC in particular has to optimize for this kind of thinking in order to get a better signal-to-noise ratio on his investments. Think about how it's different from other kinds of investing. Warren Buffett looks for industries that are stable and picks good companies that operate in those industries. To do this well you need to know what makes an industry stable and what makes a company good. Examine enough of them, avoid trying to get rich quickly, build a system, and you can do well at it. VC by definition operates in unstable industries and has to pick winners based both on having a good read of people so as to pick good founders, and having a good read of society so as to have an idea of which kind of ventures might succeed. To do well investing you need to have a good deal of money, to earn this money you generally have to be successful, the act of creating that success later plays a role in helping you to understand what makes a good investment. So, you start out, conquer an industry and make a bunch of money, then use that success to make even more money investing in other people. If you can do both of these things, then you can not put your foot in your mouth every third word when trying to predict the future. Maybe you can cut it down to every third paragraph.
- zhte415 12y ago
  It is a skill, and is often trained or realised by people in a leadership position: stop doing, start reflecting. Spend your working time reflecting about what's going around you (and the hope is, answers will flow). That doesn't mean meditating in your office, but making the time and having the freedom to think (and, sometimes, experiment, sometimes wildly). This is harder to so in some environments, but often, the more one goes up a ladder of influence, the easier it becomes (self efficiency, delegation, understanding of employer or sponsor). I have no idea regarding VCs, but in large companies a common formula is: Managers: 10% of time for reflection Managers of managers: 20-30% of time Managers of managers of managers and further through the tree: 60% of time This power of reflection increases clarity in decision, communication, and impact, whatever the field. Contrast this with the need to constantly fight fires with no time to think about the big picture. Often, it doesn't work out this way. Lack of delegation, filling more than one role at the same time ('stretch goals' that really mean the organisation is under resourced), desire for immediate impact stop this from working.
jobu 12y ago
"7/ youtube became a monster. it always has been. but in 2014 youtube emerged as the place for entertainment consumption for anyone under 16" This seems so huge to me - maybe it's because I have kids and saw it happen firsthand over the course of this year.
- cms07 12y ago
  Can you elaborate some on this?
  - jobu 12y ago
    Not sure exactly how it happened. It started out as watching Minecraft videos and morphed into other game reviewers. Lately it's been everything from fashion shows to scripted shows like Video Game High School (https://www.youtube.com/show/videogamehighschoolvghs https://www.youtube.com/show/videogamehighschoolvghs) A couple years ago we dropped cable TV because everyone was watching Netflix, now I'm thinking about dropping Netflix because the kids all watch Youtube (and I don't need to be wasting time on Netflix).
- gbog 12y ago
  Well, I guess I should thank the great firewall then, for my kids hardly ever watch YouTube, or tv.
  - seanmcdirmid 12y ago
    Youku and tudou are virtually a mirror of youtube. Not to mention new entrants like bilibili. I would say the Chinese video scene is much more wild and crazy than outside of China.
- cvander 12y ago
  Facebook is doing video very good and very quiet. We're getting more views on a native videpost in facebook with less likes than from youtube with more subscribers. Part of this is because of the auto-play in the newsfeed.
- 12y ago
UweSchmidt 12y ago
"8/ we finally got rid of files. dropbox, google drive, soundcloud, spotify, netflix, hbogo, youtube, wattpad, kindle, and a host of other cloud based services finally killed off three letter filenames" This is amazing and I guess I'll need to meditate over this fact (as I still like those files on my computer, feels as if I own them). For now I'd still recommend holding on to your important stuff and considering the nature of the relationship between you and your cloud provider.
- marcusgarvey 12y ago
  This completely ignores the impact of the Snowden revelations which might curtail this trend.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    The overwhelming majority of people have made no changes after Snowden. Even on HN most people have only made a few changes. Only a tiny number of HN users have PGP / GPG keys available, for one example.
- jordanpg 12y ago
  It's interesting to consider this observation in the context of young people who will grow up largely without the abstraction of local file storage at all. Anyone over 30 or so still feels slightly nervous or protective of their files, but that's only because we've internalized the analogy between stored data and physical stuff. I suspect the abstraction of a local filesystem will become more and more quaint and give way to popular abstraction involving a remote, distributed filesystem of some sort.
- vezzy-fnord 12y ago
  We haven't gotten rid of files, we've just obfuscated their existence. Akin to putting a splash screen, or allegorically sticking our heads in the sand. If we had actually devised an alternative to hierarchical file systems and moved to something like a persistent object store (as with Newton OS, PalmOS and some other platforms), that would have been impressive, though in the long term might not turn out well due to relative novelty and lack of battle testing to the idea. In fact, trying to pretend files don't exist in an environment dominated by them is foolish.
schuman 12y ago
And Fred Wilson's baby Zynga has now lost more than 75% of it's value at IPO. That's money well-stolen in an obvious but successful con.
crimsonalucard 12y ago
People will only know what really happened in 2014 when it's 2017. It's too soon to say whether something is just a fad or an actual paradigm shifting trend.
- fredwilson 12y ago
  correct

111 points by ninago 12y ago

I've always admired Fred's way of laying things out without any nonsense and seemingly quite transparently. I'm very keen to found out what he thinks 2015 will bring tomorrow (and anyone else in the know, really..)

rubiquity 12y ago
Hopefully 2015 will be the year of capitalizing the first letter of the first word in a new sentence.
- bootload 12y ago
  "... capitalizing the first letter of the first word in a new sentence. ..." Faster to type, easy to run a bit of code to achieve.
  - qznc 12y ago
    It is not "easy [...] to achieve", e.g. try the code on this sentence, Dr. bootload.
    - Retr0spectrum 12y ago
      Shouldn't it be "Dr. Bootload" anyway?
      - samatman 12y ago
        It is certainly Dr. bell hooks.
    - bootload 12y ago
      The only real constraints are sentences with first non-alpha. I'd try something like: converted is store for modified text new paragraph is store for modified sentences abbreviations is list of common abbreviations (eg,nb,dr...) paragraph is split by newline '\n' for each newline in paragraph /* abbreviation check using '.' seps */ if fullstops in newline greater than one check newline for abbreviations and replace /* break down para into newlines by '.' */ split newline into sentences by '.' for sentence in sentences if sentence starts with word replace first letter with upper else move to first word, replace with upper /* build up paragraphs */ append sentence to new paragraph /* modified text */ append new paragraph to converted write converted to display tricky bit is 'abbreviations & dots' [0] & preserving the format. Will fail on names (eg: J.A. Smith) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_abbreviations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_abbreviations
- fredwilson 12y ago
  ha! that's great. i don't think i'm going to do that though.
  - rubiquity 12y ago
    You did it![0] 0 - http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to-happen/ http://avc.com/2015/01/what-is-going-to-happen/

sysk 12y ago

I love hating on VCs as much as the other guy, but I must admit I'm envious of the ability of Fred Wilson (and VCs in general) to zoom out and see the bigger picture. I wonder if that's a skill that can be learned/taught.

fredwilson 12y ago
yes, absolutely. when you do something every day for 25 years, you get good at. i could not do it one bit when i started out. it's a learned skill not something you are born with
vinceguidry 12y ago
A VC in particular has to optimize for this kind of thinking in order to get a better signal-to-noise ratio on his investments. Think about how it's different from other kinds of investing. Warren Buffett looks for industries that are stable and picks good companies that operate in those industries. To do this well you need to know what makes an industry stable and what makes a company good. Examine enough of them, avoid trying to get rich quickly, build a system, and you can do well at it. VC by definition operates in unstable industries and has to pick winners based both on having a good read of people so as to pick good founders, and having a good read of society so as to have an idea of which kind of ventures might succeed. To do well investing you need to have a good deal of money, to earn this money you generally have to be successful, the act of creating that success later plays a role in helping you to understand what makes a good investment. So, you start out, conquer an industry and make a bunch of money, then use that success to make even more money investing in other people. If you can do both of these things, then you can not put your foot in your mouth every third word when trying to predict the future. Maybe you can cut it down to every third paragraph.
zhte415 12y ago
It is a skill, and is often trained or realised by people in a leadership position: stop doing, start reflecting. Spend your working time reflecting about what's going around you (and the hope is, answers will flow). That doesn't mean meditating in your office, but making the time and having the freedom to think (and, sometimes, experiment, sometimes wildly). This is harder to so in some environments, but often, the more one goes up a ladder of influence, the easier it becomes (self efficiency, delegation, understanding of employer or sponsor). I have no idea regarding VCs, but in large companies a common formula is: Managers: 10% of time for reflection Managers of managers: 20-30% of time Managers of managers of managers and further through the tree: 60% of time This power of reflection increases clarity in decision, communication, and impact, whatever the field. Contrast this with the need to constantly fight fires with no time to think about the big picture. Often, it doesn't work out this way. Lack of delegation, filling more than one role at the same time ('stretch goals' that really mean the organisation is under resourced), desire for immediate impact stop this from working.

jobu 12y ago

"7/ youtube became a monster. it always has been. but in 2014 youtube emerged as the place for entertainment consumption for anyone under 16" This seems so huge to me - maybe it's because I have kids and saw it happen firsthand over the course of this year.

cms07 12y ago
Can you elaborate some on this?
- jobu 12y ago
  Not sure exactly how it happened. It started out as watching Minecraft videos and morphed into other game reviewers. Lately it's been everything from fashion shows to scripted shows like Video Game High School (https://www.youtube.com/show/videogamehighschoolvghs https://www.youtube.com/show/videogamehighschoolvghs) A couple years ago we dropped cable TV because everyone was watching Netflix, now I'm thinking about dropping Netflix because the kids all watch Youtube (and I don't need to be wasting time on Netflix).
gbog 12y ago
Well, I guess I should thank the great firewall then, for my kids hardly ever watch YouTube, or tv.
- seanmcdirmid 12y ago
  Youku and tudou are virtually a mirror of youtube. Not to mention new entrants like bilibili. I would say the Chinese video scene is much more wild and crazy than outside of China.
cvander 12y ago
Facebook is doing video very good and very quiet. We're getting more views on a native videpost in facebook with less likes than from youtube with more subscribers. Part of this is because of the auto-play in the newsfeed.
12y ago

UweSchmidt 12y ago

"8/ we finally got rid of files. dropbox, google drive, soundcloud, spotify, netflix, hbogo, youtube, wattpad, kindle, and a host of other cloud based services finally killed off three letter filenames" This is amazing and I guess I'll need to meditate over this fact (as I still like those files on my computer, feels as if I own them). For now I'd still recommend holding on to your important stuff and considering the nature of the relationship between you and your cloud provider.

marcusgarvey 12y ago
This completely ignores the impact of the Snowden revelations which might curtail this trend.
- DanBC 12y ago
  The overwhelming majority of people have made no changes after Snowden. Even on HN most people have only made a few changes. Only a tiny number of HN users have PGP / GPG keys available, for one example.
jordanpg 12y ago
It's interesting to consider this observation in the context of young people who will grow up largely without the abstraction of local file storage at all. Anyone over 30 or so still feels slightly nervous or protective of their files, but that's only because we've internalized the analogy between stored data and physical stuff. I suspect the abstraction of a local filesystem will become more and more quaint and give way to popular abstraction involving a remote, distributed filesystem of some sort.
vezzy-fnord 12y ago
We haven't gotten rid of files, we've just obfuscated their existence. Akin to putting a splash screen, or allegorically sticking our heads in the sand. If we had actually devised an alternative to hierarchical file systems and moved to something like a persistent object store (as with Newton OS, PalmOS and some other platforms), that would have been impressive, though in the long term might not turn out well due to relative novelty and lack of battle testing to the idea. In fact, trying to pretend files don't exist in an environment dominated by them is foolish.

schuman 12y ago

And Fred Wilson's baby Zynga has now lost more than 75% of it's value at IPO. That's money well-stolen in an obvious but successful con.

crimsonalucard 12y ago

People will only know what really happened in 2014 when it's 2017. It's too soon to say whether something is just a fad or an actual paradigm shifting trend.

fredwilson 12y ago
correct