What if Marissa Mayer went to jail?

Dai SuganoWednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer presented her company’s side of fighting the National Security Agency over requests to have a look-see at the data of Yahoo users. It’s a tough fight, said Mayer, and one that takes place necessarily in private. Mayer was asked why tech companies had not simply decided to tell the public more about what the U.S. surveillance industry was up to. “Releasing classified information is treason and you are incarcerated,” she said.

Go directly to jail?

No.

How would that work, exactly? Would black helicopters — silent black helicopters — land at Yahoo Intergalactic HQ and take Marissa Mayer away in chains? Wouldn’t that defeat the […]

By |September 12th, 2013|2013, Breaking News, Government, Internet, Privacy and Security|52 Comments
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Apple burnishes while we wait for another breakthrough

SteveJobs3Some readers have asked me for a post on the new Apple iPhones announced yesterday. I’ll get to that in time but prefer to do so when I actually have an iPhone 5S in my hands because I have a very specific column in mind. And no, it’s not the column you think it is. But this is still a good time to write something about Apple in general, which is how Cupertino appears to now stand at a crossroads.

There is a world of difference between Microsoft and Apple but one way they are similar is in facing a generational change. Another way they are similar is in having robust legacy businesses that both put […]

By |September 11th, 2013|2013, Business, Companies, Industry, Phones|86 Comments
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Why Microsoft really bought Nokia


hi-nokia-elop-ballmerThis column, the obvious post on Microsoft buying most of Nokia, is arriving later than I had hoped because we had an Internet failure today at our house on the side of a mountain in Sonoma County near Santa Rosa. We’re 15 minutes from town but the terrain is such that there’s no cellphone service from any carrier, we’re beyond the reach of DSL, there is no cable TV, so our only choices for Internet access are crappy satellite Internet or non-crappy  fixed wireless, which we get from an ISP called CDS1.net. That connection is really good since the ISP’s tower in this part of the county is about 200 feet from my office window.  It’s […]

By |September 3rd, 2013|2013, Companies, Industry, Phones|106 Comments
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I was, uh, wrong: Chromecast does what Google claims

FallonChromeA couple weeks ago when Google introduced its Chromecast HDMI dongle I wrote a column wondering whether it was really such a good product or simply good demoware? Now that I have my own Chromecast and have been playing with it for a few days I have to admit I was wrong. Chromecast appears to be every bit as good as Google claims. That’s not to say it’s perfect (more below) but pretty darned good.

What I really doubted was Google’s claim that the Chromecast could turn on your HDTV, switch the HDMI input, and throw content onto the big screen all in one seamless succession of events. It wasn’t that any […]

By |August 28th, 2013|2013, Business, Internet, Media, Movies, Phones, Reviews, Software, Television|79 Comments
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Advice 5 cents: The role of mentoring in Silicon Valley

skolkovocapThis past weekend I was invited to spend an hour talking about Silicon Valley business with a group of MBA students from Russia. They were on a junket to Palo Alto from the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo. I did my thing, insulting as many people and companies as possible, the students listened politely, and at the end there were a few questions, though not nearly as many as I had hoped for. If you’ve ever heard one of my presentations the most fun tends to take place during the Q&A. That’s because I can’t know in advance what a group really cares about but in the Q&A they can tell me and […]

By |August 26th, 2013|2013, Business, People|38 Comments
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