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Startup School, Meraki, Acquisition instead of Innovation?

 yCombinator just posted all its videos from Startup School 2013.. Including the Jack Dorsey talk that I posted earlier.

Meraki was a company that grew out the Roofnet Project at MIT to make wireless meshing and networking easier. They were acquired by Cisco, and now have turned full circle to supply MIT with wireless networking.

How can it be cheaper for companies just to acquire rather than innovate? Shouldn’t have Cisco spent $1.2 billion on R&D instead? WPP is another company that behaves in a similar way – instead of trying to understand a new generation, they just bought Vice.

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Meta Business Logic, Attention Blindness, Elinor Ostrom and the Commons

Shouldn’t it be possible to make a completely online activity that generate content of some kind or other – then embed the business logic of the activity into the pricing system? You could make activities that live in the cloud, that only generate profit and always cover their costs.

Of course, The Activity is something completely different.

I love ELI5.

What is happening to your eyes (& brain) when you are thinking about something & you stare into the distance, seemingly oblivious to what is happening in front of your eyes?

Was the one that got me into it. Attention blindness was something that I did that used to drive my brother and sister crazy – they could be shouting into my ear, but I would be lost in thought.

Elinor Ostrom was an economist who was particularly interested in the Commons. Near where I grew up in Wales there was a common where my brother and I would punt a rugby ball back and forth as the sun went down – we also shared the field with some rare orchids and several horses. I only realise now how lucky I was to have direct experience of common land.

The FNF are trying to bring an electronic commons to life in North America. Alter Mundi are trying to do the same in South America.