Why isn't the VC community talking about Shark Tank?

Shark Tank is a major-network, prime-time show about Venture Capital. So with all the great VC/entrepreneur bloggers and twitter(er)s, why isn't anyone buzzing about it?

A description: a small businessperson comes to 5 rich people (the "sharks") with their business and an offer (e.g. $48k for a 25% stake). The businessperson pitches their idea. The sharks ask questions ("how much do you sell in a day?" "how much does it cost to make this?"). The sharks make counter offers (most involve the same amount of money for at least a 51% stake). They show off their advantages ("you want me to invest because I know retail, and you're a retailer"). Isn't this the kind of transparency that we want?

Now, yes, it's a bad show. The sharks brag about the great deals they've made and how rich they are, without mentioning the fact that, say, he made his money by selling at the peak of the bubble and Mattel's acquisition of his company "has been called one of the worst acquisitions in corporate history."

But this is major network tv. We need bad shows to rally around, so that there will be less popular but better shows. For instance, Saturday Night Live. Sucks. But it takes there being an SNL for there to be a Dana Carvey show (which featured Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert).

And yes, it's not about tech. It's about consumer retail and people making stuffed animals with cubby holes so that kids can organize their playroom by anally fisting a monkey. That's not interesting to the tech crowd. It's not really interesting to any crowd.

But this is the first show that has people present business plans, then criticize them, and giving you a glimpse into how capitalists think and operate. Shouldn't we be singing ABC's praises for giving us even this?

Dan's advice on Resume Writing.

It's intern-hiring season, so I'm reading more resumes at work and for friends. Here are some thoughts I have.

[These are my thoughts, not necessarily my employer's. And check out Steve Yegge's tips for a longer but better-written piece.]

One Page.

Your resume fits on a page. "But I need more than one page--" No, you don't. Either you're junior enough that you can fit it on a page, or you're awesome enough that you don't even need to list every detail. (Exception: researchers. Then you're working more on a CV than a resume.) Yes, this will mean cutting down on stuff. And as you get older, it will mean cutting stuff out. Your awesome responsibilities as a lifeguard at the pool were important when you were a sophomore, not when you're a 30 year-old.

Each word should give someone a reason to want to hire you.

Go re-read your resume with that in mind.

Give me what I need, but not too much.

Yes, you need the keywords to be in there. Tell me you were a software engineer. Tell me what languages you know. But you don't need to tell me that a software engineer "designs, implements, and verifies software code to" yadda yadda.

Give me hooks.

Here's where I diverge most from Steve's advice. There are two uses of the resume. One is to get the interview. The next is to make the interview better. For the first part, you want to trim the fat. For the second, you want to leave what I call "hooks". Interesting sentences that will make your interviewer look down at your resume, then look up at you and say, "huh, this is interesting." Then, it's your time to shine. On my resume, I have hooks for small talk ("Opened for The Who"), and then hooks for what I care about ("enjoy tackling low-hanging technical fruit to bring about societal change").

My resume screener won't care about these hooks. And they probably won't even come up on a first-pass interview (where the interviewer cares more if I've ever actually seen a computer). But when I'm talking with someone who knows I can code, and wants to know if I can code the right things, this is a useful sentence. Put enough of yourself on the page so an interviewer will give you the chance to come out in person.

Go back, cut it down again.

OK, you have a resume. Now go back and fix it, cause it's probably still bad. No, seriously, 15 minutes now will get you farther faster. Basically, candidates write what they think resume readers want to see. Stop that. Write what you'd want to read.

Steve (linked above, also here) spends a lot of time on the bad writing that pervades many resumes. Go read that. I'll wait. Back? Good. Now, take out your resume, reread each word, and cut it out unless you can convince your antagonistic alter ego that it's truly necessary.

Share, and look at other people's.

The best way to get a better resume is to ask the 5 people you most admire (in a similar job/field) to see their resumes. You'll probably go "oooh, that looks nice". Then stop and think about what makes it nice. Copy those attributes shamelessly. Then, the next time a friend asks for resume help, say, "okay, and here's mine, so you can see what I like in resumes." (This also has the side benefit of making you keep yours up-to-date)

For better encryption key distribution, look to Leisure Suit Larry. [a response to Bruce Schneier]

A few months ago, there was an uproar over our Predator drones in Afghanistan broadcasting video unencrypted. Techies coast-to-coast were a-twitter with glee that the military-industrial complex can't do anything right. Bruce Schneier put them in their place by pointing out that this data comes with an expiration date. We only need it stay encrypted for a few hours/days. He suggested a whole new key exchange system for this sort of data.

Here's my proposal: go back to the classics. I'm referring, of course, to the 1987 softcore software magnum opus Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. An adventure game in the vein of other Sierra On-Line franchises of the day (Kings Quest, Space Quest, Police Quest), it added one very important aspect: boobies. And to avoid the label of smut-peddlers, it added a CAPTCHA-esque ingenuity I think we'd do well to remember.

When you wanted to play the game, you entered your age. And then, it tested you on it. So if you said you were 25, it would ask you questions about the popular music of 10 years earlier. You could claim you were 18, but if you had the pop-cultural IQ of a 10 year-old, you were still locked out.

Predators should send out an encrypted video signal and a hint for the key. This could rest on cultural knowledge of American pop culture, or more specifically it could rely on the specific units the video was made for. You can search Wikipedia for Britney Spears's hit 1999 signal, but can you for, say, the nickname of the commanding general of the 10th Mountain Division?

This isn't industrial grade crypto. But it's a way to give out keys for data whose security has a lifetime of hours, not decades.

[ This is also related to the concept of a Shibboleth. I also vaguely remember, but couldn't find a story from WWII: Germans who'd learned American accent-free would be dressed up in looted American uniforms. They would have been made familiar with American military protocol. So US soldiers started asking them questions like "who won the National League Pennant in 1938." ]

Why isn't Airport Utility 5.5 on the web? [Apple Fail]

Airport Utility is software to administer Apple hardware. It's included with the hardware, and posted on the web. Except for the version I need.

[Apologies, faithful reader(s?), but this post is a diversion from the normal flow(trickle?) of Enfranchised posts. Instead, it's for the internet reader who landed here after performing a WWW search using the engine of their choice.]

Earlier this year, I:

1. bought a Time Capsule (a router/WiFi base station/hard drive). Specifically, the 2009 Time Capsule update.
2. installed Airport Utility (the software to administer the Time Capsule) from the included DVD.
3. cleaned up my apartment and threw out the DVD, because physical media is for suckers.
4. found my copy of Airport Utility got downgraded (perhaps during my Snow Leopard upgrade?)

At http://support.apple.com/downloads/#airport , you can download many versions of Airport Utility. But not 5.5. The latest there is 5.4.1, which works with many Apple Wireless base stations. But not mine. So, until they do post it, my options are:

• download a torrent of Airport Utility 5.5 (probably with viruses)
• buy a new Time Capsule (right)
• borrow DVD from a friend (I don't think I have any with this Time Capsule)
• beg Apple support. (I'll update later)

But, why? This software is useless without an expensive piece of Hardware/Apple Profit. Other versions are public for free download. What is it about Airport Utility 5.5, specifically, that it can't be released for download?

Maybe it:

• has secret data embedded Apple doesn't want you to see. (Unless you've paid the $300)
• is a retail strategy to get me to buy it again. (This is so frustrating that I'm close.)
• would cost too much bandwidth to offer for free download. (Unlike every other version of the same software).

Or, maybe, this update to Airport Utility is just stuck in App Review.

Three Ways to Fix the Airport Security Problem (aka Trains with Rockets)

In the wake of another terror attempt, the TSA is locking down flights. Reports of the regulations include:

• no electronics
• no standing in the last hour of a flight
• only one carry-on bag

These make traveling a lot less attractive: over the past 20 years, a coast-to-coast trip has gotten less convenient. The trip now takes longer (airplanes haven't gotten faster, and I'm more constrained in what I can do).

I see 3 ways to return to the era of luxurious and sumptuous transcontinental travel:

1) Bring sanity to Airport Security. Yeah, this might happen. OK, next solution.

(Oh hey, it turns out that when a problem is hard to solve, it's easier to go around it)

2) Build faster planes. If flying New York to San Francisco took, say, 2 hours, then it's fine not to have your computer. But Concorde tried this, and, well, kind of failed.

3) Screw you, planes. Major airlines already operate a hub-and-spoke model. You know what else uses fixed routes? Trains. You know what have more room than planes? Trains. You know what are almost as fast as planes? Trains with Rockets.

Yes yes yes, trains are more fuel efficient than planes. Do Americans care about fuel efficiency? No. We care about convenience and awesome. Trains with Rockets have both. Heck, I'd even be fine with Trains with Jet engines. Yes, I know they'll never be as fast as planes. But you'll have more leg room. A red-eye will be doable. And you'll get to arrive/leave in city centers. C'mon Mr. President, this massive civil works project is one I can believe in.

Electronics aren't a threat to Planes

[ I've been traveling a lot recently, so excuse me some travel posts ]

"Oh noes! Electronics might cause plane crashes!" Someone somewhere thought this, and now you have to turn off electronics during and after take-off and landing. Yes, it's annoying. And it's not even clear that electronics are bad.

"Well, maybe electronics don't mess it up after all. But as long as there's a risk, shouldn't we be prudent? You can't live without your iPhone game for 20 minutes?" This is a common sense attitude. And it's wrong. Let's take a look at why.

If this attitude worked, the FAA would just say "you can bring bombs on planes, but just don't use them." Of course, terrorists wouldn't listen to this.

So why don't they bring cell phones onto planes, leave them on during takeoff/landing, and crash them? Why has 24 never featured someone jumping up on a plane and saying "I have an electronic device, and I'm not afraid to leave it on!" There are three possibilities:

1. Electronics aren't a threat to planes.
   
2. The DHS is wildly incompetent.
   
3. Cell phones know when they're being held by terrorists, and emit less harmful electromagnetic radiation.
   

This is a lesson in thinking about security: if you won't plan for the worst case (terrorist with a souple-up radio transmitter), there's no point planning for the average case (tourist with an iPod). So why don't Amazon and Apple lobby for people to be allowed to continue to use their Kindles and iPods?

Why does eBay allow sniping?

5 hours left on this auction (I'd give you the link, but then you'd bid against me!) and I am sweating bullets. Why? Because eBay is a jackass. Or eBay are jackasses. Look, eBay behaves jackasserly. With great jackasseritude. How? They end the auction at a fixed time.

I get what they're trying to do: create the atmosphere of exciting bidding by letting people know when to come watch the end of the auction.

The problem? They haven't attracted people, they've attracted computers. People set up auto-bidders that wait until a fraction of a second before the auction ends and then bid it up. This destroys the "thrill of the bid"

So, honest question, why does eBay let this happen? Here's my proposal: if a bid comes in with less than two minutes left in the auction, the auction gets extended for two minutes. Bam, no worrying if you'll get beat without the chance to respond.

This would take off the pressure to bid "in secret" and have to wait until the end.

So... what's the deal, eBay?