AlleyCorp Seeds a Blossoming Internet Hub in New York

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Saturday, September 01, 2012

AlleyCorp Seeds a Blossoming Internet Hub in New York

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

Kevin Ryan reclines in a designer chair in his Park Avenue office, wearing a Luciano Barbera suit and a vintage Rolex watch. A picture of Mr. Ryan with President Obama is on the wall and an ornate Oscar de la Renta gown hangs from the door.

This is not a man who would blend in among the sneaker-clad start-up ranks of Silicon Valley. Yet Mr. Ryan, chief executive of the Gilt Groupe and a founder of several prominent Internet companies, is one of the technology world’s most influential people, with a career trajectory that mirrors the rise of New York’s tech scene.

Mr. Ryan and Dwight Merriman run a start-up factory called AlleyCorp, after Silicon Alley, a nickname given to New York’s answer to Silicon Valley. It has churned out companies that have almost nothing in common, from e-commerce to publishing to database software.

When asked about this start-up grab bag, Mr. Ryan smiled and said, “Are you saying I have a focus problem?”

Gilt.com, which sells luxury goods like designer clothes and vacation packages, is considering going public next year. Business Insider, another AlleyCorp company, is a blog publisher with 19 million readers a month, run by Henry Blodget, the infamous former Internet stock analyst. And 10gen, which makes MongoDB, open-source database software that is used by companies like Disney and Foursquare, was valued at $500 million by venture capitalists who invested $50 million in May.

These companies contribute to New York’s growing role as an Internet hub, particularly for the new generation of online media and retail companies. Last year, 256 New York tech start-ups raised $2.2 billion in investment, up from 149 and $1.3 billion five years ago, according to the National Venture Capital Association.

“Silicon Valley is on their fifth generation,” Mr. Ryan said. “We’re on our second or third generation of New York entrepreneurs, combined with a bigger and better infrastructure to support it, so the scene is just mushrooming.”

Mr. Ryan made his name during the first tech boom as chief executive of DoubleClick, the digital advertising company that Google bought for $3.1 billion in 2007.

“He doesn’t fit into the Valley mold as much, but he’s definitely one of the most prominent people here,” said Chris Dixon, a New York tech investor and entrepreneur. “He went off and did this thing that entrepreneurs fantasize about, starting multiple companies and having them be really successful.”

For more, visit www.nytimes.com.

Marc Andreessen Inverview

This morning Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen-Horowitz, was interviewed on CNBC’s Squawk Box.  Mr. Andreessen was also the founder of Netscape.

The interview covered a variety of topics, including the current climate in Silicon Valley as opposed to that of the late 1990s, government regulation, venture capital, private equity, and trade with China.

The interview is over 18 minutes long, but it is worth a listen.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000076440

Wall Street Brain Drain

CNBC's Jane Wells reports on who the next generation of capitalists look up to now.  Click the link for video.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000073245

Wall Street vs. Silicon Valley Talent Hunt

CNBC reports that thanks to a new crop of overnight billionaires in tech, keeping Wall Street's top talent has become more difficult.  Click the link below for video.

http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000073215

For Start-Ups, Sorting the Data Cloud Is the Next Big Thing

The following excerpt is from the Business Section of the December 26 New York Times.

For Start-Ups, Sorting the Data Cloud Is the Next Big Thing

By MALIA WOLLAN

SAN FRANCISCO — The idea of big data goes something like this: In a world of ever-increasing digital connectivity, ever larger mountains of data are produced by our cellphones, computers, digital cameras, RFID readers, smart meters and GPS devices. The huge quantity of data becomes unwieldy and difficult for companies and governments to manage and understand.

“My smartphone produces a huge amount of data, my car produces ridiculous amounts of really valuable data, my house is throwing off data, everything is making data,” said Erik Swan, 47, co-founder of Splunk, a San Francisco-based start-up whose software indexes vast quantities of machine-generated data into searchable links.

Companies search those links, as one searches Google, to analyze customer behavior in real time.

Splunk is among a crop of enterprise software start-up companies that analyze big data and are establishing themselves in territory long controlled by giant business-technology vendors like Oracle and I.B.M.

Founded in 2004, before the term “big data” had worked its way into the vocabulary of Silicon Valley, Splunk now has some 3,200 customers in more than 75 countries, including more than half the Fortune 100 companies.

The amount of data being generated globally increases by 40 percent a year, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, the consulting firm’s research arm. And while Splunk has a lead in selling software to analyze machine data, big data is big enough to create new opportunities for a multitude of start-ups, many of them using the open-source software Hadoop.

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