When do you start investing in people and stop investing in software?

Yesterday a friend IM’d me this question out of the blue with a really interesting question: When do you start investing in people and stop investing in software? Before I get into my answer, let’s explore more about investments and how they relate to software and people. What is an investment?  A generic definition for investment is allocating money and /or resources into some initiative with the expectation of gain. Most investment scenarios carry an associated set of risk... [More]

The Difference between a Good and Bad Place to Work.

I enjoy reading the insights I can find from Ben Horowitz (he was founder/CEO of Opsware and nowadays is founder/partner at Andreessen-Horowitz which manages near $3B). I recently read one of his blog posts where he provided a member of his team with his view of the difference between a good place to work and a bad place to work: “In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happe... [More]