samirabid.com

Here is a link to the Facebook IPO filing:

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm

It makes for compelling, if long!, reading.

As someone starting out on the journey, like I am, then what amazes me is how much of the business still remains in the hands of Mark. Its around 60%, even given all of the funding rounds (5) the business has been through.

As a nice story, its good to see his Dad, the original backer, getting recognised in the share allocation – even though he messed up on activating his share options within the original 12 month window.

I guess when you have something that good you dictate the terms.

Nice article on the 100 year history of IBM. Particularly it focuses on an importance of strong relationships to sustaining market disruption; If people are happy you solved their problem with one technology, then if you have a good relationship with them and they feel you understand the problems their trying to solve, then they will be more willing to accept you providing them with new disruptive technology too.

Interesting perspective.

This is a great article for those looking at a tech start-up. It is a little biased towards young people starting a tech start-up but generally the 18 mistakes that kill start-ups is a good read.

Two parts resonated particularly strongly with me, and other (non-programmers) might have found the same:

Tip 6: Hiring Bad Programmers – the issue here is how to find a good programmer if you are not a programmer yourself, because you don’t have the skills to recognise one (if you can even find one!)

Tip 17: Fights Between Founders – “Don’t start a company with someone you dislike because they have some skill you need and you worry you won’t find anyone else. The people are the most important ingredient in a startup, so don’t compromise there.” - something I totally agree with but (as a non-coder) rather related to the above point.

This though could be the reason its so difficult to find good people who want to help you because “no one really good wants a job implementing the vision of a business guy.” And so lies the problem! … Perhaps its a case of ‘can’t beat them join them’ who knows.

Comments, thoughts and suggestions welcome!

I have been after something like this for a while. Makes a nice pretty picture but is useful too.

http://www.linkedin.com/share?viewLink=&url=http://lnkd.in/GJWHZS&sid=s240371248&urlhash=3bep

With the imminent arrival of the new iPhone 4 I thought I would share these kind of life thoughts from Steve Jobs of Apple.  Linked here.

I like his perspective.

As a nascent entrepreneur myself, I was interested to find this new nascent entrepreneur website.

The website is work in progress by the sound of it but definitely something I would be interested in joining, if its put together well – I have sign-up for up dates at least.