Master of 500 Hats

Miniature City

(hat tip yongfook)

Securitizing Happiness: Hacking Human Suffering thru Financial Engineering (TEDxShanghai, June 2009)

Below are slides from my talk on "Securitizing Happiness" at TEDxShanghai later today.  This presentation is a slight update to the original talk i gave back in March 2008 at the O'Reilly Collective Intelligence FOO Camp, held at Google HQ in Mountain View:

Securitizing Happiness: Solving the World's Problems by Making Trillion-Dollar Markets for Individuals, Small Business, & Natural Resources

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave McClure.

Note: many of these concepts are still fairly raw, and since i'm not really a financial engineering expert they could certainly use further refinement... so your feedback and comments are appreciated.  That said, i'm optimistic the basic ideas here are viable, worthwhile and can have substantial economic impact on society in the future.

Lucky Josh on a Wall

Lucky Josh on a Wall
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

what are the chances -- running into a music video shoot on the Great Wall of China? yes, indeed... josh is feeling lucky today :)

Geeks On A Wall

Geeks On A Wall
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

Exciting day in Beijing: we climbed The Great Wall of China, stormed The Forbidden City, and conquered Tiananmen Square.

GeeksOnaPlane were pretty active today. And the Chinese people were very nervous.

Startup Metrics for Pirates (Startonomics Beijing, June 2009)

Here is current "Startup Metrics for Pirates" presentation which i'll be giving at Startonomics Beijing: 

Startup Metrics for Pirates (Startonomics Beijing, June 2009)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave Mcclure.

Note this is fairly similar to previous versions of the talk, with a few slides i've stolen liberally from Eric Ries (aka Startup Lessons Learned / The Lean Startup).  If you find my presentation boring, please check out Eric's stuff (he rocks).

Baka Gaijin.

Baka Gaijin.
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

GeeksOnaPlane climb Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills (Tokyo) to make crazy photos.

US Startup Investment Market Overview (Startonomics Tokyo, June 2009)

Presentation on the US Startup Investment Market from Startonomics Tokyo:

US Startup Investment Market (Startonomics Tokyo, June 2009)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave Mcclure.

US Platforms & Social Networking (Startonomics Tokyo, June 2009)

Here is presentation from the panel i'll be giving on US Platforms & Social Networking this afternoon at Startonomics Tokyo conference in Japan.  This is part of the GeeksOnaPlane East Asia tour.

Overview of US Platforms & Social Networking (Startonomics Tokyo, June 2009)

View more OpenOffice presentations from Dave Mcclure.

The 2009 TechFellow Awards: The Envelope, Please...

2009 TechFellow Awards
Photos by davemc500hats

Thanks to everyone who helped us pull together the first inaugural TechFellow Awards (2009)... according to a few who remembered the evening, it was a raging success :)

I'd like to congratulate all of our 22 TechFellow winners, as well as thank our nominating committee, and TechCrunch and many many others for helping us produce the event.

If you'd like to see more, you can find my photos of the 2009 TechFellow Awards (photos) and also the 2009 TechFellow Awards (uStream webcast).

(one other note: we are all saddened by the recent passing of Rajeev Motwani, and our condolences to his wife Asha and family... thanks to Ron Conway for providing a thoughtful tribute to his dear friend at the beginning of the award presentations)

DMC Metamorphosis :)

I feel like i've hit a turning point in my life.  Something has happened in the past 6 months, in the past 3 years since leaving Simply Hired & PayPal.  I'm not sure when it all clicked, but i've been fortunate to have a lot of wonderful things come my way lately.

Those things include but are not limited to:

• working with / investing in great startups like Mint (thx Aaron), SlideShare (thx Rashmi & Jon), TeachStreet (thx Dave), and many others
• running conferences like Startonomics SF (thx Debbie), Graphing Social Patterns (thx Gina & Tim), and Web 2.0 Expo SF (thx Brady & Jen)
• creating the now-infamous Stanford Facebook class (thx BJ, Yee, Jia, many others & our students!)
• coming up with Startup Metrics for Pirates AARRR! (thx Hiten, Andrew, Eric, *SO* many others) 
• getting Startup2Startup rolling last year (thx Leonard, Brian, Kat, Saar, & MANY friends/sponsors)
• joining FoundersFund this year (thx Sean Parker for giving me a shot)
• launching FF Angel LLC and investing in some great startups (thx FF, also Jeff Clavier & many other angels & VCs for great advice)
• retooling fbFund & creating the fbFund REV incubator program (thx Cat & folks at FB, Accel & FF, many others)
• kicking off GeeksOnaPlane Asia trip (thx Christine, George, lots others)
• putting Finance4Founders together & ready to rollout (thx Dan & others)

while this may seem like a laundry list, the one common thread in all of the above projects has been the amazing help of my friends & colleagues.  there is no way i could have accomplished any of these efforts without the patience, tolerance, brilliance, and sheer hard work of my home boys & girls.  you folks really do rock.  (and i know how much of a pain in the butt i am to work with!)

seriously: how lucky am i, to be blessed with so many incredible people in my life, who have given me so much, created such tremendous opportunities... while i remain the lazy, ADD, easily-distracted, crazy sonuvabitch i've always been, who barely manages to make rent each month. i mean, it's nothing short of a miracle that i can find my ass with both hands in the morning, and yet somehow after so many years in the valley i have found a nice little groove. how cool is that.

these days i actually wake up early & excited to do the work i'm doing, happy as a newborn puppy to spend time working on projects with people i like, and i keep pinching myself to make sure this shit doesn't disappear tomorrow.  well even if it did, i would treasure the moments thus far...

lastly, i must acknowledge the folks at home who help me find purpose and reason amidst all this insanity... thank you to my wife and our two beautiful kids.  you are the light of my life, and your smiles & laughter are precious beyond the treasure and measure of mortal men.  

truly, i am a very lucky person.  thank you to everyone :)