Kara Swisher

Recent Posts by Kara Swisher

It's True: A VC's Life Is Like a Day at the Beach

I motored on out to Stinson Beach, the lovely coastal community about an hour’s drive north of San Francisco, yesterday for the annual get-together thrown by True Ventures, a venture firm.

clambake

I missed the clambake part of the event–my kids need tending, so I can’t be all Elvis-acting!–but had a nice time chatting with its partners on the sand.

True is an interesting and highly eclectic fund, and much less formal than other more stodgy outfits. Hence, a beach party rather than a gathering at some pricey resort.

Some of its better known companies are Automattic (CEO Toni Schneider is also a True partner and its main product is the WordPress open-source blogging software, used here, btw); GigaOm, Om Malik’s blogging empire; IM apps maker Meebo; blog search apps maker Sphere (also used on this site); and scanR, a start-up that allows digital cameras and cellphones to scan, copy and fax.

I chatted with some partners in this video, as well as an interesting new entrepreneur that True is backing from Chesspark. It’s a little long, and there are some unfortunate wind problems caused by the Pacific Ocean, but you also get an exclusive BoomTown tour guide of the scenic trip.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik