Billions With Zero Knowledge

I’m very excited to be able to post that we announced our angel financing at Akoha today.

Raising angel financing in Canada has unique challenges that I’ve written about here before.   Part of what was most fun about raising this round was the number of incredible investors I was able to meet.   Many of them joined us in this round, but throughout the process I was impressed by the growing strength and sophistication of Canadian angel investors.

Completing a $1.9 million dollar round for a stealth project had its unique moments, but the confidence and support that our investors have shown for the project has been great.

I’d like to welcome all our investors to the Akoha project and thank them for their support.

On Mon 28 Apr 2008. No Comments

Aside from the light hearted April fools day blog posts circulating the web, a so called serious media outlet reported on the dangers of blogging with this gem of an article that appeared in the New York Times this weekend.  The article gives us dire warnings that bloggers can kill themselves with the stress of writing posts.

Check out Marc Andreessen’s headlines that could just as easily been used for this stupid article.

Mathew Ingram does a good round up of the discussion about the article.

I find it ridiculously stupid to equate writing blog posts to digital-era sweatshops.

Comparing the luxury of sitting behind a computer screen writing for fame or fortune (no matter how badly one may pursue this) with the daily work that billions of people do to barely be able to feed themselves is shallow.  Most of these people work to survive while doing truly horrendous, dangerous and labour intensive jobs and don’t wine about not having time for TV, Xbox 360 or being scooped by Valleywag.

I also find it amusing that most of the examples in the article are actually about entrepreneurs trying to build their Hearst inspired mini-ME-dia empires while searching for their own special rosebud.   People work hard at startups, and if you join a media startup to write content then yes - you are on a treadmill to deliver.

Any job can be stressful, but if you don’t love what you are doing and realize how lucky we are to be participating in the upper echelons of privileged society (Western industrialized culture with the many opportunities that Freedom, Capitalism and Education provide us) then a reality check is in order.

Many of us blog because we enjoy it, it’s fun.  While I stress about startups I’m involved in at times as well - I really wouldn’t want to be doing much else and consider myself lucky to be in the game having fun still after all these years.

Illustration by http://www.asafhanuka.com

On Tue 8 Apr 2008. No Comments

It’s the time of year where change is on the brain for most people.

Throughout the holidays we see people reflecting on the past year, making resolutions for the coming year and predictions on what will be different.   The word change get’s passed around a lot.

We have the pleasure of watching the word be mangled in the US Presidential primaries as every candidate jockeys to be the change candidate.

We see the predictions from pundits, economists and an assortment of talking heads about what the new year holds in store for people.

From personal change, corporate change, social change and global change everyone wants to get into the fray of talking about what will be better in the coming year.

For me 2008 is shaping up to be exciting year as both Akoha and Standout Jobs are getting ready to launch their products this year.

While my blog went kind of dark over the last six months we were hard at work in a number of areas getting ready for 2008.   You can expect to see more posts from me as we move to get ready to release our products.   I’ll also be continuing to work in the communities I enjoy that are all showing so much promise for 2008.  

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.

                                        E. B. White (1899 - 1985)

In thinking about my own optimism and excitement for the coming year I came across a book from Edge.org (one of my favorite websites) that includes some of the top minds in the world answering the  question "What are you Optimistic About?".

This is a printed version of last year’s Edge annual question and includes some incredible essays on some of the most positive changes we are seeing throughout our society.  John Brockman the editor of Edge has collected answers from some of my favourite thinkers making this one of my favorite books of the year.

You can see most of the essays online at 2007 Edge Annual Question.

Also check out the 2008 Edge Annual Question, "What have your change your mind about? And Why?".

I’d love to hear from any of you what you are optimistic about?

Here’s wishing everyone the gift of change for the New Year.

On Wed 9 Jan 2008. No Comments

Despite appearances I haven’t been in hiding purposefully in recent weeks. This simple clear instructional video on hiding notwithstanding.

The day to day activities of startup life as an investor and leader of a team have made finding the time to keep up my regular style of posting difficult. I normally like to dig into a topic with a bit of depth (as my long time readers have kindly suffered through) but I am finding too many interesting items that I want to cover. With too little time to do many of them justice with original content, I am going to be making a few minor changes.

I’ll be writing less and posting more often with short links to content and discussions I find interesting.

I’ll add my 0.02 cents where I feel I can add a dash of personal perspective, but I am not going to be authoring a lot of new, deep original content for a little while.

On Mon 16 Jul 2007. 1 Comment

It’s been too long since my last post.  DemocampMontreal 2 was great and there are a lot of great write ups on it, but the best round up comes from Josh at Yashlabs who even included some video (including yours truly playing MC). Simon as always did a great job on the pictures of the event.

I want to thank the great presenting companies, and those of you who joined me for drinks at my place after. It was a great evening with many of the local community exchanging war stories and discussing ways to help each other.

The lack of blog posts since then, does not mean I’m dead.

With the exception of a bruised rib from a stupid household fall which is slowing me down, I’m doing great. 

I’m incredibly busy, but working on critical stuff.   After two weeks on the road at the beginning of March, there was a tons of startup related stuff that is taking precedence over blogging.

I’m entrepreneur first and foremost and my responsibilities to my team to make sure they are surrounded with the right teammates takes a higher priority then blogging right now.

We are in the final phases of completing a couple key hires which is occupying a lot of time.

I’ve got a few have posts that are all 80% written that will trickle out slowly as I finish them.

On Tue 10 Apr 2007. No Comments

During my recent trip to Calgary my friends Patrick Lor, Claudia Moore & Sarah Blue from Cambrian House and Kemptom Lam helped me organize a local blogger dinner where I got to meet some great local entpreneurs, Calgary social media & tech folks.

In attendance where Patrick Lor, Sarah Blue, Claudia Moore, David Gluzman, Tom West,  Jasmine Antonick, Matthew Dorey, Nox Dineen, Matt Lonsdale, Mark Kornak, Ivan Sierralta, Fred Yee, Mark Rosenberger, and Kempton Lam.

Here is a video I shot with some of the local Calgary technology community saying hello.

Tom West has a great write up of the night.

One of the goals of the dinner was to help instigate (in the spirit of my friend & Barcamp/Democamp instigator grandaddy David Crow and Calgary native Tara Hunt) the Barcamp and Democamp movement in Calgary.

My friend Patrick Lor had these kind words and great announcement about Calgary’s Barcamp and Democamp kick off.

Well, he flies into town last week, and this week we have set a date for Calgary’s first BarCamp. Thanks to Austin Hill for instigating all of this. Also, huge thanks to Sarah at Cambrian House for organizing.

BarCamp Calgary will be Calgary’s premiere unconference, a showcase of Calgary’s technology community. Sign up now!

Date: Saturday, May 26th
Time: 9:00 to 6:00
Cost: Free, IF you promise to spread the word to attendees, presenters, and sponsors.

We’re also planning DemoCamp Calgary for April 24th, which is a 2 hour meeting with 4 or 5 company presentations that are strictly PowerPoint free! Why no PowerPoint? - check this out, and see how great a product presentation can be when there are no slides. Sign up here.

Kempton has written up a great report on our discussion about the Barcamp & Democamp ideas that we discussed.

The Barcamp/Democamp local community technology meetups hold a lot of promise for Canada’s technology community and I’m happy to help spread the word.  I saw some interesting companies while sitting as a judge at business plan presentation session that Patrick invited me to participate in. My take is that innovation in Calgary is like with other cities in Canada where there is more going on in our own backyards then most people realize.

I’m already involved as an angel investor in one startup that was born out of the Barcamp movement and have met two of the teams I’m mentoring through these meetups. 

With the great local entrepreneurs and community members I met in Calgary helping get this going I think something similar could easily occur in Calgary.

Just a reminder DemocampMontreal2 is next Thursday March 29th.  There are going to be some interesting surprises at this Democamp so make sure to sign up and come on out.

On Tue 20 Mar 2007. [4] Comments

I’ve had the pleasure to work closely with my friend Craig Silverman for more than five years starting while he was part of the media relations team at Zero-Knowledge Systems and then when we worked together on various projects since then.

As part of my continuing series of interviews with members of the Canadian technology scene it was my chance to turn the microphone towards Craig Silverman to talk about his blog Regret the Error and the various projects he has going on.

So, Mr. Silverman after years of you doing interviews for & with me, this
is a new one. Tell me about how Regret The Error got started, which has become quite the success.

Yes, this is a bit of a switch. My, how the tables have turned, Mr. Hill. The hunter has becomes the hunted. Let’s hope my performance is up to par.

I launched Regret the Error in October 2004, but I came up with the idea several months before and just let it sit for a while. The concept was to create a site that presented the funniest, most egregious and shocking media errors and corrections, and also use this compelling content as a means to get people – journalists and the public – interested in the issue of media accuracy. I had been reading a lot of blogs at the time and wanted to come up with something media-related that might find an audience. To my surprise, the site attracted about 10,000 visitors its first day. That told me I was going to be doing this for a while.

How has the response been from editors and the newspaper industry?

I’m proud to say the response from the journalism community has been overwhelmingly positive. This is good for two reasons.

1. Hopefully it means I’m making a meaningful contribution to discussion and research into the area of media errors and accuracy.
2. And hopefully it suggests that journalists care about these issues and are interested in working on them.

I suppose the counterpoint could be that I’m not being provocative enough to incur dissention, but my goal is to have a positive overall effect on journalism and that means I‘m more interested in having a meaningful, professional discussion as opposed to screaming bloody murder about the press’ problems with accuracy. And, yes, there are problems.

As a side note, there are many editors and working journalists sending in errors and corrections from their own publications. So they seem to have no problem bringing their own missteps to light. I think that’s healthy.

Any thoughts on the changes occurring to the news media industry right now?

Depending on whom you speak with, this is a time when good journalists are losing their jobs or leaving the industry in droves and the mainstream media as we know it is slowing sinking like a dinosaur stuck in a tar pit. Or, it’s a revolutionary time in the history of the press, a time when new technologies are forcing old models and organizations to change and embrace new ways of delivering the news. This means being (get ready for the buzz words) “platform agnostic” – delivering news any and every way people want it. This requires new levels of transparency about the newsgathering process, and involving people other than journalists in the collection and dissemination of information.

I’m generalizing here with the two schools of thought, but as much as I lament the loss of jobs and believe this can only lower the quality of journalism, I look at the changes taking place as part of a remarkable opportunity for both the press and the media-savvy person at large. Journalists used to have a kind of monopoly on the news. Every morning a newspaper would hit your doorstep and tell you what you were supposed to know. Radio would fill you in during the day, and TV would wrap it all up in a nice package at night. Then you could turn to a magazine or book for a more focused or long-term view on the news. It was a nice little ecosystem of information, and the average person largely picked from a menu of options determined by the media itself. It made media companies rich as hell and it made journalists, who are notoriously underpaid, feel a sense of power and responsibility.

Now, for example, anyone can start a blog and report their own news, be it about what their cat did that day, or what they see going on in their community (work, geography, profession, family etc.) In the words of Dan Gillmor, anyone can “commit acts of journalism.” That’s remarkable. It’s also game-changing.

The old model is what one newspaper editor in the US called “fortress journalism.” The media opened the gates and provided the plebes with what the media determined important and then closed up until the next time *they* were scheduled to bring down the word of God. Rarely did the fortress open its gates and let the people in to see how this mysterious news oracle operated, or enable people to make a meaningful contribution. (Think of how little space was devoted to letters to the editor, and how hard it was for the average person to get a submission printed on the op-ed pages.)

Now it’s the people who dictate how, when and where they want their information. The explosion of options for receiving — and producing — news has changed the old dynamic and journalists and media companies are working to adapt. It’s a relatively messy process right now. Large organizations are often by their nature slow to adapt to change and so we have a blossoming of independent news providers, mostly online, doing some remarkably innovative things.

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., the publisher of The New York Times recently set tongues wagging when he said, “I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care, either.” Obviously, he could have phrased that a bit better. “I don’t care” suggests a lack of engagement that brought out the knives in the press, but I think his statement is a positive one. (He subsequently clarified his statement; see here: http://themediamob.observer.com/2007/02/times-sulzberger-newspaper-will-be-around-for-a-long-time.html )

Newspapers as organized providers of information, commentary, analysis and entertainment will continue. But already a newspaper is much more than the paper product: it is a website with podcasts and video, and often also an electronic version. I don’t see the daily paper going away in the very short term, but there’s no question that newspaper newsrooms are thinking of themselves less as being linked to a paper product and more as news providers for a variety of mediums. If the people want their news online, a newspaper damn well better give it to them. And if they want video and audio and archives and chats with journalists etc., these operations know they don’t have much of a choice. People can and will go elsewhere for their news — and they can by and large get it for free. That old fortress is fast crumbling and the villagers have breached the walls.

Maybe that sounds negative, but I think there are remarkable opportunities for news innovation and the barriers to entry are lower than ever before. This is a threat to the established media companies, but they are also extremely well positioned. They have the staff (if they’d just stop cutting and look more to reassigning and retraining…), the resources etc. They also have one thing that brings us back to Regret the Error: credibility. In this onslaught of information and news, people want to find a source that they can trust. It’s an inherent human trait. Trust is a factor in so many of our daily decisions, and it is the cornerstone of the press. If large media organizations can rededicate themselves to delivering demonstrably more accurate, reliable and trustworthy reporting, they can rise above the noise and reaffirm their place at the top of the news food chain. One of the key ways to do this is to (in my best Ronald Reagan voice) tear down those fortress walls. Trust today requires transparency and collaboration. Let the villagers in.

For a really interesting take on this shift, I recommend reading this post from an executive at IDG. It’s really on point:

http://colincrawford.typepad.com/idg/2007/02/the_transformat.html

(Hat tip to the remarkable Jeff Jarvis for spotting it.)

Tell me about your role as Director of Verification for NewAssignment.Net?

Ah, a perfect segue. NewAssignment.Net is a non-profit project started by Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU. The goal is to see how professional journalists and the public at large can collaborate together to research, report, write and edit stories. The idea is to experiment with “open source reporting” and see if we can develop the tools, process and standards that could be used by other media organizations and groups. The focus is on investigative reporting.

My role is to try and develop the fact checking portion of the project. How do we enable groups of people to come together and verify the research and reporting done by the NewAssignment reporters? What tools and systems can we build to meet the highest possible standard of accuracy in what we do? Those are the questions we’re grappling with, and it’s going to take time to answer them. As of now, the team just launched the new site where this “crowdsourced” reporting can take place, and within that site there will soon be a section devoted to networked fact checking. Check it out and please sign up to contribute:

http://zero.newassignment.net

Hopefully, we can develop the technology, policies and practices that can be used by other groups and media organizations to incorporate the so-called “wisdom of crowds” into their work. Reuters has already stepped up with some funding because they recognize the opportunities for this kind of work. And because we’re non-profit, we can act as an incubator and experimental place to advance this concept.

You can read more about my role here:

http://www.newassignment.net/blog/craigsilverman/nov2006/06/can_there_be_inn

More about crowdsourcing here:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html

And:

http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com

You also just got your first book deal, congratulations. What can you tell me about the book?
Thanks. Not to brag, but I’m actually under contract for two books right now. The first is a book based on my work at Regret the Error. It will be a definitive look at media errors and accuracy going back to the time when news was exchanged by word of mouth through the invention of newspapers and broadcast media and into today. I look at how the press evolved to make accuracy a cornerstone of its operations, and how studies over the last 70 years show that we are, unfortunately, not walking the talk. The book will feature tales of some of the most egregious and hilarious media errors of history and recent times, and offer suggestions for making the press more accurate. Of course, it will also include hundreds of the best corrections from the website. It will be released in December. Penguin is publishing it in Canada, and Union Square Press (a division of Sterling) is publishing it in the US, UK and Australia.

The second book is a project I’m co-writing. I’m working with the infamous Mafiaboy. He’s the guy who, as a teenager, unleashed devastating denial of service attacks against web giants like Yahoo!, eBay, E*TRADE etc. back in 2000. The FBI and RCMP hunted him down and arrested him a few months later. He’s now grown up and is ready to tell his story. (He has never uttered a word to the press.) We are also going to write about the realities of online security and offer people and businesses concrete advice about how to protect themselves. His goal now is to help educate people about online security. That book will be published in Fall 2008. Penguin owns the world rights to that one.

I never would have guessed it would come together like this, but if I hadn’t spent three years at Zero-Knowledge I probably wouldn’t be able to write this book with him. It goes to show that you never know how certain experiences are going to benefit you down the road.

What do you find exciting about what’s occurring in Montreal in terms of the technology & social media scene?

Well, I was very impressed by some of what I saw at BarCamp Montreal. I think we’ve got a lot of sleeper hits gestating in Montreal and we’re edging our way towards a bit of a breakout. What I like most is the sense of community that seems to exist. People working in these areas are always open to collaborate, meet and talk. There is competition but also a sense that a rising tide can lift all boats. I continue to be impressed by what Hugh McGuire has done with LibriVox (so much that I wrote about the project for The New York Times and Montreal Gazette; read the articles at http://www.craigsilverman.ca ), and even though he talked a bit of smack about the lethargy of Montrealers, Julien Smith is a podcast master. Though I can drink him under the table and proved it a few weeks back. Then there’s Mitch Joel who, I swear to God, knows everyone. I recently had trouble finding a source for an article I was writing, so I sent Mitch an IM and he gave me the perfect contact in about a minute flat.

I’m also wondering exactly what the hell this Project Ojibwe (now Akoha) thing is all about, Austin? You used to not be able to keep anything a secret and all of a sudden you’re a freaking vault. It scares me, though as a former member of your communications department at Zero-Knowledge, I have to say I’m also extremely proud. As a final note, I think it’s interesting and promising that Google is coming to town. It shows once again that we have a huge amount of talent here. Let the recruiting battles begin.

For a few possible readers of the blog who might want me to ask, have you heard from Spanky Bodega and do you know if he has any words to pass on to his fans?
Spanky actually sent me a letter recently. He is in Costa Rica. It said:

“Craig,

The raven flies at night and the dog howls in the day. Spanky here. Sun is good, beer is better. My novel is coming along well but the police have confiscated chapter two due to its potential to ‘incite violence and upset the masses.’ Will bribe them with Baton Rouge ribs to get it back. Please send 15 racks of Baton Rouge ribs. (Ten for me, five for them. Extra sauce all around.)

And tell everyone to stop worrying; that rash cleared up fine.

Spanky B.”

On Mon 19 Mar 2007. [6] Comments

I admit it. I heart my Twitter. It’s fun and is forming a new way to keep in touch with my friends as I engage in an informal back channel conversation occurring throughout the day.

You can follow my Twitter conversations here - http://twitter.com/austinhill

I don’t find it distracting, with just an IM window quietly sitting there with a soft stream of interesting notes from my friends. I don’t have updates via SMS enabled so my phone isn’t ringing all the time with updates.

Many would call it a perfect viral service, but I hate that viral meme (See my Viral Manifesto) so IMHO it’s the perfect definition of an authentic service that creates emotional bonds that you just want to share with friends.

I got a chance to speak with Evan Williams at the TED conference, where Twitter sort of took off as Loic Le Meur, Jeff Clavier, Michael Parekh, Evan and I were Twittering the TED conference. (at least those were the people I was following who were Twittering. If you were there and I missed you let me know.)

Occurring at the same time Twitter groups were self organizing meetups and conversations were flowing in preparation for SWSX and all of sudden a firestorm of Twitter activity occurred.

I think Twitter hit a tipping point last week and everyone I know who is using it has quickly become addicted to it. Most of my friends I’ve spoken to it are afraid to touch it for fear of another Internet habit to occupy their already busy schedule. Twitter may just become the Tribbles of the Internet.

A number of great posts started to show up about Twitter. Here are some of the good ones I read,

• Anil Dash - Consider Twitter
• Ross Mayfield - Twitter tips the Tuna
• Mathew Ingram - Twitter is noice, but also signal
• Jason Calacanis - Twitter on fire ….
• Ben Yoskovitz - Join the Twitter Ranks
• Mitch Joel - Twitter Is To Blogging What Post-It Notes Are To Notebooks

There are tons of other posts as many people lit a fire of discussions about Twitter taking off.

This got me thinking about how careful the Twitter team and the community of users and developers of new Twitter tools need to be with this new medium.

There have been some great emergent uses of this tool.

• Robert Scoble was looking for help with an introduction to the Joost team that I was able to help with which was cool.
• Joi and I kicked up a conversation about Fatblogging and my new SwiMP3 goggles.
• Tara asking for instant feedback and some references before a presentation.
• Jonathan Boutelle (SlideShare’s CTO) must have Googled across my comment about Slideshare needing audio, and instantly introduced himself and let me know where their roadmap was going. Great customer service tip for anyone out there. Google your name, and instantly reach out to people talking about you. I felt incredible about the Slideshare team and will continue to play with the service as they add more features because of this simple personal service.
• @username broadcast chat conversations
• event organizing for conference parties at SWSX
• backchannel discussions of audience members during panel presentations, and TED talks
• @dictionary by Kosso (very cool)

All this attention and a remark from Calcanis on Twitter last night about commercializing a Pay-Per-Twitter idea got me thinking about how precarious this type of popularity could be for the service.

The infamous Tribbles were endearing to all who came in contact with them (well except Klingons). But they multiplied endlessly. Tribbles became a nuisance quickly as they overran the ship and ruined the party.

Twitter works for me because it’s social. My friends and followers are sharing parts of their day that interest me. I enjoy sharing parts of my day with those who read my blog and follow me on Twitter.

These activities have already created some interesting new conversations, and is bringing me closer to friends that I don’t see enough.

If someone were to start Spittering @ me (SpamTwittering) this would ruin it for me, and I would remove them. I don’t want commercial or overly self promtional Twitter users in my social network.

Like with all communities, there will be plenty of opportunities to build revenue around Twitter - but I don’t think it will be in the area of marketing. Leave marketing out of this unique conversation and the revenue opportunities will come from the community as new emergent behaviours and uses allow for premium services or unique tool offerings.

Tara has a good post about her concerns about the rising popularity of Twitter, read the comments to see some of the debate about Twitter.

I would happily pay for a premium Twitter bot construction kit that would allow me to integrate various Twitter rules & personal reminders in a Yahoo Pipes fashion to build my own Twitter services. There are a number of other premium features I would pay a reasonable annual fee for as well.

We need to think of Twitter like Flickr not like MySpace.

Small communities, within communities. Personal relationships. Emergent games and new forms of communication. Not adwords, pay-per-twits or spittering.

On Fri 16 Mar 2007. [6] Comments

Sometimes the light’s all shining on me
Other times I can barely see
Lately it occurs to me
What a long strange trip it’s been.
Truckin, Grateful Dead

I wrote this post in October 2006 but delayed in posting it until I had time to get comfortable with blogging. Although I’ve edited it a bit in the last couple of weeks before posting, most of the content remains the same. I attempted to write a shorter version of it recently, but decided that I would retain the original format of the post I wrote almost six months ago. It is fitting that I’m posting this from the TED conference since it was the TED conference that inspired the idea for my new project, leading me to leave the company I founded with my brother & father.

It was almost a decade ago in the spring of 1997 when Hamnett and Hammie (my brother & father) and I had just sold our Internet provider Total.Net and had begun to work on a new venture. Our new company was based on the idea that we could build a number of services to protect individuals privacy and security online by making military grade encryption and privacy technologies easy for consumers to use.

There was a very large discussion going on about the fears of Internet users regarding privacy and we felt we could make a positive impact on millions of peoples lives with our solution.

While trying to come up with a name for our new venture, I developed a list of all the encryption & privacy related concepts and keywords that I sent to Hamnett & Hammie. It was my father, Hammie who in a meeting at my apartment keyed onto the words Zero Knowledge from a description of Zero Knowledge Proofs that I had sent around. Shortly thereafter Zero-Knowledge Systems was born. At the time, tongue in cheek names were all the rage and everyone was trying to stand out in the crowded early days of what would become the dot.com boom.

We knew going in that we would catch a lot of grief at times with a name like Zero-Knowledge - but we wanted to stand out. We stood for something different, and the name just seemed to fit.

Our Incredible Journey

The name of course, was only the beginnging of what would become an incredible journey that has lasted almost a decade for me personally.

Our staff would go on to plaster downtown Montreal and our office neighborhood with stickers proclaiming “Changing the World with Zero-Knowledge”. I’m still having to turn down requests from people who want to get some of our old T-Shirts or posters. We wanted the world to know what we stood for - power to the people - privacy for all - we were passionate about changing the way the future would look. We were social entrepreneurs believing that we could both make a profitable company and a contribution to the betterment of society at the same time.

I began capturing notes, journal entries, photo’s and video of the companies ascent early on. I had the idea of writing a book about the companies experience one day. This may have been youthful hubris & arrogance but at the time I was confident we would be a billion dollar company eventually and people would want to know how we did it. Given the time this was not a crazy idea, but you could say I was literally Chasing Billions with Zero Knowledge.

Did we ever have stories though, lot’s of good stories.

Over the course of the next nine years I would rub shoulders with incredible industry and world leaders, extremely well armed cypherpunks, brilliant scientists and luminaries of the technology and venture capital industries. (Too many links to post, but Google has a decent memory of my past activities you can peruse if you are curious.)

I began to spend time with incredible people actively involved in changing the world. I gave speeches at the World Economic Forum, traveled the world meeting and working with global leaders on issues ranging from Ethical Technology Design, Privacy, Security, International Cybercrime law, Canada’s technology innovation strategy, net neutrality, technologies role in social responsibility and many meetings on technology & human rights work.

Amidst the world travels we would also become media darlings, appearing on 60 minutes, CNN, WSJ, NY Times and in hundreds of publications as we became one of Canada’s highest profile Internet startups and acted as a regular expert on the issues of Internet privacy and security.

We brought innovative Silicon Valley style recruiting & retention ideas to Montreal as we exploded onto the Canadian technology scene.

We conducted intelligence agency briefings with most of the alphabet soup agencies, battled killer typhoons in asia, and were taxied to silicon valley in private jets as investors wooed us. We set Canadian records for our financing’s and for awhile were members of that generation of dot.com media darlings.

The Tough Times

There were also a lot of very tough stories and painful lessons we had to learn.

Reducing our head count by the hundreds because of undisciplined growth while reacting to the meltdown of the private and public equity markets. Managing teams while teetering on the edge of bankruptcy as we restructured debt, getting out of potentially crippling lease obligations & negotiating a recap with the investors to keep the company going. We faced the challenges of discontinuing the companies flagship product and having to completely reposition the companies products, target market, technology and structure while trying to keep the doors open.

We would experience some of the downsides of being media darlings as the companies shift in direction and layoffs became popular targets for reporters writing about the dot.com bust. Articles with sentences like “Blood runs in the halls at Zero-Knowledge as the firing carnage continues” to report our reductions in staff made each step that much harder as the articles made their way to partners and customers.

In early 2003, as the company started to generate positive cash flow - I started joking with my brother that if we ever told the inside story of our rise, fall and survival through the bubble that we should call it Chasing Billions with Zero Knowledge.

The phrase struck me as a fitting moniker for our own journey as a company, some of the investment trends that contributed to the dot.com bubble, and many of the ideas & entrepreneurs I encountered.

To be clear, I believe that most every company begins with zero knowledge. Assumptions and theories abound but actual knowledge of what the future may hold for the company is a pipe dream. There are so many questions from team, to product, to competitive landscape that the only real bet you can make is that shit will happen and things will need to change. Every enterprise begins with zero knowledge.

The process of building innovative enterprises requires experimentation and failure. How much experimentation is a function of risk appepitite and cost of money. The cost of money was incredible low and the risk appetite for technology stocks were so much in abundances that we were fielding random calls from retail investors looking to buy stock or get on a waiting list for the IPO for almost 2 years before we even had revenue.

I don’t believe even now in hindsight that we were ever chasing billions while clueless. We proved ourselves able to play by the rules of the that time and raised money and built real products & teams in a way that the market was rewarding (Getting big fast, become the market leader by the size of your brain trust and the broad range of your opportunities).

When the rules of the market changed, we changed with them and made sure we could continue to work with customers finding a business model and customer profile that would grow with us. We made a lot of mistakes that in hindsight now seem obvious. But we rushed into our mistakes recognizing them as valuable lessons and we were eager students.

A New Story - Radialpoint Emerges

I often get questions about the fate of Zero-Knowledge Systems. For those interested in our early experiences as a company, I’m posting a case study done by Professor David Phillips that was written over the course of many interviews and on site visits with our staff throughout the early days of the company. David recently sent me this copy to distribute.

Zero-Knowledge Systems - An Early Case Study in Systems of Surveillance. David J. Phillips, Professor University of Toronto

It highlights some of our successes, mistakes, and our early adventures as a company.

It is an account of the early Zero-Knowledge history (it ends about 2001/2 as we made the transition into the Radialpoint business and turned the company around). Like with all accounts, it can never capture even 5% of what was occurring behind the scenes, but it captures much of what was occurring around the company and provides a good account of our early rise and fall from grace.

When we started Zero-Knowledge my internal email signature carried the phrase “Make new mistakes more often”. Our team culture helped us to react and evolve as we saw new opportunities, identified failing products and responded to the dramatic shifts that occurred in the capital markets.

Zero-Knowledge Systems not only survived but changed its name and is now a thriving company called Radialpoint.

The company has emerged as one of Canada’s fastest growing technology companies, Quebec’s 2nd fastest growing technology firm and a market leader in managed consumer Internet services for broadband providers. The company has been profitable for years, is growing quickly and is now providing Internet value-added services for a community of more then 20 million broadband subscribers through its broadband provider customers. This is one of the largest aggregate broadband subscriber bases in the world.

Writing about the last bubble bursting and the dot.com graveyard that ensued was popular sport for many members of the media. Now we have reporters writing about the impeding Web 2.0 bubble and asking when it will burst. I think enterprising reporters could do well to explore companies such as Radialpoint that have survived the dot.com fallout and emerged stronger, smarter and battle hardened. There are great stories out there for those reporters not just looking to write about what Apple announced.

While I know this story well, and I believe in it with all my heart, the Radialpoint story is no longer my story to tell. The story of how Radialpoint emerged from the dot.com bubble and became one of Canada’s largest software-as-a-service companies that quietly cornered the ISP market for desktop delivered services will be told someday.

That story will be told by my brother, father and the team that continues to work with them there. It is their story to tell.

The team working there deserves to take a bow and get full credit for the incredible work they have done. I’m no longer part of the day to day operations at Radialpoint- so I will not be posting about it’s business on this blog.

I left Radialpoint, in June of 2006 to work on my new projects. This was a very difficult thing to do, but I was no longer the right person to help lead that company.

After the sabbatical I took to help my brother fight and ultimately die with dignity from his battle with cancer, things changed for me. It took me awhile after his death to find my footing again, but I needed to do that outside of the company in an area that I felt I could make a difference in the world. My mind and heart had drifted into a new domain and I couldn’t both follow my heart and try to do the work that Radialpoint needed at the same time.

I remain an investor, friend, family member and supporter in every way of Radialpoint and the team there.

In many ways, the team from Radialpoint plays a heavy influence on the work I am doing now since I learned an incredible amount from my brother, father, our managers, our teams and the staff we had. In the school of hard knocks and practical entrepreneurship I was incredibly lucky to have the mentors, partners and teams that I did.

I want to thank all the teams that worked with me throughout the years. I can say without a doubt, I learned more from you then the other way around.

Large amounts of thanks goes to the my brother and father, our management team (especially Marty, Veronique, Carlos that I worked with so closely) and all the direct reports and teams throughout the years. I also need to thank my assistant for almost a decade, Elizabeth. She has had the pleasure of seeing me at my best, and worst - and was always there working hard to make sure that others only saw me at my best, which I’ll be forever grateful for.

I had the incredible opportunity to work with family, an incredible management team and hundreds of bright staff as they navigated the changes required to keep our company thriving. Their support of my eccentric ideas, my crazy personality and most of all their support of me leaving to do a new project was crucial to me having the confidence to tackle what I’m now working on.

Billions with Zero Knowledge - The Blog

Since I won’t be blogging about Radialpoint that much, and my new project will most likely be operating under the radar for awhile this blog is very much a personal sandbox for me to play in. I’m not marketing or selling anything (at this point) - just having fun and looking to be part of the conversation.

I’ll be writing about topics that I feel I can add some unique point of view too. I won’t be covering or reposting other stories, tracking the latest moves of other bloggers or any specific industry.

I’ll be writing about the topics I care most about which are,

• The state of the Canadian startup scene from an entrepreneurs & angel investors perspective
• Promoting Canadian entrepreneurs
• Social Entrepreneurship
• Grass root authentic conversational marketing, Social media and Angel Investing
• Online communities, open innovation and collaborative open source models for community production
• World Hacking (finding easy hacks to make the world a better place), World Changing

One of my major complaints on all the government committees I participated on for innovation was the lack of a strong culture of mentorship in Canada. This combined with a little bit of angel investing from experienced entrepreneurs could help us nurture the next generation of startups and provide a farm system for the venture capital industry. I’ve seen this model work throughout the world in creating a culture of sharing of experiences resulting in the bundling of great advisory experience coming with risk capital.

I have been very fortunate to have had the experiences I’ve had and I hope by sharing my experiences that I can help a new generation of Canadian entrepreneurs begin to shape their own dreams.

My tagline for this blog is “Changing the World with Little Bits of Knowledge”. I believe that there exists within the technology community the power to change the world both for the good and bad, and I hope my projects and this blog help play a small but meanginful role in the postive aspects of this change.

On Thu 8 Mar 2007. [13] Comments

Google recently released it’s RSS reader numbers and like most bloggers around the world I have a fairly large increase in my reader numbers. My RSS subscribers have jumped from about 80 regular RSS readers to 170.

Even though those readers must have been there for awhile, the increased readership is great encouragement to keep up regular postings.

In the coming weeks I’ll be starting to talk about what I’ve been working on with my various projects since leaving Radialpoint.

I also have my infamous inaugural post coming quite soon.

I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce some worthy causes to my newly discovered readers because I feel like being in the giving mood.

GuluWalk Gala Event

Joshua Fattore from SilverLining Ltd. let me know about a a fundraising event occuring in Toronto this Thursday February 22nd.

GuluWalk is focused on supporting the abandoned children of northern Uganda. They were honoured this last January by The NonProfit Times as one the ‘Worlds Best Fundraisers’.

January 24, 2007 - On Thursday, February 22, 2007, please join us as Athletes for Africa presents the ‘GuluWalk Gala’, a celebration in benefit of GuluWalk - - the worldwide movement for the abandoned children of northern Uganda.
It’s going to be a spectacular evening at the Barbara Frum Atrium at the CBC Building in downtown Toronto and will include an evening of fine food, great music, and an extensive silent and live auction.
It will be hosted by Matt Galloway, host of CBC Radio’s
‘Here & Now’, and will feature an impassioned keynote address by former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations Allan Rock and a live performance by Juno Award winning artist Donné Roberts.
Click here for more information, including tickets, sponsorship opportunities and how you can get involved.

I’m not in Toronto this week, but this is a worthy cause and sounds like a great event. If you are in Toronto and attend, drop me a note or blog about it and I’ll post about it.

Atwater Digital Literacy Project

I mentioned in my recent interview with Julien Smith that we both are involved with the Atwater Library Digital Literacy Project.

The Atwater Digital Literacy Project gets kids and community groups using creative web technologies (blogging, audio, video, digital photos) to help them express themselves, find new ways to talk about things important to them, and to help them build their own communities.

We are going to be working to raise some funds for the pilot project which is occuring right now. The first workshops with kids is starting this week. We (our great advisory board) are reaching out to the Montreal community to introduce this project and ask for support in raising the funds to get some equipment for the project. You can donate through CanadaHelps (make sure you mark Digital Literacy Project) on your donation if you would like to help this worthy project.

I had my fair share of interesting times as a teen, and without the help and support of people who showed me how to develop some of my skills I think I could have easily ended up living a very different life then the great one I enjoy now.

Gifter.org

I’ll be making my donation for the Atwater Literacy Project, and posting my receipt to Gifter.org. If you haven’t checked out Gifter.org it is our group giving project. We are collecting wishes at our Internet wishing well. For each wish collected we have a sponsor donating a dollar to charity. We recently put on a new interface and are getting ready to relaunch it. Go test out the new wishing well and make a wish.

If you’ve made a wish before, feel free to make another with the wishing well. We have lot’s of wishes available. I’d love to see 500 wishes come in the next week - so if you can help spread the word and make a wish - I’ll be donating that amount to the Atwater Digital Literacy Project and would love to see you use these wishes.

We have a major sponsor of wishes preparing to make a large contribution to a charity associated with the project and we will be re-launching the new site with some new outreach programs.

Before we relaunch we want to get some feedback on the new site, so please give it a whirl and let us know what you think of the new interface.

If blogging is a gift economy then I guess I want to make sure to give as well as I get.  For another view of blogging as a gift economy this is a great article as well.

Welcome to you my newly discovered subscribers. Thank you for taking the time to subscribe.

I don’t know how long you’ve been with me, but please feel free to drop me a comment, or contact me through the website and let me know what’s on your mind.

On Tue 20 Feb 2007. 1 Comment