Interviews: Ask Larry Augustin What You Will 48
Former chairman of VA Software and venture capitalist, Larry Augustin, co-founded VA Research in 1993 and was one of the driving forces behind the creation of Sourceforge. VA bought Andover.net in 2000, acquiring a number of media sites, including Slashdot. He serves on the board of several companies and is currently the CEO of SugarCRM. Larry has agreed to take some time and answer your questions about the world of venture capital, open source software, and surviving the dotcom bubble. As usual, ask as many as you'd like, but please, one question per post
Re: (Score:2)
Amen. I have no idea who this guy is, so I can't imagine any other question to ask him.
Larry was... (Score:2)
one of the names that we all felt some sort of kinship with back in the early Linux commercialization days. He started VA Reasearch -- which had the biggest one-day spike on IPO, ever, managing a front-page story in the WSJ, and an incredibly sanctimonious public letter from ESR -- and forever popularized blue LEDs on servers (you can thank or blame him as you see fit). Since then, he's gone off to do some venture capital stuff, and help out with Sugar CRM. While I've never met him, I certainly owe him f
Dear Larry, (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you agree with the Slashdot Beta program ?
Re: (Score:2)
Do you agree with the Slashdot Beta program ?
MOD PARENT UP
This isn't a troll question. Its something valid to ask someone who once owned slashdot.
And really, do any of you think that someone with a mid range 4 digit id would stoop to trolling on slashdot?
Really? (Score:2)
Dude -- EVERYONE believed in Linux at the time, as well as The Internet. Bright-eyed investors who jumped at a Linux-associated hardware company made that happen, not Larry. Larry just happened to be the best-known Linux-associated hardware vendor at the time. I'd say his timing was awesome for the spike, but I think Larry would have been happier than just about anyone to see the stock price stay up where it started.
If you bought in at $320/share, and have sour grapes... well, that's your fault. "Caveat
What a ride... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, Larry -- you don't know me (shocker), but I've been a fan since back in the day -- indeed, VA's IPO helped buy me my first LCD monitor. (Go, SGI 1600SW.) Anyway, Linux, open source, the web, and technology itself has certainly seen lots of change since the "olden" days of the mid-90's; which parts do you reflect on most fondly, which parts have surprised you the most, and, of course, the proverbial: "If you could do it over again, what would you do differently?" (I realize that technically, that's three questions, but I think it's really three questions in search of one answer.)
Holy flock. (Score:3)
WTF did Larry do to "ruin" Slashdot? I'm pretty sure Rob loved working for Larry. Or with your UID of four bajillion, do you remember stuff I seem to have forgotten?
As a venture capitalist (Score:2)
What's your opinion on crypto-currencies? Do you think SHA-256 currencies have no future because only the big guys can afford mining rigs? Do you think there's way too many Scrypt currencies?
Advertising: The Next Bubble Burst? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
From my perspective as a non-marketer, it is very much ineffective
How, as a 'non-marketer' are you qualified to comment on how effective web marketing is?
Unlike many other marketing mediums, online advertising is usually very measurable in terms of rate-of-return on advertising dollars spent.
In many companies (like the one I work for) marketing dollars are very tight and are only spent in areas where we see a return. Online ads are a prime example.
Re: (Score:2)
Simple: I am a consumer. It is very rare I click on on ad out of interest. Typically I mis-click because the go away button is too small or ambiguous. Mostly when I click on ads, it's to support a website I like in hopes that it's set up as a simple click through. Then I close the page.
Re: (Score:2)
I assure you, if the typical consumer were like you or me, the media would look a whole lot different. The ads are going after people who will click on things that interest them, and perhaps buy them.
Why can't I get relationship tables? (Score:1)
I recently ran into a problem with SugarCRM where I need the relationship between a lead and an account (ideally through REST), but apparently I cannot get access to that information.
After speaking with a few engineering and our developer support there is currently no way for an On-demand customer to have direct access to the relationship tables.
I have attached this case to Enhancement Request
Why can't I get that data, and can I get a timeframe/priority for the enhancement request?
Thanks.
Heh... not sure I entirely agree. (Score:2)
I don't think VA was *embarrassing*, so much as, maybe, unfortunate.
And ESR being an embarrassment hasn't really been relegated to history. Fortunately, most of his involvement with OSS has.
Revolution OS (Score:2)
You were prominently featured in the documentary Revolution OS.
Do you think it is time for a similar documentary to be made, this time avoiding or minimizing the financial aspects?
What is the appeal of becoming a business man? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
I ain't as famous as Larry but I can tell you this one thing -
As a geek, I equate my time spent on sitting through a board meeting as worse than hell.
Regarding the "wheeling and dealing on the phone", I do not do that.
I still go down to the face-to-face level.
No matter if the other fella happens to be a big shot like that Larry fella or a wide-eyed young entrepreneur-in-training looking for a seed funding, a face to face session can gain me a lot of valuable info (mostly subliminal / body language) that I
Damn. (Score:2)
He kill your dog, break your guitar, and steal your woman and truck? WTF?
Easy old timer... (Score:2)
Easy old timer...just go back to sleep. We won't party like its 1999 until next year, promise.
Yeah... no. (Score:2)
My "party" in '99 was sitting in a room with two other engineers, eating Chinese food, playing video games, and seeing if the internal Cisco infrastructure suddenly up and died.
It didn't.
That being said, your UID is perilously close to mine; might wanna watch who you hit with the "old timer" stick. ;-)
YAOT (Yet another old timer) chimes in ... (Score:1)
Damn !
A guy with a low 5-digit and a guy with a lower than mine 4-digit UID were having their parties back in '99 and I was working my ass off pulling cables trying to fulfill Al Gore's "Information Superhiway" prophecy.
Man, I totally missed the damn boat !!
Says who I didn't pull cables? (Score:2)
I just wasn't pulling them on 12/31/99, which is the date I think of when I think of "Party like it's 1999." 'Cause everyone *else* (except a few closet survivalists) that I knew was out having fun. I got to work until roughly 4:00 a.m. (1:00 a.m. PST, but I was east coast) to make sure that Cisco wasn't experiencing systemic Y2K issues. And... it didn't. The rest of the time, I was Joe Sysadmin, pulling cables, bitching about Windows, and trying (successfully, as it turned out) to get Cisco to accept L
making a living (Score:2)
Appreciation for the VA Research IPO (Score:2)
Larry, I just want to express my appreciation for the way you handled the IPO. I've never made much money from doing software. Your gift of VA shares to many open source developers paid off my student loans, got me out of debt, and there was enough left over to buy a bunch of O'Reilly books. Very classy. Hope you've done well in all your endeavors over the past years since then.
A dream without a Business Case (Score:2)
What if you project is something crazy that may not be consider usefull at first?
Any recommendations?
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't seem to be considered a huge drawback in some Silicon Valley circles....
Just wanted to say thanks for SourceForge, Larry (Score:2)
I've been a member since 2000-01-06 17:58:21: http://sourceforge.net/u/paulf... [sourceforge.net]
Even if I'm mostly using GitHub for new stuff... It was a real encouragement and inspiration back then. It is like when someone turns on a light bulb in the middle of the night in a kitchen desperate for a drink of water and the light bulb is so bright you can't even look at it but lets you find the sink, and then when the (open source) sun comes up in the morning, you almost forget the lightbulb is still on compared to the sun.
Business model (Score:1)
Open source (Score:1)
Support for SugarCRM 6.5 (Score:1)