Seattle no longer lies entirely in the long dark shadow of Bill Gates' once-crushing Death Star. Hobbled by a host of events--antitrust suits, the departure of Gates as CEO, the rise of the Internet, the debacle of Vista--Microsoft has lost its dominance, even in its own backyard. There remain plenty of "Microsoft millionaires," but Seattle's startup scene today is more diverse, finding fresh roots in Amazon, born in the era of the Internet, or even Starbucks, which has arguably a stronger brand than Microsoft. As Andy Sack, a general partner in the Founders Co-op, a seed stage investment fund in Seattle, notes, "Microsoft does not hire entrepreneurs"--it hires star engineers and professional managers, not the kind of idea-driven individuals that start companies like Wetpaint, Zillow or 43 Things.

No matter where Seattle gets its entrepreneurs, the ecosystem is churning with energy. It's "Seattle 2.0," according to the Web site by that name that tracks activities in the community such as the two weekly Open Coffee meetings, Meetups, happy hours and other get-togethers. It's helpful that the industry is supported by strong capital sources in Maveron, Voyager Capital, Vulcan Ventures, as well as many Silicon Valley firms with offices in the northwest. But it's a "frontier mentality" that drives its growth to the point where, as Sack notes "deal flow is very strong."

Sack spoke with FastCompany.com about what makes Seattle's startup scene so strong.

What makes Seattle a great place to start a company?

Talent. So there's great talent and I think what is different about Seattle's talent than say San Francisco or Boston or even New York is I think a lot of the talent is either totally homegrown or from one of the big companies. I mean, as distinguished from Boston where a lot of the talent comes from Harvard, MIT, BU, BC--it's predominantly either homegrown, people who have lived here all their lives or basically been moved because Amazon recruited them and they were like, "This sucks! I'm out of here," and then they start something. I think the talent is really good because those companies do a good job recruiting the people that are here and stay here.

What else?

I think the other thing that makes it a great startup scene is a frontier spirit. There is a frontier spirit and an edge to Seattle. In the northwest there's this whole wagon-trail kind of frontier and that lives here definitely more than in San Francisco, and so there's that and then you've got this whole like coffee culture--Starbucks became super commercialized, but there's definitely like this coffee culture-slash-edge: let's stay up until all hours and bang our heads against the wall. I don't personally do that, but it's an interesting cultural mix. And then, you've got a bunch of friendly people, and so that milieu, I would say, with smart people, makes for a good startup scene.

How actively is the capital flowing into Seattle?

I think on the capital scene, there's both a healthy venture scene in the northwest, I think more and more people in the Bay Area are going, "Wow! It's super competitive down here. What's going on up there? I hear there's a lot going on up in Seattle." So I'm seeing more Valley firms actually coming up here because they're seeing really good companies forming.

And the angel community is pretty good. You have wealthy people from Microsoft and Amazon who understand technology and are willing to participate and then you have [my firm] Founders Coop. We have 20 entrepreneurs we pulled together. I think it's kind of unique what we are doing, but I'd say it's a little bit endemic of what's happened in Seattle, which is collaborative: let's support these things.

What role do Amazon, Microsoft, and Starbucks play in the community?

Let me first talk about the influence of those three companies. In terms of influence, I mean, there's no question. I would say those companies help Seattle lend itself more towards e-commerce related activities of all kind. Amazon is the most entrepreneurial oriented. I think when people are at Amazon they learn basically how to operate on a low margin--Amazon is known for not marketing, but for really intimate customer experiences. So the people that leave there have that ingrained in them. Amazon, more than other companies, I would say, even now holds to its entrepreneurial roots much more so than Google or Yahoo. I love Amazon, you go in there and they pinch their pennies. There's no lunch program.

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OCZ Vertex Turbo Series SATA II 2.5-Inch SSD

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Arizona Tea product
• Calculator
• 12-month calendar

1. Step 1

   Locate the "manufactured by" date on your Arizona Tea product. On cans, this date will be on the bottom of the container. On bottles and jugs, it can be found near the neck of the container.

2. Step 2

   Understand how to read the Julian calendar code. For example, a "manufactured by" date stamp on a can of Arizona Tea that was recently purchased might read "285 09." This means that this particular product was manufactured on the 285th day of 2009, which a Google search or counting days reveals to be October 12th, 2009.

3. Step 3

   Know that the shelf life of can and glass Arizona Tea products is two years from the date of manufacture if unopened, 7 to 10 days if opened but refrigerated and 2 to 4 days if not refrigerated. For plastic jugs, the shelf life is 18 months from the date of manufacture if unopened, 7 to 10 days if opened but refrigerated and 2 to 4 days if opened and not refrigerated.

4. Step 4

   Determine the expiration date based on the date of manufacture and the product's shelf life. So, if the can of Arizona Tea that was manufactured on October 12, 2009, is unopened, then its date of expiration is October 12, 2011.

5. Step 5

   Remember that while it is important to check the labels of all food prior to consumption, it is also important to realize that in all companies, there is the potential for batches to spoil more quickly than predicted. Always smell a product before ingesting it, and trust your taste buds if a drink or food item seems to have spoiled before the projected expiration date.

Apparently there're 5 steps to figure out when Arizona Green Tea expires. OMFG!!

PRESS RELEASE: 37SIGNALS VALUATION TOPS $100 BILLION AFTER BOLD VC INVESTMENT Jason F. Sep 24 2009

239 comments Latest by Andrea Decker

CHICAGO—September 24, 2009—37signals is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1.

Founder Jason Fried informed his employees about the new deal at a recent company-wide meeting. The financing round was led by Yardstick Capital and Institutionalized Venture Partners.

In order to increase the value of the company, 37signals has decided to stop generating revenues. “When it comes to valuation, making money is a real obstacle. Our profitability has been a real drag on our valuation,” said Mr. Fried. “Once you have profits, it’s impossible to just make stuff up. That’s why we’re switching to a ‘freeconomics’ model. We’ll give away everything for free and let the market speculate about how much money we could make if we wanted to make money. That way, the sky’s the limit!”

Proof that 37signals is now a $100 billion dollar company.

A $100 billion value for 37signals is “not outlandish,” says Aanandamayee Bhatnagar, a finance professor and valuation guru at Grenada State’s Schnook School of Business. Bhatnagar points to a leaked, confidential corporate strategy plan that projects 37signals will attract twelve billion users by the end of 2013.

How will the company overcome the fact that there are only 6.8 billion people alive today? “Why limit users to people?” said Bhatnagar.

In order to determine the valuation of companies, Bhatnagar typically applies the following formula: [(Twitter followers x Facebook fans) + (# of employees x 1000)] x (RSS subscribers + daily page views) + (monthly burn rate x Google’s stock price)² and then doubles if it they use Ruby on Rails or if the CEO has run a business into the ground before. Bhatnagar admits the math is mostly a guess but points out that “the press eats it up.”

To help handle the burdens of an increased valuation, 37signals hired former YouTube exec Craig Mirage as Chief Operating Officer earlier this month. Mirage hopes to replicate YouTube’s valuation success at 37signals. “Of course, the investment comes with great expectations. But you should see the spreadsheet models we’re making up. Really breakthrough stuff,” said Mirage.

“37signals will lead the new global movement filled with imaginary assumptions on growth and monetization potential,” he continued. “We’re excited to roll out a list of unconfirmed revenue possibilities that involve crowdsourcing, a robust set of widget creation tools, 3G, augmented reality, social stuff, and an app store. Also, everything we make will include a compass.”

A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF USERS MAY EXPERIENCE EPILEPTIC SEIZURES WHEN EXPOSED TO CERTAIN LIGHT PATTERNS OR BACKGROUNDS ON A COMPUTER SCREEN OR WHILE USING THE YAHOO! SERVICE. CERTAIN CONDITIONS MAY INDUCE PREVIOUSLY UNDETECTED EPILEPTIC SYMPTOMS EVEN IN USERS WHO HAVE NO HISTORY OF PRIOR SEIZURES OR EPILEPSY. IF YOU, OR ANYONE IN YOUR FAMILY, HAVE AN EPILEPTIC CONDITION, CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN PRIOR TO USING THE YAHOO! SERVICE. IMMEDIATELY DISCONTINUE USE OF THE YAHOO! SERVICES AND CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS WHILE USING THE YAHOO! SERVICE: DIZZINESS, ALTERED VISION, EYE OR MUSCLE TWITCHES, LOSS OF AWARENESS, DISORIENTATION, ANY INVOLUNTARY MOVEMENT, OR CONVULSIONS.

Mochi Media, a Flash game advertising network and payments platform funded by Accel Partners and Shasta Ventures, has been acquired by Shanda Games for $60 million in cash and $20 million in equity. The company has raised $14 million over two venture rounds.

The deal will be announced shortly.

Shanda is China’s largest operator of online games, with nearly 10 million active accounts. The company hosts so-called MMORPGs, or massively multi-player online role-playing games, under which users pay monthly subscriber fees as well as purchase items within the game. The company went public on NASDAQ late last year and has the enviable ticker symbol GAME.

As of June 2009 100 million people were playing games that included Mochi Media. They also launched a payments platform for game developers last year.

The company was close to being acquired last year, but an internal battle between the founders and investors led to a scrapping of that deal. Shortly afterwards the hired executive team left to other ventures. And the Mochi Media founders took over management of the company again.

Shanda also acquired Goldcool Games earlier this month, a Shanghai-based online game developer and operator. Goldcool Games currently operates two MMORPGs, “Hades Realm” and “Dukes and Lords.” The company also has several MMORPGs in the pipeline, including “Dragon Heir,” “Zodiac Tales,” “Martial Glory” and “Hades Realm II.”

Pretty neat to see Chinese companies acquiring U.S. startups...