Kevin Warnock

For the second year, I got to meet MC Hammer at the Intel Capital CEO Summit. MC wasn’t performing this year, like he did last year. But he was actively asking questions and meeting people. He grilled Sprint CEO Dan Hesse about Sprint’s plans for WiMax 4G broadband wireless service. MC sat at my table at dinner tonight after one of my table mates invited him to sit with us. At the end of dinner, I asked MC if I could have a picture with him, and he agreed. MC is particularly interested in website metrics and analytics, judging from the questions I heard him asking.

MC Hammer and Kevin Warnock at Intel Capital CEO Summit, 2009

I am at the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach, California this week attending the tenth annual Intel Capital CEO Summit (http://www.intel.com/capital/entrepreneur/ceosummit.htm). The company behind my website gOffice is one of the 175 Intel Capital Portfolio Companies participating this year. The three day conference promises to be very exciting. At the conference last year I got to meet and talk with Intel CEO Paul Otellini and Intel Capital President Arvind Sodhani.

Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach, California, November 16, 2009

One of the high points at the conference last year, in San Francisco, was an appearance by the musician and entrepreneur MC Hammer. He spoke about his company DanceJam.com, which was acquired earlier this year. I got to meet Hammer the next day when I was getting a glass of water when he said “Hi Kevin.” I was startled. He was standing by the refreshment table in one of the session ballrooms, and I just happened to be there at the same time he was there, and he read my name from my badge. We had a nice conversation, and I commented on how well he speaks in public. He told me his other work as a minister helped him hone his speaking skills.

It turned out DanceJam was funded in part by Ron Conway, who invested in my first Internet company, Hotpaper.com, through his angel fund at the time. Ron was actually at the Intel summit last year as well, as a guest of Hammer.

Huntington City Beach, Huntington Beach, CA

Haas Gala November 6, 2009, The Palace Hotel, San Francisco, CA

Tonight I attended the Haas Gala at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Haas is the graduate school of business at the University of California at Berkeley. This year there were 650 people in attendance at the sold out event. Among the awards presented was the Lifetime Achievement award, this year given to Richard C. Blum, MBA ’59. Blum is Chair and CEO of Blum Capital Partners and is also the husband of United States Senator Dianne Feinstein. I got to meet Richard after his remarks. I missed the gala last year, where Shantanu Narayen was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award. I met Shantanu at Haas in about 2005. He made my day because he said he had used my website gOffice.com.

The highlight of the gala this year was getting to see Haas Professor Oliver Williamson speak. Professor Williamson recently won the Nobel prize in Economics. I shot video of Professor Williamson’s remarks, shown above.

My friends Enlai Chu, Michael Berolzheimer, Jerry Engel, David Charron and Nibha Aggarwal were also at the Gala, and it was good to see them. Michael is leading the Haas Entrepreneurs alumni Special Interest Group.

I shot video of Richard’s acceptance speech. His biography from the gala program is interesting, so I’m retyping it here:

Richard C. Blum received his BS in Business Administration in 1958 and and MBA in 1959 from the University of California, Berkeley. He is widely respected for his ability to produce dramatic results, and focuses his considerable energy on big challenges that range from turning around troubled corporations to alleviating global poverty.

Dick is a strong business leader who brings innovation to every venture he tackles. He is Chairman and CEO of Blum Capital Partners, a private equity firm he founded in 1975. He is also Co-Chairman of TPG Capital, Co-Founder of Newbridge Capital (now part of TPG Capital), and Chairman of the Board of CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. He is also a director of Fairmont Raffles Holding International, Current Media, LLC and Myer Pty. Ltd.

Active in a number of nonprofit organizations, Dick is heralded as a philanthropist of enormous vision. He is Founder and Chairman of the American Himalayan Foundation (AHF), established 25 years ago to help the people and ecology of the Himalaya. In 2006, he provided the seed funding to create the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley, which implements scalable technologies to improve the well-being of people in need, while educating and inspiring students as a new generation of global citizens. He also founded the Global Economy and Development Center at the Brookings Institution and the Brookings Blum Roundtable Conference to develop policy research strategy.

Dick is the former Chairman of the University of California Board of Regents and now serves as a Regent. He has played a pivotal role as a member of the Haas School Board since 1984. He is also a trustee and a member of the executive committee of  The Carter Center, and on the boards of The Wilderness Society and The California Academy of Sciences.

He received the Haas School of Business Alumnus of the Year Award in 1994 and was recently honored with the Berkeley Medal by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau in the presence of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. Dick is married to United States Senator Dianne Feinstein.

After cocktails but before dinner a band came on stage for few minutes to entertain the guests.

Monika and I went to visit Noisebridge this afternoon. It was a bright, sunny and brisk day in the City. At Noisebridge, members may host classes. Today, there was a class with about 15 students focused on the intersection of technology and entertainment.

The machine shop has a miniature CNC milling machine. We were looking at it when two members came over and explained the work they are doing. One of the members donated it to Noisebridge.

The other member is reverse engineering the control mechanism, and had its control cable wired to an Archer brand breadboard. He had hooked up what appeared to be a potentiometer to one of the wires, but it was actually a more complicated control. From what I understood of the explanation, the knob was a digital mouse of sorts that sent control pulses to the mill. When the knob was turned the milling head moved up and down. The member who donated the mill said his original cost for the device was $3,000. It looked well made and seemed to be in good condition. One of the things I want to do one day is learn to make handmade custom watches. A CNC mill of this size would be a key tool in that effort. We didn’t catch the names of these two guys, but I saw one of them at the party Friday.

Monika and I had lunch at El Balazo at 2187 Mission Street. We shared the mixed vegetable burrito. This was the best vegetarian burrito I have ever had. It was bursting with interesting flavors. It had sautéed zucchini in it, which I love. The burrito was huge and was only $4.95 – and it was plenty for the two of us. The walls were bright yellow, with a pattern of  blue stenciled figures. This restaurant is a chain, and there are a dozen locations according to their menu. One suggestion I have for them is to list the other locations on the menu. This place has four stars on Yelp.com, but the reviews are variable, so maybe it’s not always as outstanding as it was for us today.

Next on our excursion was a visit to Adobe Books, at 3166 Mission Street. This is partly a used book store and partly an art gallery. The art gallery was quite interesting, with an unusual and creative mountain of used books set afire. No, there were not real flames, but one of those ‘fireplace simulators’ nestled into a quarter pyramid of books tucked into one corner of the tiny gallery space, which is at the very rear of the book store.

The book store itself was warm, cozy and inviting, with all kinds of fascinating books stacked everywhere. Monika bought The Satanic Verses by Salmon Rushdie, as neither of us has read it, and we’ve both been curious about it.

In the cookbook section, I was surprised to see a copy of the Chinese cookbook given to me years ago by my dear late friend Stan Pasternak. There also was a beautifully photographed book about canning fruits and vegetables. The photographs of tasty food in glass bottles reminded me of my long standing project to photograph the hundreds of glass bottles I have been collecting for photography since the mid 1980s. Most of these bottles are in records storage boxes stored under my parents’ house in the crawl space. My father reminds me to come pick them up every so often. They’ve been there for twenty plus years so far, but I maintain that the containers are only getting more rare and interesting with every passing year. The Planters peanuts glass bottles from the 1980s are very distinctive and identifiable. Now that I have a good digital camera, I am particularly looking forward to completing the project, which I started in 1983 while I was studying at Brooks in Santa Barbara, California.

Before we went to Noisebridge, we picked up some vegetables at the farmers market at Divisadero Street and Grove streets. We got there just before closing time at 2pm, and there were few customers. But there was plenty to buy, and the prices are lower than at the 9th Avenue and Irving street farmers market closer to our house, where we usually buy produce. We picked up some chili peppers that were still on the branches. I cut them off when we got home, and we probably ended up with 150 small chili peppers, which I plan to use in my Chinese cooking. We also bought some bitter melon, strawberries, plums and onions. Later in the Mission we bought some beautiful large red tomatoes that were a huge bargain at just $1 for three pounds. I wish I knew where the produce in the Mission comes from. If someone knows, please leave me a comment. The prices are just so attractive that I don’t know how they do it. We love farmers markets, and try to go every weekend during the season. At the Irving street market there is a vendor who sells just fresh dates. They are $7 a pound, but they are the most flavorful dates I’ve ever tasted. Eating them is like eating fantastic candy. Monika and I had a great afternoon.

I spent $25 today and I logged every penny of it in my new favorite Apple iPhone software application called iXpenseIt. This free app lets you quickly log every dollar you spend, and makes it super easy to use the iPhone camera to capture each receipt. Then, you can look at bar and pie charts on the phone to see where your money goes among expense categories. You get the data off the phone by sending yourself a spreadsheet by email. I highly recommended iXpenseIt based on my few days of experience.

I went to the Noisebridge first anniversary party last night, October 2nd. Noisebridge is a so-called hacker space. There probably were 200 people there last night. The vibe was very good, and I really enjoyed myself. I talked to the people I recognized from my first visit to Noisebridge the day before, including Ruben, Josh and Veronica. I also met Bill and several more people whose names escape me.

I have to admit I was a bit of a geek, as I brought my camera and took some stills and video of the event. I walked through the space with the video camera to show the variety of people and exhibits. They lights were dimmed and there was a DJ with video projectors. The raw warehouse space came alive, and were it a nightclub, it would have been acceptable.

This place has so much potential, and I’m even more excited about Noisebridge than I am about Hacker Dojo, another hacker space I’m already a member of in Mountain View, California. What I find more compelling about Noisebridge is its location, right in the center of the action on Mission Street, which is the main drag in San Francisco’s primary latino neighborhood. The Mission is just such a vibrant and compelling place to put a hacker space. There are dozens of restaurants and bars within walking distance. The public transportation is fantastic. Both the San Francisco Municipal Transit system busses and the Bay Area Rapid Transit trains stop within two blocks of Noisebridge. One can thus get to Noisebridge from anywhere by flying into San Francisco International Airport and hopping on a Bart train, which will drop them off a block and a half from the front door.

I’m sitting in a fantastic new hacker space in San Francisco, California. It’s called Noisebridge. This is a space for computer programmers, hardware hackers, artists and others. The space is on the third floor of a non descript building in the colorful Mission District. It’s on the top floor, and there are skylights, so it’s bright and airy.

There are large windows at both ends of the building, and the space fills the entire top floor, so there is a comfortable breeze, even though it’s a warm day in the City.

There are about a dozen people here working hard to prepare for the first year anniversary party to celebrate the formation of Noisebridge, scheduled for tomorrow evening.

There is stuff everywhere: machine tools, computers, oscilloscopes, books, kitchen appliances, workbenches, couches, bikes and lumber. This is an ambitious project, and the people I’ve met so far are friendly and interesting.

I’m going to come to the party tomorrow, and I’m looking forward to many more visits to Noisebridge.

In 1999 I competed in the first annual business plan competition at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. This competition was the brainchild of my friends Keval Desai and Melissa Daniels. Keval had to convince Jerry Engel, then the Executive Director for the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which is housed at Haas. I am grateful that Keval succeeded in convincing Jerry, since the competition helped me raise money for my first Internet company, Hotpaper.com. Had there not been a competition, I wouldn’t have been able to sell Hotpaper when I did, in August of 2000. So in a very real sense, my success in life, limited though it may be, is tied directly to the Haas business plan competition.

As a result, I am a fervent supporter of the competition. I’ve sponsored it annually since I participated, and I’ve been a semi-final judge since about 2005. Earlier today, the finalist teams for the 11th annual business plan competition presented their plans in a public event at the Haas School of Business. The school published its video on YouTube, which I’ve embedded below. It’s a long video, but very worthwhile. I was one of the judges that advanced the first and third place teams to the finals, so I saw the more detailed presentations the teams make in private to the judges.

The AutoTB presentation in particular really is moving. They propose to make an automated device that will allow a lay person to diagnose in twenty minutes whether a person has tuberculosis. The current way this disease is diagnosed requires a trained specialist, and the diagnosis takes days to make. Many people in the developing world can’t get to clinics easily, so many people that are tested never pick up their results. Tuberculosis is one of the biggest killers on earth, so Auto TB really has the potential to change the world. Amazingly, their device has a target price of just $500 – not thousands or tens of thousands like many medical devices.

I attended the 2008 Intel Capital CEO Summit at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco over the last four days. It was a whirlwind of energy and activity, and I really enjoyed myself.

I got to meet and talk with Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini and Intel Capital President Arvind Sodhani.

I also got to meet and talk with musician and entrepreneur MC Hammer, who provided the evening entertainment on one evening. The next day he introduced himself to me while I was getting a glass of water during a session. We talked for about ten minutes. He’s an interesting guy, and is very well spoken. His current company, Dance Jam, is in part funded by Ron Conway, who also invested in my first Internet startup, Hotpaper.com. Ron was at the conference as MC’s guest, and I got to say hi to Ron. I haven’t seen him in a while.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini with MC Hammer and Intel Capital President Arvind Sodhani

Representative from CheckPoint learns about gOffice.com from Silveroffice, Inc. founder and CEO Kevin Warnock at Intel Capital CEO Summit in June 2008 in San Francisco. Note other matchmaking sessions taking place in the background.

My company Silveroffice, Inc. is an Intel Capital Portfolio Company, which is why I was able to attend this summit. I definitely plan to attend the summit again next year.

The pictures in this post were taken by Intel’s photographer, and I downloaded them from Intel Capital’s website.

The website of CBS News published a short review of gOffice for iPhone today.

gOffice for iPhone is the first word processor for the Apple iPhone. It’s a very simple web app, but it does create genuine high quality Microsoft Word output, since the app functions by running a real copy of Microsoft Word on a Windows 2003 web server in a datacenter.

gOffice for iPhone was launched 7/7/07. I personally programmed this web app.

Famous tech blogger Robert Scoble wrote about this app on his blog, which got the app a lot of attention.

goffice screen shot

I recently met Dan Farber, from ZD Net. I told him about my June 6, 2006 written offer to give Google the gOffice.com domain name for them to use to brand their online productivity applications.

Google ignored my offer, even though I sent it via three separate FedEx packages to Eric Schmidt, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Today Farber published a blog entry about my offer to give Google the gOffice.com domain name.

I am happy Farber disclosed my offer, as it will show others even years from now that I’m in no way squatting on the gOffice domain.

I am keeping the domain, and I will make the site a success over time. Who knows — Google may change their mind and pay me for it one of these years. Right now they appear determined to not antagonize Microsoft by offering a ‘GOffice.’ But over time Google may not care what Microsoft thinks, and may be eager to go head to head with market leading Microsoft Office.