Sunday Videos

Have you ever heard of Oatmeal? Of Nikola Tesla? How about Matthew Inman?

This year I got to the United States for the first time in my life. I stayed there for about 3 months and the most interesting thing is that my first stop ever was not New York or San Francisco, as it usually happens with my friends, but Austin, Texas, for SXSW.

There’s a long story about my time there, but the best “unexpected meeting” that everyone gets at SXSW was the fact that I was going to attend Peter Thiel’s (or Elon Musk’s) keynote and, in order to get a spot, I went an hour early and saw Matt Inman, the brilliant mind behind The Oatmeal. I had no idea who he was (really!) and I didn’t understand why the room is filling to the full extent (and it was a huge room).

And then, the keynote started. The first slide of the presentation? The one above :)) With a vomit bag in it.

The keynote showcases Oatmeal’s social efforts, from fighting a troll site that wanted money from him to a Kickstarter campaign the raised $1,000,000 (1 million) in just 9 days to save a part of Nikola Tesla’s laboratory. He also talks about comics, creativity and he also says some “poop jokes”. The great ones, as he says in the beginning.

It’s a fun hour, you’ll laugh a lot, but you’ll also learn a little bit about the power of communities.

Have fun!

Since this week I focused a lot on gaming (because of the panel I moderated at TechHub on Creating Killer Games), I thought it’s only natural to close the week with a video about gaming.

The following video is on of the lectures available from Casual Connect. What makes it different is the fact that it is a panel of real gamers, real fans of Candy Crush Saga, that tell the audience what makes the game so addictive. And, for a game developer (especially for a mobile/Facebook/casual games one) is pure gold.

So, take 50 minutes and go through it. It is worth it.

Moreover, if you have the time, look for all the Casual Connect videos (or GDC videos, but they are not usually available publicly).

Brad Feld is on of the most visible VCs around the world being a blogger at feld.com, ex-entrepreneur and, even more, the founder of TechStars, the US accelerator that recently launched their first European version in London.

Brad was also invited, recently, via Skype, to a meeting with Romanian entrepreneurs at TechHub Bucharest.

In this video he is the guest of Mark Suster, another star VC and blogger, at his show called This Week In. Mark writes at Both Sides of The Table, another great VC blog.

And, finally, Brad is an accomplished writer, among his books being Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur, which is the first book touching the personal life of an entrepreneur, including the difficulties you and your partner go through.

The video touches subjects like: blogging, entrepreneurship, VC investment, accelerators. It’s an interesting video, especially because of the combined experience of the two participants (host and guest).

Unfortunately, the video is no longer available, but here is a synopsis of it.

Last spring I went on my first visit to the US. And my first stop was, completely unexpected for me, Austin. And SXSW.

There are lots of things to say about Texas and Austin and about the days of madness around SXSW. But one of the things I will remember was the keynote from Elon Musk (actually an on stage interview).

The feeling of being in the presence of what future generation will consider visionary and greatness was palpable. I think Elon Musk will be the Nikola Tesla of our generation (hopefully with more financial success).

As a funny thing, they say that Robert Downey jr.’s Tony Stark (IronMan) was modeled after Elon Musk. Also, you can follow a Twitter parody account which, from time to time, actually says funny one liners: BoredElonMusk

Take an hour and see the video below, it’s worth it. This is the man that started PayPal, sold it and invested two really disruptive businesses: Tesla and Space X. He’s the CEO of both and he wants to die on Mars, after living there the last years of his life.

About a year and something ago, while in Dublin for Startup Bootcamp, I’ve found a video of Mark Zuckerberg speaking with Jessica Livingston at Startup School in 2011. I’ve looked for it this week to remember something and I’ve found that he also talked at Startup School in 2012, with Paul Graham.

Both videos are below and they are worth it, especially because Mark talks specifically about the startup part of the Facebook. Moreover, interesting, he says, in 2011, that he wouldn’t start Facebook in Silicon Valley if he would start again now. THe reasons? :) See below:

Since today is Sunday, maybe you have some spare time to watch an interesting video of Fred Wilson, from USV and A VC fame, speaking with Sarah Lacy, from Pando Daily.