Monthly Archives: September 2009

Interview questions

A friend of mine is interviewing for a marketing position at an EDA startup. I’d better leave everything anonymous to protect the innocent. He (or maybe it was she) asked me what good questions to ask would be. There are … Continue reading

Posted in management | Comments Off

Why is security so hard?

I’m amazed how much bad practice there is around security. People just aren’t very good at it, and sometimes don’t even realize that there is a security issue to worry about. It is not just that people aren’t good at … Continue reading

Posted in security | Comments Off

Entrepreneurs’ ages

Entrepreneurs are all twenty-somethings straight out of college these days aren’t they? Not so fast, it turns out that this is an illusion. It’s probably true in some areas, such as social networking, where the young are the target audience … Continue reading

Posted in culture, investment | Comments Off

Friday puzzle: animals

Today’s puzzle:  How many animals do I have if all but 3 are dogs, all but 3 are cats, all but 3 are pigs and all but 3 are cows? Last week’s puzzle was getting U2 onto the stage in … Continue reading

Posted in puzzles | Comments Off

Silicon Valley RIP?

Here’s a quote from Tom Siebel, the founder of Siebel Systems that pioneered customer-relationship management before Salesforce.com started to eat their lunch and Oracle bought them. “I think Silicon Valley has been toppled from its pedestal. I think information technology … Continue reading

Posted in silicon valley | Comments Off

Barriers to entry

When I looked around at DAC last month (well, the month before last, what happened to August?) one thing that is in some ways surprising is that, given the poor growth prospects of the EDA industry, there are so many … Continue reading

Posted in engineering, investment | Comments Off

Software signoff again

What do you think the dominant design paradigm for electronic systems is going to be going forward? As I’ve said before, I believe that it is going to be taking software, probably written in C  and C++ , and synthesizing parts … Continue reading

Posted in embedded software, methodology | Comments Off

Guest blog: John Bruggeman

I think that the first time I saw John Bruggeman was at a Wind River Worldwide User Conference when he smashed his way through a polystyrene wall at the back of the stage with a sledgehammer to enter to give … Continue reading

Posted in guest blog | Comments Off

Spending money effectively

People die because they run out of oxygen. It doesn’t matter what the reason is—trauma, cancer, heart attack—lack of oxygen is what finally kills us. In the same way, startups die because they run out of cash. It doesn’t matter … Continue reading

Posted in finance, management | Comments Off

Friday puzzle: U2

U2 has a concert that starts in just 17 minutes and all of the band members must all cross a bridge to get to the stage. The four men begin on the same side of the bridge and you must … Continue reading

Posted in puzzles | Comments Off