absolutgcs.org

things are heating up here in the valley and i’m not talking about the weather (which has been completely sucking lately). traffic’s picking up… so you know the economy’s getting better around here. i see more job postings on the alumni list, hear about more friends leaving for startups and starting their own. here’s been my experience with it.

during school, i was a TA for a cs class. one of my students contacted me about a project i worked on. he’s currently a student at stanford’s bschool and is interested in starting a company with a few of his friends. they’re planning to commercialize a service around my senior project. robert x. cringley was interested in this same topic, and called it baxter in his column. it will be interesting to hear what they have to say. there’s no way i’m going to be the mule that does all the work, but maybe i’ll consult or something.

literally two days later, i and many of my cs classmates, received this email:

Date: 4/13/2006 22:05:02 -0700
From: “XX”
To:
Subject: Angel Investor

Hello. I am an Angel Investor based in Silicon Valley. I get involved with and fund start-ups at the earliest stage - as early as the idea stage. I focus on idea stage start-ups in the Consumer Internet space (Social Networking, Search, Web 2.0 concepts, etc).

A few years ago when I was an entrepreneur getting my start-up off the ground, I found it really difficult to connect with investors.
Interestingly, now that I am an investor, I am finding it difficult to connect with high quality entrepreneurs that are looking for funding. I am sending you this email, not because I think you may be doing a start-up yourself, but rather since you went through Stanford’s engineering program, you might have friends that are doing start-ups. If so, and if they are at the very early stage, if you could direct them to my web site to determine if there might be a fit, I would appreciate it. (By the way, I got your contact email from Stanford Computer Science Department’s web site).

Cheers,

XX

XX@XXXXXXXXXXXX.com

weird coincidence huh? clearly the spirit that drove the bubble is back, hopefully this time around it will be more reserved. or maybe not and i’ll get rich off the unbridled enthusiasm