Martin Varsavsky

On Why Israel Appears to the World As an Aggressive Nation

2013-03-03T15:22:39-05:00

Many wonder why Israel as a nation appears to be so aggressive, to invade Gaza and Lebanon when attacked, to bomb Syria, Iraq and possibly now Iran when threatened by the Iranian nuclear bomb program. In general many question the way Israel violently reacts to provocation. The answer may lie in the sad history of the Jewish people. Growing up Jewish, one of the 15 million in a world of 7 billion people, is growing up feeling like a survivor of so many historical massacres, lucky to be alive and stay alive. Given our history it is not surprising that there would be a slight "paranoiac" tone to real or perceived threats. And this is not to always justify Israel's behavior, as I think that Israel as a nation is not doing itself a favor with some of the most aggressive intervention. For example I personally support having bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactors but not attacking the Turkish ship headed to Gaza when just towing it away would have sufficed. And historically many innocent people have died as a result of Israel's quick trigger reactions.

Still, contrary to what many believe, Jewish-Arab conflicts have killed far fewer people than Muslim-Muslim conflicts. For example the civil war in Syria these days, or the Iraq-Iran war, or the Lebanese civil war or many other Muslim against Muslim conflicts that have been far more lethal than Israel's conflicts. Just looking at the casualty lists of these wars I estimate for every Muslim killed by a Jew there are 100 Muslims killed by other Muslims. And there are many more Muslims killed by US and EU armies than by Israel as well. But still even one non combatant death is too many and should be avoided, so let's try to understand why Israel responds so violently to aggression, sometimes crossing acceptable boundaries.

Israel is so aggressive because the history of Judaism is a history in which us Jews get killed for being Jewish again and again. And the few times we were spared, we celebrate it as a holidays. As one Jewish friend put it, a Jewish holiday can be summarized as "they tried to kill us, we won, let's eat". So we have Passover for when we saved ourselves from the Egyptians, and today, February 24th, we celebrate Purim, another survival celebration. This time we celebrate how we prevented a holocaust in Persia when Jews were deported from present-day Israel to present-day Iran. But then of course there was the very sad time we did not win, and that was the Holocaust, a systematic elimination of Jews, where nobody saved us and around a third of the Jews of the world were massacred by the Nazis. As a result, while the population of the planet has tripled, there are the same amount of Jews now as there were in 1900. And this is very much in the mind of the current generation of Israeli leaders who grew up right after the Holocaust. These leaders are haunted by the ever present question of why Jews didn't defend themselves effectively in the Holocaust, by a conviction that if we don't defend ourselves nobody will. And that's why they see that their primary mission as leaders is to prevent a new Holocaust. This mission is not helped when Israel's Sharon returns Gaza hoping for peace and Hamas who has a stated mission to eliminate Israel wins the local elections and starts an ongoing conflict with Israel. Or when Iran itself says that Jews should be thrown out of their country or exterminated. As these events unfold, Israeli leaders think "never again" and act, sometimes judiciously, sometimes not.

So given the history of the Jewish people, which could be summarized as the history of a people who tried to stay alive among Christians and Muslims and did quite poorly, a history of a people that are now only one in 500 of humanity as a whole, not one in five as Muslims or one in three as Christians, the Israeli fear is more understandable. Especially in a world in which other nations like the USA go much further in committing what I would call human rights violations (i.e use of drones) in order to defend itself. The intervention of Europe and the USA in the Arab world in the last few years in Afghanistan and Iraq has resulted in far more deaths than all the Israel wars with Arabs combined, yet even these invasions seem more accepted by general public opinion around the world than Israel's policies. So as Jews, myself included, celebrate Purim today, I hope this commentary helps to put the issue in perspective and helps non-Jews understand why Jews will always be quick to react to attacks like the rockets Hamas frequently fires into Israel.

The Auditive Internet: A Rising Trend

2012-12-21T09:55:32-05:00

Recently there has been an increased focus on our barriers to multitasking. For example, imagine yourself driving as you receive a Twitter update or an SMS on your cellphone. Without a driverless car, your eyes must be focused on the road with your hands on the steering wheel, not on your phone. And that's just one case; the desire for visual and tactile independence is true for any situation where your attention is required elsewhere. In this sense, I am starting to see more and more options for programs to read information aloud.

The improvement in speech recognition and text-to-speech programs has transformed our interactions with smartphones. For example, the Samsung Galaxy SIII comes equipped with "Driving mode": a service that announces incoming calls, reads inbound text messages and emails, and allows you to reply back orally. Furthermore, look at personal assistant services like Siri and Sherpa. These apps provide a way to essentially maintain an oral conversation with your mobile device, accessing data from the phone's systems, apps and internet sites. I find these programs valuable; I rely on my mobile phone primarily as a source of news and updates from my social networks.

For this reason, some months ago I created an Android app called RadioMe. In September it was improved and renamed SpotRadio. It's a radio that reads your social media feeds, so that you can receive your Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn updates by spoken word. I personally find it most useful on my bike trips, which are often long and well accompanied by a mix of music and personal news.

What's more, in the market for social DJ apps I have a great competitor: The Social Radio. Its creator Roberto Gluck and I recently discussed the similarities and differences between our apps with the hope of improvement on both ends.

The Social Radio has many advantages -- its default TTS program provides a more realistic, less robotic voice that changes between male and female. It recognizes two more languages than SpotRadio, one of which is Russian. The app has Android, iOS and web versions, while SpotRadio currently only supports Android. Its interface is simple like SpotRadio's, and although it has less options for configuring frequency and duration of music and social news, it offers more choices for receiving Twitter news: you can listen to customized lists or trending topics as opposed to the full stream.

However, The Social Radio doesn't read other social media networks -- it's only available for Twitter, whereas SpotRadio can integrate Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail and SMS. At the same time, the app consumes much more bandwidth than SpotRadio because the voices are synthesized on an external server, rather than on the device itself. Additionally, while SpotRadio keeps social media account information within the app, The Social Radio requires authorizing access to Twitter account every time the app is opened. SpotRadio provides your social news in written form, recognizes duplicate updates and won't read the provider of the update if you prefer not to hear it -- options unavailable in The Social Radio.

The Social Radio and SpotRadio are two new tools of many that offer the ability to receive spoken notifications from your handheld device. Whether accessing your Facebook updates or reading you an email, this auditory trend is convenient and increasingly relevant to multitaskers. In any case, it should take off even further as improvement in TTS and voice recognition technology continues.

Sin crítica no hay cambio

2012-11-24T08:51:10-05:00

Viví de pequeño en Argentina, después en Estados Unidos durante 18 años, más tarde otros 17 en España y ahora acabo de regresar a Estados Unidos. Este artículo va a tocar un solo tema: El aguante a la crítica. A la crítica que es el primer paso para el cambio, para resolver las crisis, para evolucionar, para crecer. Y digo esto después de vivir en un país como España, que tiene una tolerancia que yo considero mínima hacia la crítica. Como dije una vez sobre España en Twitter "cuando digo que España es maravillosa me dicen que es una mierda pero cuando asiento y digo que es una mierda me dicen que me vuelva a mi país".

Así es que recién llegado me invitaron a ser líder Intelectual en LinkedIn, lo que supone una plataforma más además de mi blog, mi cargo de consejero delegado de Fon o mi título de profesor en Columbia, para poder divulgar mis ideas. Y como muchos ya descubrieron, hoy son pocas las ideas que se transmiten a través de un libro.

Si uno quiere llegar a la gente de una manera rápida y eficaz nada mejor que las redes sociales. Y porque tengo una mentalidad crítica vaya donde vaya, uno de los primeros artículos que escribí se llama "Lo que está mal en Estados Unidos". En este artículo, que fue publicado a posta el día de las elecciones, se podría decir que le doy palos a este país. Critico la sanidad pública, la baja esperanza de vida, la mala distribución de los ingresos, el peligroso amor por las armas de fuego, el altísimo e innecesario gasto militar, en definitiva toco todos los temas más duros de la realidad norteamericana.

Es lo que en España se podría considerar una crítica feroz. Algo que si lo escribiera en España, especialmente siendo extranjero, me costaría la enemistad de muchos y el comentario que recibí tantas veces, aún siempre criticando desde el amor, que es "vete a tu casa". Pero en Estados Unidos, donde la gente tiene una óptica diferente, donde se considera la crítica un paso indispensable para el cambio y la mejoría es increíble lo que pasó con este artículo. Primero que tuvo una enorme divulgación, lo vieron 96 mil personas.

Luego tuvo más de 1.000 likes en Facebook, más de 200 retweets, más de 300 comentarios que recomiendo que si tienes tiempo, sabes inglés o usas un traductor en tu navegador los leas porque son buenísimos y nadie me mandó a vivir de vuelta a la Argentina. Es más, aquí tienes un programa de televisión en el que se habló del artículo. Lo comparto para que entiendas por qué Estados Unidos es la economía número uno del planeta: por la capacidad de rescatar lo bueno de la crítica, el amor de la crítica, el deseo de mejora de la crítica.

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Google Chromebook, mi reseña

2012-11-23T09:18:51-05:00

Llevo una hora probando el Google Chromebook de Samsung.

Costando sólo 249 dólares no hay mucho de lo que quejarse. Es una pieza de hardware bastante decente por un precio súper barato. Si la competencia es, digamos, un MacBook Air de 1.000 dólares, cuyo hadware es muy parecido, el precio no tiene comparación. Pero ¿es un MacBook air? Ese es el problema. No lo es ni de lejos. El Chromebook es una solución para los que están enganchados a los productos de Google y sin un duro. De lo contrario es mucho mejor comprar un MacBook Air, un Windows OC, un Ubuntu PC, un tablet Android o un iPad mini.

Ahora si tú, como yo, ves los teclados de vidrio sólo como una solución temporal en tu vida, el precio a pagar por el poco peso de un iPad o un tablet Android pero una manera muy incómoda de escribir un post como éste, necesitarás un teclado de verdad. Y si necesitas un teclado de verdad hasta ahora tus opciones eran un PC, un Mac o un Linux (Ubuntu) en un PC. A partir de esta semana puedes añadir el Chromebook a la lista, especialmente si miras por el precio. Porque el Chromebook tiene un teclado de verdad, es sencillo, ligero y rápido, abre y cierra como el MacBook o incluso mejor. Pero mientras que el MacBook Air es una máquina que funciona de manera autónoma y también online, el Chromebook es prácticamente inútil cuando no está conectado al red. El Chromebook es todo lo que puedes hacer con el navegador de Chrome en un PC más un conjunto de funcionalidades muy limitadas que no requieren que estés online. El Chromebook es un dispositivo basado en la nube, donde la nube es Google.

Mirándolo desde el lado positivo, al ser un dispositivo en la nube, el Chromebook viene con un Google Drive de 100GB lo cual es como el Dropbox más grande que hayas visto nunca y tiene además un lector de tarjetas SD que te permite subir cualquier tipo de archivo a tu Google Drive, como fotos o videos. También cuenta con un procesador ARM, el tipo de procesador que utilizan tablets y móviles y que multiples empresas adquieren de ARM. Este procesador consume mucha menos energía y permite al Chromebook funcionar sin ventilador y estar frio, que es estupendo para los que están hartos de quemarse las piernas con los Macs.

En resumen, si ya eres fan de los productos de Google y estás mirando algo que no sea muy caro, adelante. Si no, cómprate un PC con Intel si te gusta Microsoft o un Mac, o instala Ubuntu en tu Windows. Todas estas opciones te darán muchas más funcionalidades que no están disponibles en el Chromebook como iTunes, programas de retoque fotográfico, programas de edición de video, etc.

Ahora la pregunta es: ¿por qué no se construye un Chromebook con Android? A mi me encantaría tener acceso al ecosistema de las apps de Android y poder teclear y también tocar la pantalla. Me gustaría ver el mismo hardware con Android. A lo mejor hay un hack para eso. Yo no lo he encontrado. Lo que sí encontré fue un hack para instalar Ubuntu en un Chromebook. Lo intentaré después.

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Sin Crítica no hay Cambio

2012-11-20T04:07:13-05:00

Viví de pequeño en Argentina, después en Estados Unidos durante 18 años, más tarde otros 17 en España y ahora acabo de regresar a Estados Unidos. Este artículo va a tocar un solo tema: El aguante a la crítica. A la crítica que es el primer paso para el cambio, para resolver las crisis, para evolucionar, para crecer. Y digo esto después de vivir en un país como España, que tiene una tolerancia que yo considero mínima hacia la crítica. Como dije una vez sobre España en Twitter: "Cuando digo que España es maravillosa me dicen que es una mierda pero cuando asiento y digo que es una mierda me dicen que me vuelva a mi país".

Así es que recién llegado me invitaron a ser Líder Intelectual en LinkedIn, lo que supone una plataforma más además de mi blog, mi cargo de consejero delegado de Fon o mi título de profesor en Columbia, para poder divulgar mis ideas. Y como muchos ya descubrieron, hoy son pocas las ideas que se transmiten a través de un libro. Si uno quiere llegar a la gente de una manera rápida y eficaz nada mejor que las redes sociales. Y porque tengo una mentalidad crítica vaya donde vaya, uno de los primeros artículos que escribí se llama "Lo que está mal en Estados Unidos". En este artículo, que fue publicado aposta el día de las elecciones, se podría decir que le doy palos a este país. Critico la sanidad pública, la baja esperanza de vida, la mala distribución de los ingresos, el peligroso amor por las armas de fuego, el altísimo e innecesario gasto militar, en definitiva toco todos los temas más duros de la realidad norteamericana. Es lo que en España se podría considerar una crítica feroz. Algo que si lo escribiera en España, especialmente siendo extranjero, me costaría la enemistad de muchos y el comentario que recibí tantas veces, aún siempre criticando desde el amor, que es "vete a tu casa".

Pero en Estados Unidos, donde la gente tiene una óptica diferente, donde se considera la crítica un paso indispensable para el cambio y la mejoría es increíble lo que pasó con este artículo. Primero que tuvo una enorme divulgación, lo vieron 96 mil personas. Luego tuvo más de 1.000 likes en Facebook, más de 200 retweets, más de 300 comentarios que recomiendo que si tienes tiempo, sabes inglés o usas un traductor en tu navegador los leas porque son buenísimos y nadie me mandó a vivir de vuelta a la Argentina. Es más, aquí tienes un programa de televisión en el que se habló del artículo. Lo comparto para que entiendas por qué Estados Unidos es la economía número uno del planeta: por la capacidad de rescatar lo bueno de la crítica, el amor de la crítica, el deseo de mejora de la crítica.

So What's Wrong With The States?

2012-11-06T12:53:32-05:00

The USA is a great nation for entrepreneurship and innovation, it has the best science in the world, the most creativity in the arts, it is the number one economy in the world, it has an energy unrivaled by other nations and we have chosen to move to this great nation with our family. So everything that follows must be seen as friendly criticism from a person who loves this country.

Now most of my friends in the USA agree on what is great about this nation. But when I speak to some American friends they seem to be unaware of the shortcomings of the USA compared to others, and this is what I would like to focus on. Here are some quick examples.

The USA ranks 38th in life expectancy which is shocking considering that it has the best medical science in the world. And this generation is the first one that will live less than the previous generation. The average American is expected to live two years less than, say, the average Spaniard. This is partly because the USA has a medical system that leaves 50 million people uninsured and many others under-insured or worried about losing their insurance (my wife Nina, for example, can't get medical insurance to have our next baby because pregnancy is considered a pre-existing condition and we moved to USA when she was already pregnant). It is also partly because the USA is the nation with the highest percentage of its population obese, over 30%. The WHO studied overall level of health and concluded that Americans rank 72 in the world. Family structure is also weak as the USA has the highest divorce rates in the world. Moreover inequality is on the rise: as this Wikipedia article argues, the top earning 1 percent of households gained about 275% over a period between 1979 and 2007, compared to a gain of just under 40% for the 60 percent in the middle of America's income distribution.

The USA has a legal system that is extremely expensive and unreliable and tends to favor those with resources to pay for it. The USA spends almost half of what the whole world spends in the military and since WWII (in which the USA did an amazing job), other military interventions have been of dubious value for such a huge investment, especially Iraq and Afghanistan. The USA leads all developed countries in executions by death penalty, it has a love for guns that makes its murder rate unusually high for a developed nation, it has the highest incarceration rates of the developed world mostly focused on one ethnic group, African Americans. The USA has more people in jail or parole than Madrid has people. And while the USA has most of the best ranked universities in the world, according to PISA scores the USA ranks very poorly compared to other developed nations. The USA is also the largest polluter in the world together with China but a leader on a per capita basis. The American lifestyle is great but not scalable to the world as a whole. Replicating this lifestyle on a global basis will lead to extreme competition over resources and high environmental damage.

Yes, the USA is great nation. I am happy to be here teaching at Columbia-- this country probably has the most educated elite in the entire world. It has incredible business creativity and it is home to the Apples and Googles of this world and in this sense, they are an example for the whole world to follow. It also has individuals who are among the most driven in the world and who want to succeed and do as much as they can. But it has a number of very important issues to address, many of which were not part of the recent presidential debates (climate change for example) and which seem to rarely be part of the conversation with many of my American friends.

But as Bill Clinton once said, "there is nothing that is wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what's right in America." And so long as this country continues to produce outstanding individuals like George Lucas for example who has offered to donate $4bn that he is making off the sale of Lucas Film to Disney to education, there is hope.

This post originally appeared on LinkedIn.

El iPad Mini y la Microsoft Surface

2012-11-06T09:09:33-05:00

En medio del huracán Sandy, cuando más de un millón de hogares no tienen electricidad y con downtown NY apagado no se como pero me llegaron dos gadgets que había pedido, el iPad Mini y la Microsoft Surface. Ayer los estuve probando y estas son mis primeras impresiones.

Microsoft Surface:

Cuando Microsoft era un monopolista global imparable a muchos nos causaba rechazo. Últimamente me pasa lo contrario, me da pena. Especialmente por el tema Nokia, la ultima gran empresa de tecnología que queda en Europa y a punto de quebrar. Quiero que la alianza Nokia Microsoft funcione. Veo que la única esperanza es que si todas las laptops y netbooks se hacen tipo Windows Surface que Nokia los cientos de millones de usuarios Microsoft vean los móviles de Nokia como cómodos y útiles. Así que quería que me gustara. Compré este modelo. Pero no, es una pena, no hace falta usarla mucho para darte cuenta que la Surface es un prototipo no un producto. No digo que no funcione porque funciona. Pero le falta mucho para alcanzar a la tableta Nexus de Google, y no hablemos del iPad que está kilómetros por delante. Lo que más falla en la Surface son las apps. Si usas mucho Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, no encontrarás esas apps, tendrás que ir a apps de terceros o al navegador. Pero además de que las apps son pocas y confusas y están organizadas de maneras poco inteligentes, la tableta en si es muy grande y pesada por ser una tableta, me quedo con el formato del iPad grande. Tiene temas interesantes como los mosaicos inteligentes y esas cosas pero hoy en día tu tableta son tus apps y si no están ahí lo primero que te sale es decir, que pase la siguiente. El tema de las apps parece una tontería al principio, la pregunta es para que quiero apps si tengo un navegador. Pero Apple demostró primero y luego Android también que las apps son un nuevo paradigma de usabilidad. Y sin apps la Surface es como una nueva y atractiva discoteca pero sin marcha.

iPad Mini:

Mientras que mi teléfono favorito ahora es el Samsung SIII en tabletas prefiero los iPads que los Androids, y con respecto al tamaño, Apple acertó con el iPad Mini. Si nunca tuviste un iPad esta es tu oportunidad, es el iPad más barato y para muchas ocasiones el formato del Mini supera al del iPad. Es fina, muy liviana y te da toda la experiencia iPad. Como negativo el display no es tan bueno como el del iPad y sigue el tema de que si quieres GPS la tienes que comprar con conectividad móvil algo realmente absurdo porque una cosa no tiene nada que ver con la otra. Esto es así en el iPad y el iPad Mini.

Termino haciendo un comentario sobre el nuevo iPod Touch. Es casi como un iPhone 5 pero te ahorras la cuota mensual de tu operador móvil. Lo que yo hago es en vez de tener un iPhone 5 tengo el nuevo iPod Touch que es casi igual pero más liviano y me conecto por WiFi. Cuando no encuentro WiFi me creo mi propio hotspot con el SIII y uso el iPod Touch. ¿Por qué uso el iPod Touch si el SIII puede hacer casi lo mismo? Porque la experiencia Apple es aún mejor que la Android en todo lo que sea foto, video y música. Uso Android más que nada porque soy adicto al teclado Swiftkey y porque Android permite autoconectores de WiFi como el de Fon y Apple no. Pero la experiencia Android en foto y video es muy inferior a la de Apple. Y ni hablar de las apps de fotografía que hay en iOS tipo Snapseed y otras. Así que en mis salidas cotidianas llevo el SIII y el iPod Touch.

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Este post ha sido publicado también en el blog del autor, en http://spanish.martinvarsavsky.net/

The Rich Are Frequently Hated in Europe and for Good Reason

2012-10-19T17:18:14-04:00

I lived in NYC for 18 years, then in Madrid, Spain, for 17 years and as of three weeks ago I have been back in New York City. While I started my life as the middle class son of a university professor, I was lucky enough to become a serial entrepreneur in the telco, internet and alternative energy sectors, and enjoy a life that I would not have dreamed of when I was a student at Columbia University.

This has put me in a privileged position to observe the life of my successful peers on both sides of the ocean, people who are well off, otherwise known as "the rich." And while the rich are frequently disliked in the USA, they are many times simply hated in Europe. In the beginning of my life in Europe, I thought this was because equality is highly valued in Europe, not only equality of opportunity as in the USA, but also equality of results. But upon my return to the USA, I have come to realize that this is only part of the reason why rich people in Europe face disdain from the public. That when you look into how the rich behave in Europe vis-à-vis their peers and society in general, you realize that there are more reasons to dislike the rich in Europe. Especially in continental Europe, where rich people rarely lead public lives, are reclusive and only occasionally generous when it comes to sharing their wealth to improve the world.

Old wealth

Many wealthy people in Europe come from old money, so they've never had to face the difficulties that the average person on the street faces. These people often don't realize how privileged they are. They frequently have no living relatives who can recall tough times. They can only remember wealth. And this old wealth, the wealthy German, Italian, French and Spanish families for example, families that I have come to know in my business dealings and social life, behave differently from their American counterparts who are more commonly self-made and greatly aware of the precariousness of their condition as wealthy.

New wealth

In contrast, the rich in the U.S., the majority of whom are many times self-made, are much more sensitive to the realities faced by the rest of society. For a lot of them, life was tough just a few years ago. Or because they are more commonly risk takers, they also identify with loss in the sense that they see that they too could be broke in the future should business prospects go seriously wrong.

This awareness of risk, and recent memory of adversity, makes the wealthy in the US more sensitive, and more willing to share -- from making more charitable donations to sharing wealth with friends and acquaintances. Since we moved from Madrid to New York, we have experienced this largesse firsthand. My wife and I have received invitations to wonderful vacations, as well as offers to share planes, homes and yachts. This is something that I rarely experienced in Europe, where splitting bills is very common even among the very rich.

The result is that in America the rich are more often admired and emulated than in Europe. Take Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, for example, and their pledge to donate half of their wealth in a program known as The Giving Pledge, and see all the American billionaires who have gone along with this pledge. These men are very wealthy but at the same time sensitive to the serendipitous nature of their economic success. I'm not sure I could name their European counterparts. Amancio Ortega for example, the fifth wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $37 billion, is unknown around the world in part because he has avoided philanthropy.

Is the hatred of the European rich justified?

Oftentimes, yes. In Europe, people are used to dealing with rich people who are self-absorbed, insensitive and out of touch with reality. They see rich people who bask in their wealth, but do little to improve the world -- philanthropy is rare in Europe, especially when compared to the USA. And as I mentioned before, Europe has huge egalitarian aspirations, so having wealth and not sharing it in any way does create animosity. What people in Europe want to see is a new crop of wealthy people who care about the world, and are willing to share their wealth beyond their immediate families.

The European Startup Scene Is on the Rise, With London and Berlin in the Lead

2012-10-19T09:06:56-04:00

Europe has been associated with economic decline for decades. Indeed, many have written off Europe as a continent incapable of innovation, watching it fall behind North America and Asia. However, in terms of GDP, the European Union is still the largest economy in the world. The real GDP of Europe is not only bigger than that of the USA, it is also bigger than that of all the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies combined. And yet when it comes to Europe, what we frequently hear is how poorly managed it is and how close it is to falling apart.

Some of this is certainly true -- despite its comparative economic dominance, Europe has had a serious problem with successful entrepreneurship for decades. Although many of the world's largest corporations are European, only one of them has come out of Europe since 1975: Spain's Inditex. That's one European success story in over 30 years, paradoxically out of Spain. The list of top U.S. corporations, on the other hand, is dominated by companies that didn't exist 30 years ago. Amazon and Google are good examples.

But before you give up on Europe's innovation capabilities, I am here to report some good news: the European startup scene is thriving. As traditional jobs disappear, entrepreneurship is growing fast in many parts of the continent. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, Hamburg, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Munich, Paris and Stockholm are all becoming startup hotspots. And the two indisputable leaders of these new entrepreneurial cities are London and Berlin.

While both cities are exciting, young and innovative, they are entrepreneurial leaders for different reasons. Berlin has low rental prices, low housing costs, lower salaries, a high quality labor force, great engineers and it's a fun and creative place. It would probably lead Europe's startup scene if it weren't for some key drawbacks when compared to London. Apart from the language barrier (a difficult one for non-natives!), Berlin has two big negatives: poor access to funding and a tax/labor framework that fails to recognize the uniqueness of start ups.

Funding is more complicated in Berlin because Germans have a natural aversion to risk, which in turn makes it hard for their financial system to find a good way to consistently finance failures. As Silicon Valley has shown, you need a financial industry willing to finance many failures until the successes come. Entrepreneurship is also a trial and error business -- this is the job of the famous Sand Hill Road firms like Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia, my partners at Fon. And while the British themselves do not have outstanding VC firms willing to take American-style risks, the largest US VCs have established themselves in London. Even Continental European VCs like Atomico (who also invested in Fon), work out of London because the United Kingdom has the best tax and legal regimes in Europe for startups.

And this regime has recently improved even further with the UK's new tax and labor laws. Now it is easier to give stock options and hire and fire, something that is essential for start ups. After all, startups try talent out as frequently as they try themselves out and need a legal regime that recognizes this. The UK system does while the German system does not. So, even if salaries and rents are higher in London, financing and the ability to "try things out" make London a more favorable place for starting a business.

Overall, I see better prospects for startups in most European cities than before the 2008 financial crisis. But if I had to bet on the winner, I'd choose London as the best place to start a business in Europe, as the conditions for entrepreneurs are similar to those found in U.S. startup hubs like the Silicon Valley or NYC. Having said this, Berlin is a close follow up and if Germany focuses on the changes that are needed for entrepreneurs to thrive there, it could rise to the number one spot in Europe.

Como hacer un negocio con la sanidad española

2012-10-02T10:05:54-04:00

Primero una anécdota. Cuando vine a vivir a España, desde Estados Unidos, y creé Jazztel en 1998, se me ocurrió ofrecerles a los empleados un seguro médico, algo muy norteamericano. Les pregunté si preferían que Jazztel les pagara un seguro médico privado, o les diera el dinero, que no era mucho, algo como €60 por mes.

Me sorprendió enterarme que casi nadie prefería el seguro médico privado, que pocos tenían interés en ir a la medicina privada, que estaban bastante conformes con la pública y que preferían ganar €60 euros por mes mas. Luego yo mismo tuve oportunidad de probar la sanidad pública española, un poco por mis caidas haciendo bici de montaña y otras por accidentes varios de mis hijos y vi que era realmente muy buena, muy buena y muy gratis. Especialmente viniendo de Estados Unidos donde la sanidad cuesta unos 600 euros por mes y además se pagan más cosas que aquí inclusive asegurados.

Ahora hagamos "fast forward" a 2012.

España está quebrada, siendo rescatada dia a dia por la Unión Europea (UE). Sanidad quebrada y con impagos enormes, pero aún con una muy buena calidad médica, y llena de hospitales nuevos y recién equipados con los últimos modelos "burbuja" de cuando aún teníamos crédito. Esto acompañado de un gran debate por el tema del copago y el plan cobrarle 710 euros por año a los inmigrantes ilegales. Viendo la situación y siendo emprendedor, se me ocurre hacer de la tragedia un negocio.

O digamos hacer la tragedia menos trágica ayudándola con un negocio.

España es el cuarto destino turístico del mundo. Recibimos casi 60 millones de turistas por año y casi todos vienen de paises en los que la medicina es más cara. ¿Por qué no vendemos nuestros servicios médicos que son tan buenos y tan baratos a turistas? ¿Por qué no lanzamos el turismo médico a gran escala? ¿Por qué no transformamos la sanidad pública en una industria exportadora?

¿Cómo hacer esto? El gobierno podría lanzar una gran campaña publicitaria en el que se le ofrece un seguro médico a extranjeros para usar la sanidad pública por 100 euros por mes. Y a todos los demás extranjeros que no vengan con seguro se les cobra 40 euros cada vez que quieran usar la sanidad y no gratis como ahora. Los amigos estadounidenses que han tenido problemas de salud en Menorca por ejemplo no se lo podían creer cuando luego de tratarlos no les cobraban nada. Estaban dispuestos a pagar €100 euros por una consulta sin problema. 40 euros les parecería un chollo. Los extranjeros no esperan, pero si reciben medicina gratis en España.

De ahi empezamos a promover el turismo médico. ¡Venga a tratarse en la sanidad pública española! Somos el país grande más longevo del mundo.

Si el gobierno consiguiera que un millón de los 60 millones de turistas pagara este seguro para turismo médico se conseguirían 1200 millones de euros al año. Para los norteamericanos poder venir a España y cuando están aquí e ir al médico gratis, todo por un seguro de 1200 euros anuales sería muy bueno. Los alemanes pagan seguros de 300 euros al mes. Ni hablar de la gente que no está asegurada en muchos paises y tienen dinero pero no tanto como cuestan los seguros en su país. En Argentina por ejemplo un seguro que da la calidad de servicio de la sanidad española cuesta unos 300 por mes. Se que conseguir un millón de clientes no es fácil, pero el mercado es de 60 millones. Luego tendremos que deducir los costes de tratar a esta gente, pero veo posible realizar un beneficio. Especialmente con tanta infraestructura instalada.

Creo que el gobierno español tiene posibilidad de financiar una parte de la salud de los españoles con el turismo médico y que esta oportunidad debería por lo menos ser estudiada. Se que muchos españoles piensan que la medicina debería ser gratis para todos, pero no lo es, la pagamos nosotros y podemos encontrar clientes afuera. Es hora de ser creativos y vender seguro médico a extranjeros con la sanidad pública española.

Videos relacionados con la sanidad pública española:

Esta colaboración ha sido publicado también en el blog del autor, en http://spanish.martinvarsavsky.net/general/como-hacer-un-negocio-con-la-sanidad-espanola.html

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Europe: United We Stand, Divided We Fall

2012-09-20T08:38:57-04:00

Have you been reading about German chancellor Angela Merkel's rigidity in maintaining the single currency? Do you see how terrible the future looks not only for the periphery of Europe but for Germany as well? Is it clear that as we stand we are headed for the perfect storm?

Okay, let's move on to what I think Europe should do to get out of the crisis, which is basically to start the United States of Europe.

Consider this: it will cost Germany and all of Europe more if there is a widespread default, and if Spain and Italy leave the eurozone. So I think it's time for Europe to unite and risk inflation as the USA did before.

If you had to summarize the reaction of the Fed to the multi-trillion default of 2008, you'll find that the FED risked inflation and won. That the Fed stood there providing unlimited credit, and so did the Treasury. And that thanks to a gigantic state intervention, the U.S. banking system, car industry and many other industries, along with the economy as a whole, were saved. And there was no inflation. Europe needs to do the same now, but for that it needs to become the United States of Europe from a regulatory point of view. The other choice is the end of Europe, massive defaults and devaluations and possibly a tremendous shock to the global economy.

How does the EU become the United States of Europe?

1) Europe starts the European Treasury. An agency that regulates how all tax revenue is distributed, and can give or withhold government expenditures from EU member nations depending on revenue. Short of that, I don't see how the EU can prevent a country like Greece from meeting its deficit targets, for example. This European Treasury has to set 5-year objectives for all European nations to go into fiscal surplus to begin paying down European debt.

2) This European Treasury needs to consolidate all European debt into one debt pool regardless of nationality to eliminate risk spreads and with a credible deficit reduction package to bring down all euro interest rates to something slightly higher than Germany's rates today.

3) The European Central Bank needs to become the regulator of all European banks and offer deposit guarantees for all European banks to stop the massive South to North capital flight that is taking place. All European banks would subject to the same rules, regulators and bank deposit guarantees.

As I see it, the future of Europe is "United We Stand, Divided We Fall."

Do countries want to lose so much sovereignty? Probably not; they are established nations with great pride. But given the alternative, they should. As it is, Europe is a continent in which each country is married but it can mess around. That regime won't work. It's either Europe or divorce. Europe needs to unify a lot more as a result of this. One European traffic control, one European army, one European anything that is managed at the Federal level in USA. The USA has found a balance between cities, states and federal that Europe needs to emulate. Otherwise, the euro will not hold.

The enemy? Local powers. But if we were able to do away with tons of people who worked at European borders, European currency agencies we can do away with local patent offices, local traffic controllers, local air forces, local armies, local 100 other things, imagine how efficient we would be. How much better off. How much better prepared to compete globally.

The Game of Thrones Around Us

2012-07-04T14:10:12-04:00

We are in Sagaponack, NY. Nina, Leo and Mia went to see the Southampton 4th of July parade. I am sick in bed with a bad summer flu. I stayed in bed watching a Game of Thrones marathon. I am on Season 2, Episode 4. I almost never watch TV but I do enjoy TV series. I watch them mostly during flights, on my iPad. And now because I am sick and can't stop coughing, I am watching them in bed. By now, I have probably watched over 10 hours of Game of Thrones over the last three days.

Game of Thrones has a great deal of sex and people talk about that, but the sex is nothing compared to the amount of violence it depicts -- a violence almost at the limit of what I can stomach, such as when they kill a baby off a woman's arm. But the story is good and I am hooked. At this point, anything that makes me forget my flu is welcome. Still, I suffer as I watch the most violent scenes. When I watch these horrors, I remember the child in myself saying, this is just a movie, this is just a movie. But then, during a break I read the news. The real news. And I see this. A very Game of Thrones real life story going on right now in Syria as Bashar Al Assad tries to stay on his throne and goes on a killing rampage. Reuters reports.

Video clips showed rotting corpses lying in dried pools of blood in dark hallways, their faces covered with flies. One showed a woman and her child prone in a living room. The activist narrating the video said they had been stabbed.

A third video displayed pieces of charred flesh which activists said were severed genitals.

"There was more here yesterday," said a man wearing plastic gloves." "But the dogs were taking them."

So now my defenses stopped working. I think about what is going on in Syria, a country I visited in 2003 and found quite attractive. Here are my pictures from that trip. I can't imagine how those who appear in them are doing now in this horrible civil war. Why would Bashar al Assad, a man who trained to be an ophtalmologist in London and his wife Asma al-Assad who was born and raised in the U.K. and has a degree in computer science go on murder rampages to stay in power?

There is still a lot of Game of Thrones style violence around us. The middle ages are still here.

Cómo evitar la bancarrota de España

2012-06-29T05:41:14-04:00

España va camino a la bancarrota. Si no fuera por la UE que hace ya más de un año nos compra la deuda, no seríamos capaces de financiarnos. Si no fuera con ayudas como las de hoy para recapitalizar la banca estaríamos ya quebrados. La insolvencia de España viene de un Estado que gasta más de lo que recauda. Un Estado que cuando la economía privada, que es la que mantiene al Estado, se achicó de golpe al frenarse la industria de la construcción, no supo bajar gastos rápidamente y acomodarse a la nueva realidad. Pero el Estado no es el único culpable aquí. Tampoco la industria supo encontrar alternativas de empleo para un cuarto de la población que directa o indirectamente se dedicaba a construir todo tipo de viviendas, aeropuertos, autopistas, trenes de alta velocidad y otros proyectos sin usuarios ni compradores, financiados por una enorme expansión de la deuda privada de España.

La situación actual es grave, muy grave. El problema se expresa como un desafío financiero pero es mucho más que eso. Inclusive si España consiguiera que Alemania saliera a respaldar su deuda y los tipos bajaran al 2% del 6% actual, inclusive si el Gobierno consiguiera balancear sus cuentas y bajar el deficit a un nivel aceptable por los mercados, una gran parte del problema de España seguiría sin resolverse: la enorme cantidad de españoles que no tiene nada que hacer. Un país que deja a la mitad de su juventud como generación perdida en el paro es una verguenza de país, un fracaso de país, un país poco ético. Esta es la verdadera bancarrota de España, una generación perdida.

Es así que para evitar la bancarrota, no sólo necesitamos que Europa nos avale, sino que necesitamos reinventarnos, crear nuevos empleos, tener ideas empresariales y empresarios con imaginación y talento para realizarla. Tener trabajadores que son capaces de competir con los del norte y este de Europa y con los del resto del mundo. Tener un sistema educativo que forme a esos trabajadores.

En este escenario es importante entender el concepto de lo que es una start up. Una start up es una empresa en gestación, es el embarazo de una empresa durante el tiempo en el que pierde dinero y aún no es sostenible. En USA el 11% de los empleos vienen de las start ups que son responsables por el 21% del PIB. Pero en España, país en el que hice Jazztel, Ya.com y ahora Fon, me doy cuenta que los emprendedores que transformamos ideas en empresas somos mucho menos comunes y el resultado es, menos trabajo para todos.

Cuando subió el PP al Gobierno traté de convencer a sus líderes de que lo que tenían que hacer era obsesionarse con la creación de empleo y presenté este plan a Cristobal Montoro. Era un plan para apoyar a todas las empresas que aumentan plantilla quitándoles cargas gubernamentales. Lamentablemente Cristóbal Montoro y el equipo PP se enfocó en un plan opuesto. En vez de abaratar las cargas públicas asociadas al empleo abarataron el coste del despido. Apagaron el incendio con gasolina y el paro se descontroló. El Gobierno del PP se obsesionó con la crisis financiera y no entiende que el respiro que están buscando va a llegar, no con más avales de Europa para la deuda, sino con alguna demostración tangible de que hemos parado a esta terrible máquina de destrucción de empleo que viene arrasando con la economía española desde 2008. Si los datos del desempleo se dieran la vuelta, todo se daría la vuelta. Si España generara empleo todos los mecanismos necesarios para ser solventes volverían a aparecer. Pero esto no va a ocurrir mientras no se abarate el empleo, incluso a coste de subir otros impuestos como el IVA.

Para terminar quiero agregar una medida de crisis para tiempos de crisis: crear un régimen franco para la creación de nuevas empresas. La idea es sencilla, toda nueva empresa se le da hasta que tenga 10 empleados, 3 años de vida o sea rentable, una vida franca de impuestos. Es decir, los que trabajan en esta empresa no tienen que cotizar en la seguridad social, ni pagar impuestos, ni indemnizaciones, hasta que la empresa tiene 10 empleados, o hasta que pasan 3 años de vida -que es el tiempo razonable para llegar a ser rentables- o hasta que sea rentable y luego todo se regulariza. Lo que hace falta en España es ayudar a las nuevas empresas no rentables a que se solidifiquen y sean rentables. A que sean sostenibles, a que nazcan, a que existan. Una vez que lo son se las considera empresas, hasta entonces son start ups. Dado que hoy la actividad start up es mínima el impacto fiscal de esta medida sería mínimo, pero en pocos años las cotizaciones de estos nuevos empleos en empresas graduadas de start up a rentables podrían ser un gran refuerzo para la seguridad social y las finanzas españolas. En este régimen, inicialmente las empresas que pierden dinero y no son rentables no tributan, algo que tendría que ser obvio pero no es así hoy en España, en la que un tercio del dinero de una start up se puede ir en impuestos tipo cargas sociales y tributaciones varias de los empleados, incluso mientras la empresa no es rentable. Con esta medida se conseguirían más capitalistas de riesgo, más emprendedores, más inmigrantes listos a apostar por la creación de empresas en España (la mitad de las nuevas empresas en Silicon Valley están hechas por inmigrantes). Como dije en mi charla en La Red Innova, cuando la alternativa es el paro, emprender es barato, solo falta que el gobierno espere para cobrar impuestos a que la empresa sea rentable.

Si el Gobierno español se enfocara no en los que despiden sino en los que emplean, empezaríamos a recorrer el camino a la recuperación de nuestras finanzas, de nuestra economía y aún más importante, de nuestra moral como país.

Este post ha sido publicado también en el blog del autor, en http://spanish.martinvarsavsky.net/espaaa/como-evitar-la-bancarrota-de-espana.html

The Internet Did Not Sink the Markets a Decade Ago, the Markets Almost Sunk the Internet

2012-03-23T15:51:34-04:00

10 years ago all of us on the Internet were licking our wounds. We had been taken for a crazy ride in which we went from a point in whatever we touch was champagne to whatever we did was shit.

As an entrepreneur that lived through 1998 to 2002 I emerged reasonably well, I sold my shares in Viatel when it was worth $1.2bn, I sold Ya.com for $700 million but did not sell Jazztel when it was worth $5bn because I was its CEO and saw it go down to $700M (now it`s worth $1.4bn). Then I lost $50M in Einsteinet one of the best cloud computing start ups in Europe that was killed by the post bubble era in which financing completely dried out. So as you read this post you will see no bitterness.

But looking back at 2001/2002 I see this time not as a period in which Internet companies destroyed the financial markets, but as a time in which the financial markets almost destroyed the Internet. It was financiers/analysts who drove those insane valuations up and then down. What should have been a smooth ride on the internet, an era of taking more and more global citizens in its midst, became a crazy ride in which the internet itself gained enormous prestige and was later, for a while, seen as a useless gimmick. Only around 2007 people again realized that the Internet was simply transforming the world economy and was here to stay.

And then came 2008, when the financial industry practically destroyed the world economy. That was when the same financial firms did to the world what they had done to the Internet, inflate it and let it fall like dead weight.

Having been a happy customer of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others I don't want people to read this post as a rant against financial firms. We need financial firms. But what we don't need is financial firms to do what they did first to the Internet and then to the overall economy, namely to hype them out of value and sink them hard for no reason. In simple terms what I am advocating has been done before and that is to separate trading from advising. The Chinese Walls in these firms never worked and never will.

On Managing My Time

2012-02-07T10:35:06-05:00

One of the most frequent questions I get from journalists during interviews is "how do you have time to do everything you do? You run Fon, you are an active angel investor in so many companies, you teach at IE, speak at conferences, run your foundation, and on top of that you have a wife, 5 children, and you cycle, sail, and so on. How do you do it?"

My answer generally centers around the fact that I have a great team of managers, that they are so good and reliable, that Fon has an amazing pool of talent, I also talk about how much I delegate, and that is all true.

There is another side to this question that I have not told journalists. I have not done it because I fear sounding obnoxious, or elitist, or just weird. But this is my blog so if I don't do it here where else? So here's the other answer, the more private answer of how I manage my time and in one way or another I have managed my time like this throughout my life. Some of these tips are probably useful to you so here they go.

- I almost never watch TV, that seems to consume 20 hours a week of the average person. If I watch anything it's Netflix or Youtube, that's where I get my TV content and movies from. I also never go to movie theaters and watch all movies in our home theater with the family.

- I am not interested in professional sports, another activity that seems to consume endless hours of many people including most of my guy friends. Like yesterday was the Super Bowl, and it went unnoticed to me. I only watch the World Cup and that is once every four years.

- I read few books, I just don't have 30 hours to devote to each one of them. I read a lot on the net however, and some magazines and short stories. But just like I practice sports much more than I watch sports (I cycle around 8 hours a week) I write much more than I read. I read a lot in my 20s, now it's my time to contribute to others. Yes, I did read the Steve Jobs bio, or some Nick Hornby, Martin Amis novels. But reading whole books takes too much time for me to be able to do it on a daily basis. I wait to go on vacation for that. I read when I sail. That makes a perfect combination for me.

- Personal grooming: many top business people spend a great deal of time selecting their clothes, getting haircuts, manicures, pedicures, and all sorts of time consuming personal grooming activities. I instead sometimes cut my own hair, dress simply, wear sneakers and jeans, never wear ties or suit. Also I don`t spend much time shopping, almost everything I buy I buy online.

- Logistics and commute: I sometimes drive, but I have a driver and while I go anywhere I work in my car. This is clearly a luxury but it is a time saving luxury. Also by design my home is 10 minutes from my office and 20 minutes from the airport also near my kids schools. I also have another special luxury which is a small private jet and therefore spend much less time at airports and travel more efficiently around Europe, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, (my plane does not cross the Atlantic). Private jets are clearly a luxury but small jets that fly less than 4 hours cost 1/10 of what large jets that cross oceans cost. They do have an environmental footprint and I have built a lot of wind farms to pay for my sins :)

- Even though my company's name is Fon I rarely make phone calls. I communicate over every imaginable platform, bbm, whatsapp, skype for chat, google talk, you name it, but phone calls are mostly for family and friends and even those are rare. I prefer electronic media or in person meetings. That also saves me an hour a day compared to others, or more.

- I don't drink. Yes this one is a shocker but I rarely drink, if anything a glass of wine with a meal. I dislike beer and liquor. Drinking is something that consumes an incredible amount of time in the lives of other people and renders them useless for a lot of other activities for a significant percentage of their lives. Not drinking has put me in difficult positions doing business, especially in Japan, but it's not that I am against it, it makes me want to puke. Same with drugs, I tried many, but didn't like them. And cigarettes, cigars, I haven't smoked a whole one in my life, only a few joints and that was not a success either. Being sober at nights, on weekends, already puts me ahead of most of the population!

- I rarely do business lunches and dinners and spend most meals with family and friends. Business meetings are at the office and in the morning. I work from 9 to 2. Afternoons are for family and sports. Business meetings are invariably short. Then of course I am always online and work online. But I don't like to be at the office just for being at the office. Now when I am at Fon, my door is open and people can walk in for short meetings. People at Fon know that I treasure my time, but they also know that I am there every time I am really needed.

- I make social media work for me, sometimes people say, how do you get work done if you spend so much time on social media, but I use social media to take notes, like I have an idea for a business and I blog it, I share it, I work collectively with people, social media looks like a waste of time for others but it saves me time, I recruit on twitter, I brainstorm on Google+ or my blog, I work inside social media, get ideas, its a sanity check many times, crowdsourcing saves me time. When tweeting I use tweetdeck to time my tweets so they appear at different times of the day when I am doing other things. This allows me to tweet across time zones although sometimes it angers people when they think I don't answer and I am asleep. I also developed an Android app to listen to my social media on my bike. It's called Radiome and it reads your social media while it plays music, it's perfect for my bike.

- Against what many think I sleep and I sleep well, 8 hours or so. Sleeping is an important time of the day. I sleep much better with my wife than alone when I travel without her. Lately I sleep with our 5 month old baby and I still manage to sleep reasonably well because we are lucky enough to have a baby who sleeps 11 hours almost every night. She sleeps much better than my older kids and I think it's because we adopted co sleeping.

- Lastly I say no to a lot of invitations, events, dinners and business meetings. I see time as sailors see wind, or photographers see light, as something to use, manage, and shape, not as something to be a victim of, or to see go by. I am punctual.

And yes, I do have a great team of people who work for me and help me out and I am very, very thankful for what they do.

PD there's a shorter version of this article and a debate as well in Google+