

Video of Investor Morten Lund at LeWeb. This guys is crazy/awesome. - shafqat
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/932388

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jbyers
I had a hard time drawing the heart of the argument out of his talk. But many
of the points he makes are strong in isolation, and come from someone in a
unique position: tremendously successful (in monetary terms, at least); now
broke; aware of own luck and shortcomings; simultaneously dispensing advice
and admitting advice from others is most often bunk.

Here's what I took away:

\- Can't decouple risk from return and risk from impact. Risk takers must be
ready to lose.

\- Entrepreneurship might not be for you. Do you love what you're doing even
in a terrible climate?

\- Good people mandatory, smart people who have done real things. Not "smart-
asses."

\- Build on revenue.

\- Act instead of talking.

\- Frugality and focus on value, not cash in the bank, is healthy.

See also: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Lund>

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fallentimes
He recently invested in a ticket company (Live Stub) during a recession so
he'll have a chance to act instead of talk.

Unfortunately the press releases spent more time discussing Morten Lund than
Live Stub.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS56235+25-Aug...](http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS56235+25-Aug-2008+PRN20080825)

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delano
Is that worse than having an investor that doesn't bring press?

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fallentimes
Probably not, but that's a straw man argument.

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mixmax
He made quite a lot of money by being an early investor in Skype, the story
goes that Zennstrom and Friis were broke and he invested around $100.000 in
them before they had a product. This investment put him into the big league.

A few months ago he apparently lost the whole thing in an investment in a
Danish newspaper, and is now broke.

I never could figure this guy out - his achievements say he is smart as hell,
but his blog (<http://lundxy.com/>) is full of spelling mistakes and errors,
and he is totally inconsistent with no coherent message when he speaks.

One thing is for sure - he is a character...

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adamsmith
This reminds me of a Warren Buffet video I was watching yesterday where he
talks about "You only have to get rich once." ..."To make money they didn't
have and didn't need, they risked what they did have and did need. ...just
plain foolish." (He was talking about the Long Term Capital Management guys.)

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1LiATYSajw&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1LiATYSajw&feature=related)

~~~
mrtron
If your plan is to make a lot of money, you only need to get rich once.

No disrespect to Mr. Buffet - I hold him in the highest regard in terms of
character. However, his goal is to make a lot of money and have his companies
achieve this as well. He does an amazing job at this.

My slow/inarticulate point is that Lund seems to have separate goals so you
can't hold him to this same standard. It isn't foolish for Lund to lose all
his money with a risky venture. From my perspective, Lund wants to grow
companies and create the next big thing. I commend him for going after that
100% regardless of the risks involved.

edit: OK, watching that video showed Buffets point a little differently. He
was meaning never risk more than you can afford to lose regardless of the
return, which is true.

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tyn
And the next big thing is a free newspaper delivered at home? It's not even
original

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ivank
In case you can't play anything at ustream, it's because they're serving their
FLVs on non-standard ports.

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bemmu
It seems that LeWeb never released the startup competition videos?

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bluelu
The internet didn't work, so they might have lost the videos anyway. Also the
jury didn't really care (Robert Scoble did play solitaire while evaluating the
contestants). Two of the 3 finalists were companies that exisited 2 to 5
years. The criteria of choosing them were that they were profitable. They were
more like a success story than a startup! Leweb didn't even release a one
liner describing each startup. I wouldn't be too surprised if the startup
videos will never be released.

