chris muir

Nostalgia: just found a bunch of old Hyperpublic decks from last...

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:32:52 -0400

Nostalgia: just found a bunch of old Hyperpublic decks from last summer.

Experimenting with Spotify (Redux)

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:27:00 -0400

Few things are as personal as music. It defines moments and becomes wrapped up in our memories. People’s music streams are a window into their lives. I can look at a friend’s Spotify stream and infer so much about him: his mood, his location, the weather, his plans for the evening, who he’s with or planning to be with, and more.

Given how personal music is, the music listening experience after Spotify feels incomplete without a social interaction of some kind. Months ago I critiqued Spotify’s iPhone app and claimed I would switch back to the iPod app if Spotify didn’t improve its mobile UI, but I haven’t been able to make the switch. The app still stinks, but I underestimated how well Spotify fills music’s social layer. It feels great to have someone like my favorite album on Facebook or subscribe to my new playlist; it even feels good just knowing that people are seeing what I’m listening to if I want them to. So this morning, when I opened up the iPod app to listen to an album that’s not yet on Spotify, I only made it two songs before switching to Spotify and listening to something that my friends could see.

"I think the secret is really observation. If you observe what’s going on, try to figure out..."

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:00:40 -0400

“I think the secret is really observation. If you observe what’s going on, try to figure out how people are thinking and determine the times of your day, I think you can always write something that people will understand.”

- Sam Cooke on success in music.

Syncing Quirk in Dropbox for Windows

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 14:30:00 -0400

I stumbled upon a frustrating Dropbox quirk yesterday when I couldn’t find a shared folder created by a friend. The filename of the folder ended with a period, which is a no go for Windows files. This meant that the folder was visible in the Dropbox web app but not in the desktop app.

Web App

Desktop App

Dropbox has helpful instructions and a bad files check script for diagnosing synching issues like this one, but I hadn’t seen them before.

Results of bad files check

Problem solved. (This is obviously not a problem on Macs; Windows stinks.)

*Thanks to Josh for the sanity check.

Charisma in the classroom

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 21:52:11 -0400

One of my favorite professors from Williams passed away last week. He was brilliant, intense, and charismatic. I still have my papers and exams from his class on jazz history and spent a few hours re-reading them over the weekend. I tend to look back at previous work and minimize it with thoughts of “wish I had tried harder” or “should have spent more time on it,” but with him I don’t feel that way at all. I worked hard because I wanted to impress him, and in the process learned the material, got a good grade, and became a better writer and critic.

True charisma is invaluable, especially in the hands of a professor who spent 20+ years at the front of a classroom. Professor Brown will be missed by many, especially those who had the privilege to know and admire him.

Here’s a playlist of the music we studied in class.

fred-wilson: The Weight - Mavis Staples, Nick Lowe, Jeff Tweedy...

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:11:49 -0500

fred-wilson:

The Weight - Mavis Staples, Nick Lowe, Jeff Tweedy & Wilco

in the dressing room backstage at the Civic Opera House in Chicago in Dec 2011

youtube video is here

happy friday cover day

Love the top comment: “Mavis puts more heart and soul into this little dressing room rehearsal than most current artists do on stage.”

"I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone..."

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:08:39 -0500

““I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea.””

- Solitude and Leadership by William Deresiewicz

12/22: Scenes from New York

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:59:00 -0500

Walked west on 10th Street this morning and caught lots of beautiful little NYC moments:

Hip NYU kids with no shoes on sitting outside their dining hall looking rebellious but decidedly well-off enough to afford shoes.

Laborers in faded white merchant vans inching past parked cars and moving trucks on their way from one job to another.

Turning the corner and heading north on 6th Ave and catching a glimpse of the dim skyline through gaps in the buildings, wondering what New York would look like without all the steel and glass and whether we’d even notice the skyline then.

A daydreaming commuter brought back to reality by three or four short muted beeps from a taxi driver.

A stranger eyeing me warily when I hold open for her the door to the blue mailbox on the corner, waiting until the last possible minute to grace me with a smile.

Turning the corner again and simultaneously taking in the Hudson, New Jersey, the High Line, and all the old packing plants south of 14th street.

I like NYC a lot more when I keep my head up.

Happy holidays from @hyperpublic. We celebrated last...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:21:56 -0500

Happy holidays from @hyperpublic. We celebrated last night…no lights allowed today.

Watching old Kennedy/Nixon debates. Kennedy is unstoppable once...

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:24:23 -0400

Watching old Kennedy/Nixon debates. Kennedy is unstoppable once he warms up. Nixon sweats his way from opening statement to closing remarks.

Experimenting with Spotify

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 19:32:05 -0400

I’ve been using Spotify Premium and nothing else to play music on my phone for the last three weeks. It’s great having unlimited access to such a comprehensive catalogue of music, but there’s something psychologically meaningful about actually purchasing music that I miss. It puts a stake in the ground that reminds you and anyone else that this band or this album means something to you. I felt the same way when iTunes replaced physical albums; the act of buying music felt less meaningful with mp3s than it did with CDs.

With Spotify, part of the problem lies in the UI/UX of the mobile app: if it functioned less like a buggy music search engine and more like a slick music player, I’d probably feel more connected to the music catalogue I had created. Hopefully the next version of the app addresses this; if it doesn’t, I’ll gladly be the lame dude who switches back to the old-fashioned iPod app.

The Culture and the Problem

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:58:00 -0400

Until recently, I didn’t realize how much time the founders of growing startups spend on recruiting. Talented Google-caliber engineers are few and far between, even in a city like NYC that’s admittedly crushing it of late. I’ve sat in on a number of interviews at Hyperpublic over the past few weeks and the two topics that come up most in initial conversations with engineers are Hyperpublic’s culture and the problem that we’re working to solve.

Culture is very much a catch-all and sometimes can be hard to pin down. One test that works is to ask, “what would our employees be doing if they weren’t working?” Playing foosball? Reading up on a new programming language? Drinking? The recurring answers to this question can tell you a lot about your startup’s culture. For the crew at HP, the vibe is loosely academic. The office is generally quiet, with music playing in headphones and phone calls kept to a minimum. I’d be surprised if more than 15 internal e-mails are sent in a given week. We spend plenty of time hanging out and bonding over beers and ping pong at the Standard Biergarten, but our focus is squarely on building something great and making ourselves better programmers, designers, businesspeople, etc. Engineers who don’t share the same ambitions probably won’t be happy here. In that way, it’s great to see the topic of culture come up in early recruiting conversations (and before some of the more quantifiable incentives like salary, equity, etc.).

The importance of the “problem” that a startup is working on is easier to understand when it comes to recruiting. Above all else, it needs to be complex enough to challenge a potential technical hire. I’ve seen engineers turn down paying gigs because the problem wasn’t difficult enough. The reverse is also true: the thrill of the challenge can be enough to attract really talented programmers. That’s exciting news for Hyperpublic; we are working on something big. If you’re up for the challenge and adept at holding a pint glass in one hand and a ping pong racquet in the other, we’d love to talk to you.

Even more reasons to start using Path to share intimate moments...

Mon, 23 May 2011 18:44:26 -0400

Even more reasons to start using Path to share intimate moments with family and close friends. The new stacks feature gives users a cool data-driven way to interact with their lives via photos.

First week at Hyperpublic and Lerer Ventures

Mon, 23 May 2011 11:59:00 -0400

…or “My Internship Pt. 1 — I have some idea what I’m doing.”

Last week was my first as a summer associate with Hyperpublic, a startup that’s building an open platform of rich local data, and Lerer Ventures, a venture capital fund that’s investing primarily in consumer web and media startups. I’ll be with HP and LV for the better part of the next three months.

I’ve had some really cool jobs in the last few years, but I don’t remember ever being quite as excited about one. There’s a contagious energy at HP borne out of a small group of really smart people working hard to solve a difficult problem. My favorite moments from the week all had to do with people: meeting new ones, finding out how they think, and shutting up long enough to learn from them. If last week was any indication, it looks like I’ll be shutting up a lot this summer. Jordan and Doug have put together a really awesome (and growing) team.

In typical startup fashion, every day was different. A lot of work went into preparing for the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon (we presented on Saturday). I also put together a capitalization table and a financial model, worked with lawyers to issue stock options to employees, interviewed engineers and data experts, met with the founders of a few companies that are seeking financing, and tried my hand at interior decorating (I’m hopeless).

If all goes to plan, I’ll end the summer with a broad understanding of how to run a startup. This is exactly what I was hoping for when I decided to work here. Hyperpublic and Lerer Ventures are up to awesome things and I’m ecstatic that I’ll be playing a small part in their evolution over the next few months.

"Good luck, have a good life, and if you run across a sure fire deal with a post-money of less than..."

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:07:20 -0400

“Good luck, have a good life, and if you run across a sure fire deal with a post-money of less than $2M, let me know.”

- Final exam instructions from a UNC professor/VC.

Guard dog (Taken with Instagram at Blue Hill at Stone Barns)

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:16:06 -0500

Guard dog (Taken with Instagram at Blue Hill at Stone Barns)

Herbs (Taken with Instagram at Blue Hill at Stone Barns)

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 18:06:29 -0500

Herbs (Taken with Instagram at Blue Hill at Stone Barns)

New Orleans at Night (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 06:37:04 -0500

New Orleans at Night (Taken with instagram)

zachklein: soxiam: Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial...

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:07:00 -0500

zachklein:

soxiam:

Uncontacted Amazon Tribe: First ever aerial footage (by Survival International)

Vimeo is so rewarding!!!

It’s amazing that there are “uncontacted” people living less than 4,000 miles away from NYC.

Girl Talk was insane in a “when did I get too old to go to...

Fri, 28 Jan 2011 10:31:00 -0500

Girl Talk was insane in a “when did I get too old to go to concerts?” kind of way.