The key to making money in angel investing is saying no. You meet with 100 companies and say no to 99 of them.
We have a huge tech following that do nothing but Digg tech stories, and then there's another pool of users that remove the tech section from their view of Digg, because you can go on and customize your own experience and remove sections you don't like.
With Digg, users submit stories for review, but rather than allow an editor to decide which stories go on the homepage, the users do.
Twitter became a major place to find out what was breaking on the Internet. Facebook became a place to share links. Social media really grew up.
Digg is like your newspaper, but rather than a handful of editors determining what's on the front page, the masses do.
I focus on consumer Internet. Sometimes it's a working prototype; sometimes it's an idea on a napkin. I don't do a ton of deals a year, and I really like working with startups - it's the only way I can invest. It fits my ADD brain.
My background is in tech. I studied computer science, and was working on TechTV, so the first thing I wanted to do was see my favorite motherboard stories hit the front page; you know, like, really geeky stuff.
One of the things that's been crazy for us has been the speed at which news can break on Digg, because it's powered by a mass of humans versus a machine that has to go out and crawl and find the information and then determine its relevance mathematically.
At our peak, no one knew how to value Digg.
I want to be known as one of the most accurate investors that ever lived.
Since news breaks on digg very quickly, we face the same issues as newspapers which print a retraction for a story that was misreported. The difference with digg is that equal play can be given to both sides of a story, whereas with a newspaper, a retraction or correction is usually buried.
We want to open digg up to just about anyone and everyone that wants to express their interest in any type of news story or Web content.
People want to have a voice and a say in what is news.
The democratic approach to news is a very valuable thing. We're always going to be dependent on the quality of reporting of mainstream media.
Digg will serve as a means of gathering metrics for third party websites, providing them insights into who's digging their content, who they are spreading it to.
One of the things that I've always loved to do is brainstorm ideas with friends and get together and talk about what they're building... Essentially, my day-to-day is just going around and meeting entrepreneurs and talking to them about what they plan on launching.
