Founding a startup is gut wrenching and euphoric in a way that outside observers are unable to comprehend.

I haven’t written anything amid the whole post-Facebook IPO debacle for one main reason: I’m just watching it, agog, trying to figure out how the most meticulously over-planned IPO in Valley history turned into such a complete and utter mess. A month or so before, I was at a Wealthfront event on why more companies should go public and not…

We had a lot of luxuries when we started PandoDaily. One was knowing without a doubt what the biggest story of the year would be: Facebook’s IPO. We knew we had to do something special for it, particularly because several members of our staff and contributors are among the world’s leading experts on the company. So rather than simply…

Amanda Schwab is totally pissed at me. Amanda approaches most challenges I give her with a special kind of Lacrosse-like, can-do intensity. But yesterday, I may have pushed the normally unflappable editor of our PandoLists too far. “Please don’t ever make me do that again!” she beseeched me last night at the end of a long, long rant. Mean…

I mean, I know it’s in the PandoTicker already. But I can’t very well hammer Andrew Mason for more than a year about the woeful job the Samwer brothers have done with the 47 country Medusa-headed monstrosity that is Groupon’s International operations and not say anything when the clone king is ousted. Groupon has officially replaced the head...

Tony Hsieh should run a cult. Have you been to the Zappos headquarters tour? There’s no way people just happen to be that happy. And now he’s convincing all the most important people in my life to move to Vegas. It’s bad enough that he roped Paul Carr into his outrageous $350 million Sim City in Sin City adventure….

I’m not normally one to post cool things I find on the Internet here on PandoDaily, but this was just too cool to pass up on. On Twitter, I saw someone Tweet that the official Smart Car Twitter account for Argentina* had posted something cool. Thinking that it would be a good background picture or something like that, and…

I have known Randi Zuckerberg since the early days of Facebook, and I liked her immediately. And as a new mom balancing the working world, I feel a certain kinship with her. But as I’ve said from the beginning of this site, I won’t let investors’ interests dictate our coverage, and it’s just as bad if I let personal friendships…

This is pathetic. Earlier in PandoDaily’s life I wrote that if you say you’re creating jobs you can win any debate in politics. I should have added: Anywhere except the overly-progressive madhouse of San Francisco where even toys in Happy Meals are banned.

Now I know how Goldilocks felt. About the time Groupon was raising its $1 billion growth round and getting the big endorsement from some of the Valley’s biggest names, I was bringing up all the problems with its haphazard Samwer-poisoned international expansion. As a consumer, I haven’t exactly had a love affair with the company either. But in the…

In Upstate New York, it’s easier to find a drug dealer than it is a decent Internet connection. This is the region that has decided to make a name for itself, growing grapes and outsourcing any labor-intensive work to the Amish, while the rest of us attempt to find something, anything to do. I recently wrote a piece about how the…

Not many people would choose the life that Paul has chosen. Living in hotels, being a nomad, changing cities and lodging on a whim. Few people can do it, and even fewer would choose to. The thing is, I’d like to live in hotels every day. In fact, I would if I could.* I can’t. I’m not 21.

Paul Carr is doing a live chat with Wall Street Journal readers about his new Byliner Original “Sober Is My New Drunk” later today. I have no clue why he said yes to this. Last weekend, the WSJ ran an excerpt of his book, and it received some of the most vile comments, full of pure hate that I’ve…

I’ve talked to more than a few entrepreneurs lately who describe what the Samwer Brothers do — directly ripping off a competing service, even down to the name and then demanding to be purchased — as tantamount to demanding a ransom payment. The analogy isn’t perfect. What they do isn’t illegal, and all is fair in capitalism and global markets….

It was the most over-used conversation filler of the week. “Is this your first time at South-By?” I never knew quite how to answer. Yes, I technically participated in the circus that is Mid-March in Austin last year. I was here, I ate queso, I stayed out late. And that is pretty much where the similarities between my 2011 SXSW…

It hasn’t been getting much tech blog attention, but moms are seriously pissed at Amazon. The company has curtailed its benefits for its “Amazon Moms” program, and it did so in a less than upfront way, sparking an emotional uproar from parents who had grown to rely on the service’s steep discounts. Taking a page out of the great…