Lenovo just leapt past Apple to become the #2 smartphone seller in China, after Samsung. Guess what? Lenovo’s phone, the K800, looks exactly like the iPhone. Meaning: rectangular, with a glass screen, and a phone icon that looks like a phone and a mail icon that looks like an envelope. This must not stand! Especially since Apple’s share in China has fallen to 10 percent, despite the fact that the iPhone is the original smartphone and the best smartphone and can do magical, wonderful things. To be sure, Apple will regain share when the new iPhone 5 ships, since it will have a slightly longer screen, which will make it massively, magically more magical and spark a new boom in sales. Nevertheless, Lenovo must be punished....
Learn MoreAh, remember the good old days, by which I mean November 2010, less than two years ago, when there was no bubble and all those crazy valuations in the secondary market made perfect sense because, as John Doerr pointed out here, Zynga was “the most profitable, the fastest growing and has the happiest customers” of any company KPCB had ever invested in. Yay! Back then Zynga was valued at $6 billion and it seemed like the sky was the limit. Cut to today: Zynga is valued at $2.5 billion. The stock is down 70 percent from the IPO. When you read about Zynga it’s stuff like this saying they should sell if they can find a buyer. And when you read about John Doerr, it’s stuff like this, talking about the “end of an era,” and how these days KPCB looks like a clown running across a minefield. For me the sign of the end times was captured in this photo of John Doerr trying to look hip by wearing a hoodie (a la Zuck) and announcing the social fund in Oct. 2010. Oh well. Just because Zynga is struggling doesn’t mean the whole investment thesis was wrong. I mean there’s still Groupon and Facebook. Oh...
Learn More