November 2004 (This is a new essay for the Japanese edition of Hackers & Painters. It tries to explain why Americans make some things well and others badly.) A few years ago an Italian friend of mine travelled by train from Boston to Providence. She had only been in America for a couple weeks and hadn't seen much of the country yet. She arrived looking astonished. "It's so ugly!" People from other

May 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the Berkeley CSUA.) The three big powers on the Internet now are Yahoo, Google, and Microsoft. Average age of their founders: 24. So it is pretty well established now that grad students can start successful companies. And if grad students can do it, why not undergrads? Like everything else in technology, the cost of starting a startup has decreased dr