This has nothing to do with startups, software, career or my hobbies. It’s just one of those cases where you scratch your head and keep wondering why we are using a 60-year-old technology when there is so much better solution. In this case, my beef is with Remote Controls. Raise your hand if you have more than a few remote controls on your house? That’s what I thought.





I know what you’re thinking… Remote Controls have too many buttons, they are hard to use, you have too many of those. Well, that’s actually not my issue with Remote Controls. My primary issue with them is why are they using Infra-Red to transmit commands instead of using Radio-Frequency (RF)?



The Infra-red on Remote Control was probably the choice at the time because it could have been made directional, this is, only the TV you are pointing it to would receive the signal; it was safe, well understood and the electronic boards to make it work was simple. (Note: I don’t have an electrical engineering background, so I can’t elaborate much more than this).



It served us well, but we have much better technology now.



Radio-Frequency (RF) is the most powerful technology nowadays for transmitting data in short or long distances. Pretty much every house has a Wi-Fi router. That’s RF. Have a cell-phone that can make phone calls and browse the web? It’s all RF. Do you have a Bluetooth headset? It’s RF as well. And look, your ears don’t have to be pointing to your cell phone for it to work. And your Bluetooth headset knows your friend’s cell phone is not your cell phone. And, it not only sends data but also receives data.



Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, LG and every other manufacturer out there should just step up to the plate and propose a RF-based electronic Remote Control protocol. It’s not that hard. Even I can do it. The benefits for consumers would be huge. Home automation would be much more of a reality. Universal remotes would be trivial and delightful to use – you wouldn’t need to keep pointing your Remote for 7-seconds in the direction of your electronics for it to do the 5 things it need to do to turn on your system. And a door of endless possibilities would open up creating several multi-billion dollars industries.



A bit more technical…



I couldn’t care less what frequency it would use or what physical protocol. It can be wi-fi, Bluetooth, or any other tech, as long as you can reach tens of yards. In fact, it should be optional for the physical lawyer to be USB or Ethernet as well.



Since we are talking about all these, guess what? There is a pretty well-known standard called TCP/IP for the transmission layer. I know, electronic manufacturers might not have heard about it, but it’s worth checking it out.



If each device is a networked device, then you need just a few more things. You’d need some kind of authentication and authorization mechanism (you don’t want your neighbor switching to the Playboy channel just before your wife walks into the house, would you?). Hey, I have news… Bluetooth has a pretty good solution with PINs. You can just copy that. You can even add data encryption if you want to. There are several protocols for that too!



Now, all that’s left is some kind of data protocol to transmit and receive commands and data. I’d suggest you just use something we call POX. Nope, it’s not a disease, it’s a cure. POX stands for Plain-Old-XML. Using XML would allow integrators, ISVs and device manufacturers to very easily speak the same “language”.



In other words, Sony/Toshiba/Panasonic/LG/et al. don’t have much to do, but to add a RF support to their electronic devices and come up with a data protocol. That’s it. In 10 years we will manage to save the world from an epidemic of remote-control proliferation.

Last Saturday was my 12-year anniversary of moving to the US. Microsoft brought me here. Contrary to a lot of immigrants, while in Brazil, I never felt the need to move to the US. It actually never crossed my mind to move here. But once an amazing job opportunity presented itself, I took it and here I am. There are lots of pros and cons of living in the US, and lots of pros and cons of being an immigrant, but for now I just want to enumerate twelve reasons I think the US is great (for me) in no particular order:





#1 English Language: My first language is Portuguese, but we Brazilians learn (bad) English at school since the first grade until the end of high-school. English is a great language because contrary to Romance languages (Portuguese, French, Italian, etc.) the syntax is very simple. But the most interesting thing about English is not the language itself, but the cultural tolerance Americans have to adapt the English language. Fax and Email can be used as verbs, so can Google. In Portuguese that would never happen. Scholars, professors and politicians hate new words (like the French) and they don’t want the language to change. English is flexible and adaptive to the existing culture.



#2 Diversity: My view of the US is the view from Seattle, a hot pot of culture and races. If you go to a mall and listen attentively, you’ll hear at least a dozen different languages being spoken. With that diversity, not only comes a feeling of how small this world is, but also the diversity in food, which brings me to my next point…



#3 BigMac & Foie Gras: Yes, I confess: I love BigMac. I also love Foie Gras, Salmon, Lamb, Sashimi, and every kind of food. If you go to the supermarket here you can find pretty much everything. And if there is something you want that you can’t find at your QFC or Whole Foods, there’s certainly a boutique market with it. The restaurants are also amazing.



#4 Money is clean: By that I mean “money” is not a dirty word. If you are an American you might not realize this, but a lot of other places in the word people feel somewhat ashamed of having too much money, because money is associated with corruption, cheating or unethical behaviors.



#5 Accountability & Meritocracy: I don’t think there is any society anywhere else in the world that treats meritocracy as seriously as the US. It’s not perfect, but there is a feeling that performance-based rewards are the right thing. With that comes accountability, in other words, you’re responsible for your actions, good or bad. There is a lot of injustice and criminals in the US, but check out the rest of the world. It’s a lot worse.



#6 Hollywood: You actually don’t have to live in the US to enjoy the amazing (and awful) movies produced by Hollywood. Movies can move mountains. They can change cultures. They can affect the course of history and bring awareness to causes (think “Rwanda”).



#7 Pro Sports: The US is the strongest force in professional sports in the world (except for Soccer). It starts by giving opportunities to those kids who have the potential, sprinkle the sponsorship and support structure, and year after year there is a wave of amazing athletes making it.



#8 Shiny Objects: It’s a culture of consumption and innovation that brings the coolest products to market at an accessible price. All the electronics, shiny cars, video games, boats, and whatever you crave is available for you…



#9 Access to Capital: Whether you want to buy a house, a car, a new digital camera or open a business, there is no other place in the world with this kind of access to capital. From credit cards to home loans, from car loans to business financing, the capital industry is in place and functions pretty well. It certainly could be better.



#10 Entrepreneurship: Being an entrepreneur in the US is a great thing. I actually know a lot of people who moved to the US because they wanted to establish their own business, and there was no better place in the world. There is no other country that has produced as many innovations and fantastic companies as the US has. World-wide people use Microsoft Windows, Google search, Yahoo mail, Apple iPods, use the vaccines and medicine produced by Pfizer and Merck, fly on Boeing 777, use printers by Hewlett-Packard and computers by Dell, and use the diapers, detergent and toilet papers of Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson.



#11 Visa, Green Card & Citizenship: You hear the news of all the illegal immigrants moving into the US, but you never hear about all the legal immigrants coming here from all over the world to work on the high-tech industry, or to study, or to do science research and a lot more. The US is actually a pretty friendly country to immigrants, IMO, if you’re bringing value here – as it should be.



#12 Opportunity: It’s true! The US is the land of opportunity. The opportunity to be the best you can be. From having a career and climbing the corporate latter to opening your own business, from working on scientific research to have a mid-life change of heart and decide to become a painter. You have the opportunity here like nowhere else. And that is exactly the most important reason for me to be living here.



So, thanks Uncle Sam for allowing me to live here.

This blog post is an unfinished thought on why you should not hire entrepreneurs to work at your startup. I’m sure it will come back to haunt me if I’m ever looking for a job at a startup. It was on my queue of posts to write, which I tend to wait for a while until I have some good points and answers, but it got “rushed” because of a friend made a comment about looking for a “developer-entrepreneur” he’s hiring.



I want to make sure for the rest of this post you understand my meaning of the word “entrepreneur” means someone who wants is creating a business of their own.



First of all, the word “entrepreneur” and “hire” contradict each other. By definition, you can’t hire an entrepreneur. You can hire an entrepreneur who’s not being an entrepreneur at the current moment, but by hiring them, they stop being entrepreneurs and become employees. Even if they own a good chunk of the company and have a critical contribution to the success of it.



But that’s just a small part of the issue. The two bigger issues are: focus and focus.



The first “focus” refers to the fact that entrepreneurs – you know the one I’m talking about – are idea people. They can’t control themselves and they just have ideas for new businesses and projects. Most likely, they already have a side project they started before they joined your startup. Startup success requires focus. You don’t want to hire someone who is not spending every working minute thinking about your startup.



The second “focus” refers to scope of work.  Entrepreneurs tend to be more generalists, which in general is a good thing for startups, but can they be a specialist when you need them to? Will your jack-of-all-trades-entrepreneur-developer be comfortable becoming an exclusive front-end developer?



I’ve worked with some great developer-entrepreneurs, but they come with a baggage that’s not ideal for a startup. At your startup, you are much better off finding the best foot-soldier who works well in a startup environment, than hiring an entrepreneur.







Feel free to disagree with me on the comments below. As I said, I'm still thinking about this topic and I don't have the answers yet.

It’s pretty amazing the number of people who say they’re not good with ideas for new products or businesses. Over the last week or so I had several conversations about this many times during lunches, dinners and other meetings.



I just came back from lunch with 4 other folks and on the span of probably one hour we mentioned about two dozens cool apps and services we’d like to see to make our lives easier. And we weren’t even trying hard.



Ideas that come from personal pain are easy. You think of something you don’t like, and imagine a solution for it. Done. But there are dozens of other ways to come up with good ideas for products and businesses. I think the key to have a great idea is to have lots of them, even try to execute a few of them to have an understanding of what makes a good idea into a great product or business.



Even if you pick an idea to execute on, and later you find out it’s a terrible idea, a new great idea might come out of that. But the more you isolate yourself, the less you live, the less you try to do things… the less ideas you’ll have.



Another reason people think they don’t have good ideas is because they either have too many ideas and lack the necessary focus to add more depth to the ideas, or because they over-think each individual idea to the point they surface all the flaws and hide all the virtues of that idea.



The bottom-line is simple:

1. Have lots of ideas, preferably with other folks


2. Filter them by potential & execution (can you do it?)


3. Don’t over-think and just do it


4. Morph your idea into a better idea, even if it means losing 90% of work done.