Currency for advisors:stock options

Brad Feld, VC extraordinaire, has this excellent post about the compensation that early stage advisors should get. What is more interesting is that Brad actually talks numbers!!!

For example, 1% vested over four years is in the top range of the compensation bracket. What Brad usually prefers is 0.25% <=x <=1%.  

However, one of the more interesting aspects of this is trigger acceleration of vesting. 

'Tis very simple actually; I put my blood 'n sweat in the Company; Company gets acquired; I get screwed out of my options.

The alternative is to have a clause that says – In the event of a M&A only (single trigger event), or else a M& followed by me getting fired (double trigger event), I will get automatic acceleration of n on my vesting.

The other interesting aspects coming out of his incomparable term sheet series , is that it could be more advantageous to have a vesting period of one year and re-visit the relatioship after that as well as no-cash-compensation.

Cool. Now about that company…. 

del.icio.us Tags: vc startup

Chip clocking breakthrough promised

A chip design startu, Multigig Inc. has promised a new design methodology that could result in power reduction of 75%. Now, I strongly suspect this is dynamic power as opposed to leakage power (which would require changes in manufacturing processes).

If this works, this would be very cool (pun intended). For a long time now, all efforts towards power reduction have focussed more and more on manufacturing processes. Dynamic power reduction has been focussed more and more on the placement side with technologies like optimal lib-cell, voltage islands, etc. And of course, there is always the heuristic driven clock-gating methodology.

The approach that Multigig vouches for, is something that would have to be taken care of at CTS (Clock Tree Synthesis). I was puzzled at how they would take care of skew, etc. However, going by one of their research abstracts it appears they are going to be using distributed CMOS inverters to take care of amplification – not unlike buffer insertion into Clock-Trees.

I suppose the basic premise is that phase-locked loops take lesser power than conventional clock-generators. However, I would be very interested in seeing how they take care of routing. Clock Trees do not need to be looped back, which eliminates the need for an entire section of wires – however this approach does need it. Taking care of coupling, etc. and maintaining area would not be funny.

In any case, I cant see any of their papers talking about area implications

del.icio.us Tags: eda

Water that cleanses…

This has to be a first for me – writing about a movie . However this is something that I have long ruminated about – the rise of Hindu Fundamentalism in India.

It starts for me with being back in the hallowed halls of my alma mater – IIT Bombay. And to the war that was fought there..and of Virtual Kshatriya and Kensy Joseph. Even then using the battlefields of electronic media and Usenet. I still remember the clashes in iitb.general  over the need for India to return to its roots – something that was part of another world, another society, another era – against the call to look, to see and to absorb culture from around us, from the media and from the world (which did and still does predominantly mean American culture).

If I try (real hard) to ignore the echoes of those times and focus on what I want to say, I can only think of one thing that is of relevance from back then.

When you absorb culture from around you, you also absorb your own – it is definitely not exclusive. However when  the entire basis of a society is exclusion of some values, culture, race …hell, even cuisine, too much time is focused on segregating what is, and what is'nt and gives rise to an entire clique of people that act as the guardians of civilization. And what is lost… is society itself.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

I talk about Water, the movie by Deepa Mehta that was forced to be made underground because it was accused of being anti-Hindu. And of the sad reality it quotes. There is no civilization that is virginally pure (Salem Witch Trials anyone?), however a society evolves higher when it is able to criticize itself.

As President (sic) Andrew Shepherd once said

 You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil; who is standing center stage advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours.

del.icio.us Tags: personal india religion