Back in the business
After a long break of about 5 months, I am back in the business of blogging. My blogging fever seems to come and go in phases. Sometimes I have blogged twice or even thrice in a day and then there are gaps like this. Well, I really hope to be more regular this time around.
So whats happening currently in my life. I have been suffering from extreme fever and cold for the last three days. It seems to be subsiding now. Hopefully, leading into the week I will be fine. I attended the UPES (University Private Equity Summit) - a conference two days back. Its hosted every year by University Venture Fund of which I am a member around this time of year. UVF is the world's largest student-run venture capital fund. We have about $18M in the fund, about 7-9M of which are already allocated in the eleven or so investments we have made so far. We have had our first successful exit in Omniture, Inc (OMTR) a local Utah based Web analytics company in which we made about 81% IRR over a span of eighteen months. Not bad for a student-run venture club. Other investments are coming along and we hope to make a bundle of money. And gain real work experience too in the process!
Apart from that I am working on an automated trading project this semester. Work on that has been very slow so far due to technology issues. I hope to speed up work on that very soon. I am also taking classes to finish my Masters in Computer Science by the end of this semester. After that, who knows what will happen to me?
I am reading Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham. Its a very interesting book and the author has approached it very differently. What I really like about the book is that when the author uses certain examples or throws some names, he doesnt precede that with a page or two explaining the background. He just uses it assuming that you know most of it and if you dont, you will look it up on your own. That keeps the book from becoming uninteresting. I know of many other authors who'd have loved to do that to fill up pages. Read it if you get a chance. Especially if you're a programmer. Or should I say, a hacker. ;)
So whats happening currently in my life. I have been suffering from extreme fever and cold for the last three days. It seems to be subsiding now. Hopefully, leading into the week I will be fine. I attended the UPES (University Private Equity Summit) - a conference two days back. Its hosted every year by University Venture Fund of which I am a member around this time of year. UVF is the world's largest student-run venture capital fund. We have about $18M in the fund, about 7-9M of which are already allocated in the eleven or so investments we have made so far. We have had our first successful exit in Omniture, Inc (OMTR) a local Utah based Web analytics company in which we made about 81% IRR over a span of eighteen months. Not bad for a student-run venture club. Other investments are coming along and we hope to make a bundle of money. And gain real work experience too in the process!
Apart from that I am working on an automated trading project this semester. Work on that has been very slow so far due to technology issues. I hope to speed up work on that very soon. I am also taking classes to finish my Masters in Computer Science by the end of this semester. After that, who knows what will happen to me?
I am reading Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham. Its a very interesting book and the author has approached it very differently. What I really like about the book is that when the author uses certain examples or throws some names, he doesnt precede that with a page or two explaining the background. He just uses it assuming that you know most of it and if you dont, you will look it up on your own. That keeps the book from becoming uninteresting. I know of many other authors who'd have loved to do that to fill up pages. Read it if you get a chance. Especially if you're a programmer. Or should I say, a hacker. ;)
