For Sale: Most Important Document in the History of Democracy

Who knew you could buy the Magna Carta? But apparently it was up for sale back in December last year. The only privately held copy was being sold by the Perot Foundation to raise money for medical research and other charitable reasons. Who would buy such a document? The co-founder of the Carlyle Group ... for $21.3 million! He was worried it would be purchased by someone outside the U.S. He's a quote:

Mr. Rubenstein: I had read about it going on sale in a newspaper, and I thought it was surprising that the U.S. government wasn't buying it and that the National Archives didn't have the money to do it. I thought that maybe someone from outside the United States would buy it and thought, "Jeez, wouldn't it be a terrible thing if one of the most important documents in Western civilization were not available for Americans to see anymore?"

Very admirable. Unfortunately, it wasn't on display when I visited the National Archives in late December.

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Biofuels May Hinder Anitglobal-Warming Efforts

Read an interesting article a couple weeks back in the WSJ on how biofuels may actually increase carbon emissions in the medium to long-term. Apprently the shifts in land-use necessary to support the production of bio-materials like soybeans, corn, or palm could in fact release more carbon emissions. The time it takes to get carbon-neutral on some of these projects is pretty crazy - 319 years for soybean biodiesel from Brazil (assuming you're clearing rainforest), 93 years for corn ethanol from the U.S. (assuming you're clearing grasslands), 86 years for palm biodiesel from Indonesia (assuming you're clearing rainforest). I suppose biofuels really aren't meant to reduce carbon emissions, but just crazy that they potentially exacerbate the problem so much.

Nine Prescriptions for Building the Duke Entrepreneurial Community

I think Duke can have one of the strongest entrepreneurial communities in the world. Are we there yet? Well, not yet. But there's a tremendous amount of momentum that I saw build in just the past two years while I was getting my MBA at Duke. While leading Duke's 10th annual business plan competition, the Duke Start-Up Challenge (DSC) , last year, I witnessed a near doubling of participation on campus in just a single year. The interest on the ground was clearly there and building rapidly. But now that I'm an alum, I'm looking back and wondering ... how do we rev-up the Duke entrepreneurial community even more? I read a great article by Daniel Isenberg, a professor of management at Babson, called " How to Start an Entrepreneurial Revolution " in the June edition of the Harvard Business Review. Isenberg outlines nine prescriptions for governments that want to create entrepreneurship ecosystems in their countries. Although he was focused on governments an...

Wi-Fi for the Third World

Read an article in Forbes about a venture called WiLDNet that is providing low-cost, long-distance wireless internet access to the Third World. The initiative is being run by the Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions ( TIER ) group at UC Berkeley headed by Eric Brewer (founder of Inktomi). It can transmit up to 60 miles using just 8 watts of electricity (a solar panel can run it) at cable modem speeds and costs only $400. One hospital is using it to deliver telemedicine in India. Very cool use of technology.

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