There's some fine analysis of media's plight over on my good buddy SF Chronicle's Tom Abate's blog: mini media guy-a conversation about new media business models

Bringing home the bacon in a startup

Jason Mandell says his friend Jody Thelander...

recently conducted a survey that uncovers executive compensation among pre-IPO companies, providing in-depth data on base compensation, bonus and equity distribution within biotech, medical device and computer technology areas. More than 20 VC firms and 150 companies participated.

Of interest:

It doesn't pay to be a founder/CEO: non founder CEOs are compensated 10-20% more than founder CEOs. Top dog CEOs can have more comprehensive compensation and more equity than the founder. Seems to suggest founders are not nearly as sophisticated in negotiations as well.

Not much difference between medical devices and biotech; people generally presume that biotech pays better.

The number of companies and VC firms that eagerly responded to the survey was impressive. Thought it would be harder to get the surveys completed. This shows that people are very curious about what is “typical” and seeing if their compensation packages are competitive. This includes VCs as well. Showed at the end of day that vc firms and portfolio companies are aligned in terms of finding out what is competitive

Canadians know how to innovate says PwC

Waterloo, Ontario is top innovation center outpacing Canadian and US centers, (mostly) so says a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

Lots of interesting numbers such as:

investors in local technology firms received a more than seven-fold increase in shareholder value at the time of exit. . .

The report also found that in the past decade more than $1.8 billion has been spent to acquire 19 successful, privately-held technology companies in the region. Furthermore the Waterloo region is responsible for an impressive 10% of all IPOs completed by technology companies on the TSX over the past eight years. The report points out that a portfolio of Waterloo region public technology companies generated an internal rate of return of 26% since 1994, out-performing both the Nasdaq Computer Index and the S&P/TSX Capped Info Tech Index.

Impressive numbers I have to say. Shame about the spam-like title of the report:

Making Magic in Waterloo Region: A Report on the Exceptional Investment and Entrepreneurial Potential of Canada's Hottest High-Tech Location

http://www.pwc.com/ca/makingmagic

. . .

Bruggeman breaks boredom by blogging

I haven't checked this out yet, but if Whitney Burk says it's good, then I say take a look :-)

Being John Bruggeman has begun…

He breaks the boredom of those long, serious software company meetings by

cranking up the volume on “Hustler’s Ambition” by 50 Cent. He’s the guy

wearing jeans and a t-shirt in a room full of suits. His standards are

high. His patience is short. It took him a week on the job at Wind River to

define a whole new sector of the software industry. Ever heard of DSO?

John Bruggeman is a software executive who’s not afraid to tell it like it

is.

And now he’s blogging.

Being John Bruggeman http://johnbruggeman.blogspot.com/Many faces. More opinions.

Add him to your feed list and find out what’s cutting on his edge.

Read it. Laugh out loud. Think about it. Talk back...

whitney burk

Plus more conversation with Irving Wladawsky-Berger coming up...