Alexis Ohanian has a blog

It’s time to go back to the old idea that patentees have rights over things they build, not over solving problems by any means — before the patent trolls turn Silicon Valley into a rendition of 1930s Chicago.

Make sure to watch the TED talk from my friend Drew Curtis about how he defeated a patent troll.

Yes, please.

Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian calls it "startup karma." After selling his own venture to Conde Nast in 2006, he earmarked 15% to 20% of his wealth for recycling into other startups. He created an "uncorporation," Breadpig, to house all of his ventures, with the profits donated to -- as he puts it -- "organizations and individuals that make the world less sucky."

But everyone has their splurge, too.

"I upgraded my dad's season tickets from nosebleeds to good seats. Redskins. I would fly home for those games," says Ohanian, a Maryland native.

Now that we've got RGIII, going home for those games is going to be an order of magnitude more awesome.

Did you hear the one about the New York state lawmakers who forgot about the First Amendment in the name of combating cyberbullying and “baseless political attacks”?

Proposed legislation in both chambers would require New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, to “remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post.”

No votes on the measures have been taken. But unless the First Amendment is repealed, they stand no chance of surviving any constitutional scrutiny even if they were approved.

Absurd.

I received an email yesterday that made my entire week: Quarterly Co. – yes, a subscription box – is now taking new customers!

I have been waiting and waiting and WAITING for Quarterly Co. to start accepting new customers for what feels like forever. The way QCo. works is that you find a curator whose box you would like to receive and then on a quarterly basis they will send you a box filled with objects of interest to them. There are many curators from which to choose and which cover a broad range of interests. A subscription costs $25 per box.

I registered for the Cool Hunting box, though to be honest I could have easily chosen more than one! The Cool Hunting box is curated by Josh Rubin and Evan Drensten, and will include “clever combinations of form and function.”

This is a great sign. Keep it up, Quarterly!

Alexis Ohanian of Y Combinator and Reddit fame notes that while some believe there is a natural migration of startups from wherever to Silicon Valley — the idea being that you have to be there to really grow — in fact there is a case for some companies moving away from the West Coast to New York, such as the case of recent YC alum Shoptiques, which aggregates inventory from local fashion boutiques and gives them a wider forum online. “They know their business is going to grow here in NY,” he said, pointing to the synergies that naturally exist in a dense city like this one. Shoptiques in March got backing from Andreessen Horowitz and Greylock Partners.

Their burritos are still better, but the scene in NY is gonna keep on growing.

"That is the reason we bought Flickr—not the community. We didn't give a shit about that. The theory behind buying Flickr was not to increase social connections, it was to monetize the image index. It was totally not about social communities or social networking. It was certainly nothing to do with the users."

And that was the problem. At the time, the Web was rapidly becoming more social, and Flickr was at the forefront of that movement. It was all about groups and comments and identifying people as contacts, friends or family. To Yahoo, it was just a fucking database.

Finally read it. Absolutely worth it.