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Great interview. Interesting statements about Microsoft's future (or lack thereof).    excerpt: Steve Blank is the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a guru. The serial entrepreneur turned writer and professor has a big theory: entrepreneurship is a skill that can be taught. At Stanford and Berkeley, Blank teaches scientists to get out of their labs and find real customers for their ideas -- without getting bogged down in the traditional MBA weeds of spreadsheets and revenue models. There are two major strategies. You either build, or you buy. What do you buy? You can buy IP, you buy teams and people, product lines, companies, P&Ls, bottom line. I think Google has tended to focus on teams and products. If you look at their most innovative counter to disruption, Android, it had nothing to do with the company, they bought it. Not only did they buy the technology, they bought the individual who's the driving force between what might keep them in business. The one thing they haven't figured out how to either build or buy is to counter Facebook. You look at Microsoft going through this -- Microsoft is the living dead. Microsoft is a standing joke now in the technology business. The one game you could see playing out is they buy Skype, they buy Nokia, Steve Elop finally injects some life into the company and replaces Ballmer and Microsoft reinvents itself. Elop is a great politician and a great IT guy, and maybe they could reinvent themselves along that axis. But it wil never happen as long as Steve Ballmer is Bill Gates's best friend. Microsoft is the new Wang. Remember Wang?.....................

Good intro to LeanLaunchLab.com.  Great idea for startups! excerpt: Entrepreneur Steve Blank has spent a lot of time thinking (and writing) about how ineffective old-fashioned board meetings are when it comes to building and scaling startups.