Recently, I’ve recently become an advisor to Parallel Capital Ltd. – a $10 million early stage venture fund.

Last week, I listened to Scott McNealey, co-founder & Chairman of Sun Microsystems, address a small room of 50 or so start ups in Sunnyvale, CA. talk about open source.  I learned that there are 68,000 downloads of MySQL a day. 4 years ago I made the decision to build SearchForecast with MySQL believing open source is the way forward.  With over millions of records now, the decision was a right one as it costs zero in licence fees. My advice to start ups is to watch and listen to guys like Scott McNealey who in 1982 began thinking differently about computer networks. Today, he’s giving back at www.sun.com/startups !