Photo - Associated Press
Venture capitalist and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, left, and his longtime business partner, Ben Horowitz, in their office in Menlo Park, Calif.
Having lived and worked through the history that Ben Horowitz covered in the following WSJ blog post, I cannot help but wonder about the future of urban food.
Certainly, there is no future in often-contaminated and very expensive urban dirt. Most of the activists in the urban ag movement have their heads in the clouds dreaming about traditional farming in the city.
The alternative to dirt is not so easy to determine. It ranges from Despommier farmscraper dreaming to portable micro gardens with lots in between. I hope that I live long enough to see progressive ideas and new urban food producing technology emerge. I know that it will.
It is only a question of when the business world will discover the profit making potential. In my view that day is not too far away and I plan to help it arrive in any way I can.
via blogs.wsj.com
When Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz took the stage at the Web 2.0 Expo Wednesday in San Francisco, he was expected to tell audience members which technologies they should invest in and which ones they should build.
Horowitz and co-founder Marc Andreessen have been investing since last year from a $650 million fund, so the audience would have loved to hear Horowitz’s opinions. But he didn’t like that idea.
Instead, in just 10 minutes, he gave a history of the great technology shifts that have occurred in the computer industry over the past 50 years and what they mean.
His message? We don’t know what we’re supposed to build or invest in next, but no matter what we do, we’re certain to be surprised.
OK, next big thing: Grow bags! I did the subirrigated buckets last year, and it was the best garden I have ever had, in terms of produce. But ... some failed. I blame it on lack of air. This year I have bags made of net or felt, which do the "self trimming" for the roots. AND ... they have wicking, so they do the self-watering. It's really easy. I don't know if they will be "succssful" though, til the end of the season.
Posted by: HeatherT | April 03, 2011 at 02:29 AM