Urging Authors to be Entrepreneurs: iUniverse CEO Kevin Weiss (Part 2)

SM: We should establish some context for iUniverse, Author Solutions, and your portfolio of companies. What is the history between iUniverse and Author Solutions, and how did Bertram Capital get involved in them? KW: Author House is a company that was founded ten years ago in Bloomington, Indiana, and iUniverse is a company founded eight

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Urging Authors to be Entrepreneurs: iUniverse CEO Kevin Weiss (Part 1)

Writing a book takes dedication. For many authors it is a culminating, defining feat of their lives. Sadly, the chances of an author’s book actually being read are miniscule at best.

Tackling EDA’s Broken Business Model: Blaze DFM CEO Jacob Jacobsson (Part 7)

SM: Is TSMC making overtures to acquire you? JJ: You have to ask them that. I don’t think either party has an interest in that kind of setup today because we want to see how this plays out. It is not something we are talking about actively.

Tackling EDA’s Broken Business Model: Blaze DFM CEO Jacob Jacobsson (Part 6)

SM: How did you convince TSMC that your process works and that you should get paid for it? JJ: TSMC would not endorse something like this without verifying it was sustainable.

Tackling EDA’s Broken Business Model: Blaze DFM CEO Jacob Jacobsson (Part 5)

SM: How are you charging for your software? Are you competing for EDA dollars? JJ: We recently made an announcement with TSMC, and I think this is the way we will continue to do business.

Tackling EDA’s Broken Business Model: Blaze DFM CEO Jacob Jacobsson (Part 4)

SM: Can you talk about Blaze’s value proposition and business model? JJ: We change the way a process works from an insider’s point of view. You have certain manufacturing processes with certain leakage, power, and performance characteristics. We change those to something more favorable.

Tackling EDA’s Broken Business Model: Blaze DFM CEO Jacob Jacobsson (Part 3)

SM: What was your next move after Xilinx? JJ: I was eventually recruited to run a small fabless semiconductor company in the RFID space down in San Diego. My family did not follow me down there, so for a total of five years I was commuting.

Tackling EDA’s Broken Business Model: Blaze DFM CEO Jacob Jacobsson (Part 2)

SM: You have seen , I have been endlessly beating on Cadence and Synopsys on this issue. What has created this dynamic? Why is EDA so undervalued in general? JJ: When you sell software the cost of goods is almost zero. When I was working with semiconductors, we could always point back and say there

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