Last year we celebrated our first Menorca TechTalk, a gathering of Tech Entrepreneurs at my farm in Menorca. It was fun, relaxing, a great learning experience for all of those who participated and for those who attended the TechTalk itself which as last year it is open to the public on Saturday from 5pm to 8pm. If you would like to attend the TechTalk which is an informal presentation by some of the attendees of their companies and main activities you have to register via email telling Matias Bergmann at matias@fon.com that you would like to come.

What follows is a list of the participants in the TechTalk. The gathering starts on Thursday morning and ends Sunday evening.

Alan Levy (Blogtalkradio)
Albert Martin (FON)
Alec Oxenford (Dineromail)
Alejandro Estrada (Dineromail)
Alexis Bonte (Erepublik.com)
Andrew Mclaughlin (Google)
Anil de Mello (Mobuzz)
Arturo Paniagua (Hipertextual)
Auren Hoffman (Rapleaf)
Benjamí Villoslada (Menéame)
Brent Hoberman (Mydeco)
Carlos Martin (IG Expansion)
Cedric Maloux (Gay.com)
Christophe F. Maire (Nokia gate5)
Dan Dubno (Blowing Things Up)
David Sifry (Technorati)
Demian Bellumio (Cyloop)
Eduardo Arcos (Hipertextual)
Efe Cakarel (The Auteurs)
Ehssan Dariani (studiVZ)
Esteban Sosnik (Vivendi)
Felix Fietkau  (OpenWrt & FON)
Felix Petersen (Plazes)
Hans Peter Brondmo (Plum)
Ibrahim Evsan (Sevenload)
Imre Kaloz (OpenWrt & FON)
Ivan Communod (Vpod.tv)
Jack D. Hidary (Hidary Foundation)
Jacob Hsu (Symbio)
James Gutierrez (Progress Financial)
Jennifer Schenker (BusinessWeek)
Joerg Rohleder (Vanity Fair)
John Markoff (The New York Times)
Joi Ito (Creative Commons, Six Apart Japan, Investor)
Jon Berrojalbiz (Trading Motion)
Jonas Birgersson (Labs2)
Jordi Castello (OLX)
Jordi Vallejo (FON)
Jose Maria Figueres (Grupo Felipe IV)
Jose Marin (IG Expansion)
Lars Hinrichs (XING)
Loic Le Meur (Seesmic)
Louise Blouin Macbain (Louise Blouin Media)
Lukasz Gadowski (Spreadshirt.com, Investor)
Lukasz Wejchert (Onet.pl)
Marc Samwer (European Founders Fund)
Marko Ahtisaari (Dopplr)
Mathias Entenmann (Betfair)
Matt Biddulph (Dopplr)
Megan Smith (Google)
Michael Jackson (Mangrove Capital Partners)
Michael Wolf (Farallon Point)
Nikesh Arora (Google)
Ola Ahlvarsson (Result)
Om Malik (Giga Omni Media)
Pablo Larguia
Ricardo Galli (Menéame)
RJ Friedlander (Grupo Planeta)
Rodrigo Sepulveda Schulz (Vpod.tv)
Rodrigo Teijeiro (Sonico.com)
Rupert Schaefer (DLD, Hubert Burda Media)
Scott Rafer (Lookery, Mashery, Winksite)
Thomas Crampton (Next Media)
Victor Martin Garcia (FON)
Zaryn Dentzel (Tuenti)

This is my simple theory of the role of the US in the world economy since the 90s. During the Clinton Administration the US led the world economy. During the Bush Administration the US sank the world economy. Now what is the good news? That the Bush Presidency will soon be over and whoever wins the next election most likely will fix the US economy and probably the world economy as well. Why is US economic behavior so important if Europe is actually the largest economy in the world? What makes USA so important is that element of surprise in US policy. US behavior in the global economy is much harder to predict compared to that of Europe. Europe does not make the world economy rise or fall because Europe does not have the huge economic swings that America. Europe is steady. Europe does not go from a huge budget surplus with Clinton and a huge deficit with Bush. Europe is boring compared to USA but in economics boring is good and excitement is bad. Outside of the States the world had been quite a steady place during the Bush years. Asia grew consistently fast. Europe grew consistently slowly but still remain the number one economic region of the world. But America was the wild card these past years and in economics the key part of the forecast is exactly that one, the one that contributes the uncertainty.

Europe is involved in military affairs around the world but none of the European economies are as heavily dependent on military spending swings as the US. And on the financial front Europe does not experiment with lending to consumers who borrow a trillion dollars they cannot pay. And compared to the military adventurism of the United States Chinese Foreign Policy is also “boring”. The Chinese want Taiwan, they want to keep Tibet and that´s basically it. The Chinese will not go and invade an African country to make it say, communist. But again the good news here is that Bush is nearly gone and that no Presidential candidate is likely to have an administration as unpredictable as that of Bush. I don´t think that McCain who suffered himself the policies of the military gone wild in Vietnam will increase military spending and nor will the democrats should they win. So USA is not about to squander precious human lives and another trillion dollars in doomed military adventures. And regarding lending money to people who cannot pay… that scheme is also likely to end as banks are more closely watched. Funny how everyone thought that the hated hedge funds would bring the financial world to its knees but it turned out that it was the hiper regulated mighty American banks were the ones brought us down. Personally I have had my savings in a collection of hedge funds for years with much steadier returns than the financial instruments offered by large banks or investment banks. Hedge fund managers have skin in the game and as a group they do reasonably well. Hedge fund managers as a group do what they said they would do, they hedge.

As far as commodities are concerned I also think their uncontrolled rise is coming to an end. With oil at $120 even the worst oil wells will become profitable. In the next 3 years production is likely to go through the roof in a somewhat recessionary environment and this will lead an oil prices declining. Yes China, India and to some extent other LDCs are adding demand by the day for oil and other commodities. But they are not adding it at the rate that commodities prices have been rising. Same for food, with sky high rice prices people will be growing rice in their gardens! We have seen the prices rise, we will soon see supply rice.

Bottom line? I think it´s time to sell commodities and move back to the dollar and trust the new US administration who will probably be known not so much for what they did but what they did not do, and did not allow businesses to do.

USA sank the world, but just by getting its house in order USA will fix it.

I love Linux, Ubuntu, for work and at Fon we use Ubuntu, and I also love Mac for my personal computing. But I strongly dislike Windows. So for me to read that in countries like Brazil, Microsoft products cost double of what they cost in the US when income is around 10% just makes me wonder. Why would anyone pay for Microsoft when Ubuntu is free and much more robust, easier to use and less likely to fail. I don´t get it.

T-Mobile has one of the largest WiFi networks in the world, but with AT&T getting the Starbucks deal, growing your network and keeping your dominant position in the market will be a tough and very expensive task. Each new WiFi hotspot means installations, payments to land based carriers and other costs that you are very well familiar with.

This is why I present you the opportunity of partnering with FON, the company I’ve founded and in which Google, eBay, British Telecom and other great partners have invested. If T-Mobile has the largest WiFi network, FON has the largest WiFi community in the world, with more then 200.000 FON access points around 8 times more than T Mobile. What makes Fon different? That Fon is built by the community member or Fonero. Foneros are nice people who like to share WiFi among themselves. But Fon also has a revenue model for our carrier partners and that is to share revenues from non Foneros who are the vast majority of the people in the planet. BTFon is a great case in point.

With FON users share their broadband connection via WiFi in a secure way, a valuable proposition for users, who share to roam the world for free, but also for ISPs as FON helps them gain new customers (pay at home and get free global roaming) and reduce churn, giving users more reasons not to give up their fixed lines even when they are mostly on the road.

You’ll see how partnering with FON makes a lot of sense in light of your HotSpot@Home strategy, providing your customers with more opportunities to save on their plans, while letting you leverage the cost and performance advantages of IP and broadband using WiFi in locations outside of the customer’s home, especially considering the increasing popularity of unlimited talk and data packages. Your customers could seamlessly connect to FONspots and call or surf the web with their T-Mobile phones. In this way you will gain an advantage for your T-Mobile GSM customers that your competitors don´t have. What I’m talking about is a chance to expand your network at a very low cost, giving your users free access to FON access points and helping with distribution of our routers (La Fonera) that will instantly work as T-Mobile hotspots once connected.

Should this proposal appeal to you pls write to me at martin@fon.es and we will talk some more.

Today a new kind of venture capital firm was launched, called Prototype Invest. It’s an early stage investor that doesn’t provide money in exchange for equity, like usual venture capitalists. Prototype supplies technology and guidance in exchange for equity. The company was founded by Michael Christensen and can count on a very experienced team.

People with a good idea but no programming or design skills will access a network of developers and designers that will help them create prototypes or full products. Entrepreneurs won’t have to pay anything for the service, but will give equity in their start up in exchange for it.

On their website they state “think of us as a Venture Capital firm providing software, web applications and guidance, instead of money”. This is really clever, as too many great ideas and brilliant entrepreneurs get stuck, unable to get capital from venture capitalists because they lack the competences and resources to make their ideas into proper products or prototypes, that make it much easier to get financing from a VC.

More then a new kind of VC, Prototype’s activity is complementary to traditional venture capital, as will help people with the best ideas building prototypes, pitching investors and finally raise capital.

Yes, I know, this not only happens in Spain, but as the following chart shows in order for somebody to take 1250 euros in cash home per month companies have to spend almost twice as much, 2,446.92.

In other countries in Europe this is also true, but not on such a low pay scale. What´s unusual about Spain is the enormous amount of taxes that the Spanish government collects from people who only take home 1250 euros per month. And after they are home with the cash they have to pay VAT when they purchase goods or services and many other indirect taxes. So even on a person who takes home a real net of around 1100 euros per month, his real earnings are 2,446.92 per month for an effective tax rate of 55%. What is interesting is that employees who take home a real net pay of 5000 euros per month, 10,000 euros per month and 15,000 euros per month also take home around half of what the company pays them. But the take is slightly less in percentage which makes socialist Spain quite regressive. The solution in my view is of course to lower taxes on the low income brackets and have the Spanish government be more effective in rendering its services.