Rapleaf is a 12-person start-up in San Francisco. We’re building a portable identity and social graph and already have deep data on approaching 100 million people. Rapleaf allows companies, developers, and communities to build applications on top of this data.

We’re looking for a BD rock star.

Rapleaf is backed by some of Silicon Valley’s top investors and has an ourstanding engineering team. We’re hiring our first BD person (right now the CEO is the only outwardly facing person in the company) and this is an opportunity to build on a business that already has a significantly number of customers.

jobs@rapleaf.com

p.s. we are looking for the next Matt Cohler. If you know who Cohler is, you know we have extremely high standards.

I got an email today from my lawyer. In the email was a ton of confidential information about Rapleaf. And, like almost all emails, it was sent in the clear. No encryption. Of all the emails I sent or received in the last ten years, a total of zero were encrypted. None.

Isn’t that nuts?

We are sending each other very private information through very public routers (including all those wifi routers, hotel internet stops, and more) where someone listening at the router could easily assemble our messages.

In college (I graduated in 1996), things were different. My friends and I would send each other emails using PGP encryption. Why? Well, we didn’t want people reading our mundane (mostly about class projects) missives.

Since then, no one has solved the casual email encryption problem. I mean, couldn’t gmail, yahoo, hotmail, and aol agree on a standard tomorrow?

Until then, I sit here sending my messages in the clear …

Priceline is a cool company. They appeal to a niche of people that are looking for a great deal and are not as discerning on exactly what airline they fly or when they fly. But priceline finds them good deals because the airlines often have open seats or last minute cancellations.

You can imagine the Priceline concept applying to many other verticals. One crazy idea would be priceline for weddings …

A certain percentage of weddings get cancelled within 2-4 weeks of the date (I’ve been invited to a couple that have been so cancelled). At that point, most of the wedding, the food, the help, the alcohol, and a while bunch of other things are already paid for. In fact, it is quite possible that 80% of the wedding is already covered.

In the event of a cancellation, usually the couple loses all of their deposit … or they might throw a party (I know … weird … but it does happen) to at least get something out of the large amount of money they put down.

Instead, they should be able to sell their option and maybe recoup 25% of the money they already put down to another couple. Then that new couple would face a fantabulous wedding (as long as they were not too discerning) for 40% of the price. A steal.

And while this is highly unlikely given that people have a high emotional attachment to weddings, you could imagine this type of aftermarket springing up for events. You might be willing to throw a party in two weeks, somewhere near your home city, if you got a great deal … (and I hope I’m invited if you do)

The phrase I hate the most is “I don’t have time.” we all have time to do things — we just don’t have time to do EVERYTHING. So we prioritize. When you say — “I don’t have time to read” you actually mean “I don’t choose to prioritize reading over all my other activities including working, being with my family, playing golf, watching football, and poker.”

From now on, instead of saying “I don’t have time”, say “I don’t choose to do this.”

Peter Kellner sent me this link … really cool:

Fab at Home, Open-Source 3D Printer, Lets Users Make Anything

I got an email today from a friend of mine that contained the message below.

[THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE IS INTENDED ONLY FOR THE USE OF THE INDIVIDUAL OR ENTITY NAMED ABOVE. IF THE READER OF THIS MESSAGE IS NOT THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, OR IS NOT THE EMPLOYEE OR AGENT RESPONSIBLE FOR DELIVERING IT TO THE INTENDED RECIPIENT, YOU ARE HEREBY NOTIFIED THAT ANY DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION OR COPYING OF THIS COMMUNICATION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS MESSAGE IN ERROR, PLEASE IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY US BY TELEPHONE OR REPLY BY E-MAIL AND THEN PROMPTLY DELETE THE MESSAGE. THANK YOU.]

Victoria Barret wrote a fascinating article:

http://members.forbes.com/forbes/2007/1015/074.html

I highly recommend it. Anonymity often battles basic civility and it is difficult to know where to draw the line.

American populists are ascendant … and I’m worried.

The Wall Street Journal recently reporter that Republicans are now opposed to free trade by a 2-1 margin. On the question “Is foreign trade good or bad for the U.S. economy?,” 59% of Republicans said it was bad while only 32% said it was good. When Republicans are jumping ship on free trade, this means that probably 3/4 of the country thinks it is bad. I recently saw a poll that said that for the first time in history, the majority of Americans that make over $100k/year are against free trade.

I’m worried.