By John Tozzi

Making Money from the Weather; Curing Hospitals

jwtozzi — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:44:15 +0000

Recently online: A look at Weather Underground’s offerings for businesses that want to target their ads based on the weather; and some IT nightmares from inside hospitals.

Venture Capital’s Dismal Batting Average

jwtozzi — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:36:40 +0000

The Kauffman Foundation reports that very few VC firms deliver the outsized returns that investors expect from the asset class. Our chart from their data, in last week’s magazine, shows how dismal it is. The full report is here.

In other recent research, Kauffman shows that a widely cited number for how many jobs IPOs create is misleading.

Chinese Venture Firms Back Foreign Startups

jwtozzi — Wed, 30 May 2012 01:32:52 +0000

Earlier this month in Bloomberg Businessweek, I wrote about venture capital firms from China that invest in American startups and help them do business on the mainland.

Health Care + Data Mining

jwtozzi — Tue, 08 May 2012 04:21:47 +0000

In this week’s Bloomberg Businessweek: a look at how one electronic health records company is using its data to get a broader understanding of public health trends.

Also online: more questions about what happens if small businesses shift to self-insurance; freelancers want to get paid too; and how new laws might pave the way for local investing.

Solar Cells on Paper

jwtozzi — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 20:48:04 +0000

This week in the magazine: how MIT engineers made solar cells out of paper, Saran wrap, and fabric.

Also online: a brief history of the home office tax deduction, a look at the SEC’s coming task in regulating crowdfunding, and a conversation with a food truck entrepreneur.

Skirting Authoritarian Censors

jwtozzi — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 02:25:26 +0000

How one company’s software helps citizens get around censorship, in Iran and elsewhere, at least for now.

Health Care and Small Business

jwtozzi — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:17:36 +0000

Some of my recent health care stories from Businessweek:

Health Reform’s Small Business Confusion: Many companies still don’t know how the law will affect them.

Getting a Grip on Medicine’s Slippery Price Tag: How the cost of basic tests can vary widely depending on what doctor you see.

Small Business Makes a Risky Bet on Health Care: Why more small companies are dropping traditional insurance to go it alone, and how that could threaten the effectiveness of health reform.

Evaluating Yelp’s Ads

jwtozzi — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:37:07 +0000

Yelp went public this week. Yesterday we looked at it’s local advertising business, which accounts for 70 percent of its revenue.

Paying the Home Care Workforce

jwtozzi — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:34:41 +0000

The fastest growing jobs in the U.S. are home care workers who assist the elderly or infirm who can’t take care of themselves. The government is reviewing laws that exempt some of those workers from certain overtime and minimum wage requirements and could force the industry to raise pay.

(Also, another piece in Bloomberg Businessweek last year examined the patchwork of regulation in the home care business.)

The TED Test

jwtozzi — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 17:28:04 +0000

This week on (the new) Businessweek.com, my piece on what it takes to get into the TED conference. One attendee applied eight years in a row before she got the nod.