Business

Currently, an EIR @JavelinVP and an official contributor to @TechCrunch (since January 2011); formerly, handled operations for @Rexly and @Votizen. Please visit www.semilshah.com for more information ? Learn More Editor’s Note:  Semil Shah (@semil) is currently an EIR with Javelin Venture Partners. There was a time in the United States when federal and local governments could initiate and orchestrate big, sweeping infrastructure projects. One of the most notable was the establishment of the interstate highway system during the Eisenhower administration, a post-war public works project to connect an enormous nation and bolster its defenses. It also helped unlock a new era of interstate commerce. Decades later, the government tried again with the creation of Amtrak, but for a host of reasons, well, that hasn’t really worked out. Instead, success came in aviation, which further accelerated economic growth, and the rise of the American (and eventually global) automotive industry, which c...

Currently, an EIR @JavelinVP and an official contributor to @TechCrunch (since January 2011); formerly, handled operations for @Rexly and @Votizen. Please visit www.semilshah.com for more information ? Learn More Editor’s Note: Semil Shah is currently an EIR with Javelin Venture Partners and has been a columnist at TechCrunch since January 2011. He hosts a weekly TCTV show In the Studio and will now begin a weekly Sunday column, Iterations.” Follow him on Twitter @semil. A few weeks ago, Craigslist penned a “Cease and Desist” letter aimed at Padmapper, the popular apartment listings site, to stop its use of Craigslist data for the third-party service. While Craigslist has behaved this way before, the startup community does not particularly like these types of letters. It was not too long ago that the City of San Francisco sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to a company called, at the time, Ubercab, a letter that again brought startups together in a mutual display of support for new bu...