Have you heard of Kiva.org?  If not, you’ve been living under a rock.  Kiva allows anyone to make a 0 interest loan to entrepreneurs and small business owners in developing countries.  The cool thing is that Kiva is a non-profit and isn’t making a buck off your direct loans.

It is my belief that capitalism and entrepreneurship elevate society and raise the standard of living for everyone, at least on some level.  I also have an internal struggle with the aid that our government doles out overseas every year.  On one hand I see past our borders and realize it’s an issue of an obligation to humanity to help your fellow man but at the same time there are so many problems within the United States that it pains me to see people in our communities getting overlooked for foreigners.

Naturally this shows why I love Kiva so much.  It allows people to lend money, not even truly donate because you’ll get it back, and at the same time help solve a problem–not just add fuel to a fire that will continue to rage until something changes (aid without accountability).  I realize that Kiva loans are probably just a few hours worth of aid compared to what the United States gives on an annual basis but I think it’s a great model that could someday be rolled out on a much larger scale.

You might be wondering why the heck I’m trying to highlight Kiva when I haven’t talked about anything like this before on my blog.  Next week I’ll be attending the infamous Pubcon Internet Marketing Convention in fabulous Las Vegas. One of the attendees, a man by the name of dk, is throwing a cool bash and as part of the attendence requirement he asked everyone to highlight a charity or non-profit that they respected.  He worked a deal to do this as opposed to charge people for the party–pretty awesome in my opinion.  A few hundred people will be attending this even and we’ll all be highlighting great causes on our websites.  Cheers to helping!

The contest is still going on until July 31st and we haven’t had too many submissions so your odds are good!  Spend a weekend pumping out a sweet calculator and you could have $10,000 cash with your name on it.  I won’t bore you with the details here, just check out the contest page for the full contest description.

The site is a collection of interviews by an extremely successful entrepreneur named Andrew Warner (”Hey everybody, this is Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com where ambitious upstarts mix!”).  He sold a web company a few years back and now spends his time studying what other internet entrepreneurs have done to build great companies–the best part is he puts it all (I think) on the net for everyone to benefit!

It’s an awesome resource and I’d highly recommend checking it out now.  Now I’m just hoping he lands Elon Musk soon, that dude is fascinating.

-300 mile range

-45 min charge

-0-60 in a tad over 5 seconds

Those numbers are sick.  Best part is, it’s only about $50k.  I know that’s not cheap but considering the fact that the Roadster was $110k, this is a steal.  I’ll wait for the next model, hopefully it’s cut in half one more time.

Vids on techcrunch.

Shane’s post on selling a site for $1M - I found this via SEObook today but it’s a good link so please ignore my redundancy.

SEOmoz re-released their link building guide.   Great for newbs or just to reaffirm your link building strategies.

One of the best pieces of linkbait ever - Watch the crisis of credit on the site or my embedded one below.

If you’re entrepreneurially inclined, this book is a most read.  In my opinion, the most important lessons are specialization and leverage.  These two facts are the basis of Buffett’s wealth, the leverage he gained from managing others’ money and his intense specialization in security selection and leaving operations to managers more skilled than he.

I also love Buffett’s views on diversification–put your eggs all in one basket and do absolutely everything in the world to protect those eggs.

This isn’t much of a review but this book is a must read. Buy it, read it, then go to Berk’s website and read a few of his annual reports.  It may all sound stale but it’s seriously inspiring (or I’m just weird).