March 31, 2011
Ben Horowitz and I didn't coordinate on these posts
But as you can see below I do agree with what he published today
The most difficult CEO task is...
"It's like the fight club of management: The first rule of the CEO psychological meltdown is don't talk about the psychological meltdown."
Fake it till you make it
Another entry for my startup series.
One of the finest expressions you'll hear in startup land is "fake it till you make it", the point of which is obvious but here is an underappreciated method: self-control.
I have the luxury of watching startups struggle and fail all the time and here are some bad habits:
1. Someone I know is a real grouch (slamming doors etc) and it's pretty unbecoming. One thing it says to me the casual observer is "the CEO is freaking out about something and it's probably not just the font on this button". You are radiating FAIL when the CEO acts unstable or even unhappy.
2. The worst case scenario may be on your mind but it need never be discussed. Companies fail and bad shit happens. No reminder needed. So things don't have to be discussed in public, with staff, with investors, friends as "or we shut everything down". You need to know "if we don't raise money by next month we cannot keep this level of staff". But you only need to say "we are a startup and we have to make things happen. Our top priority is raising money but meanwhile we also have to launch xyz". Established companies never threaten staff with "if sales don't rise 5% there will be layoffs". They just do them.
3. Faking it is a form of surviving after all. If you can fake it you are alive, and there is a chance to make it.
4. Bad news must be delivered sometimes but don't wimp out by baking failure into everything you do (see 2). Rather, when it happens just deliver the news as news - never mind your fears that it was possible - and chart the course for survivors to the promised land. If you are in charge that positive scenario is yours to advocate.
People who observe this principle become slightly annoying -- "things are going great. It's a record quarter for us"; think of how VCs talk about their portfolio companies are uniformly unbelievable!!! -- but that's the way you have to be.
Sent on the go from my Peek
March 30, 2011
Thank goodness for public radio
God save KEXP on WNYC.
In one mild morning show:
Fugazi
Superchunk
Cee Lo Green
Sleater Kinney
David Byrne
Sent on the go from my Peek
Idea: market for eating
I have an idea I really like at the moment.
It's a cross between: Ebay, Etsy, Airbnb, Uber, Eventbrite, Kickstartr,
20x200 and foodie cooking.
March 28, 2011
The harried, horrible startup CEO
I have had the luxury of perspective recently in observing some startup CEOs at work.
Usually I just *am* one or am face-to-face in private with one -- not fly on the wall in the war room.
Message one for the aspiring CEO is watch out - you may suck at it. You didn't get the CEO job at your own startup by being an amazing leader -- you got it by being the founder, and nobody well-qualified will waste their talents on your idea until you have achieve something. Raise a ton of money, make a great product, a key partnership, traction hockey stick, or your own amazing technology chops. But something, not nothing.
And that's the first hard stretch for you, the harried, horrible startup CEO. You are in charge and have accomplished nothing (yet).
So for that first stretch you are either alone and nowhere (therefore depressed), or else you are not alone and therefore carry the burden of delivering for these hangers-on. Or you are deluded with optimism which is OK because at least you feel good.
Once you have accomplished something great -- say, creating a globally award winning product and launching it in a dozen markets to rave reviews -- you confront the next question. Are you STILL in charge? Why?
First of all surely this means you were not able to attract someone better. Sure there is huge merit in having the founder as CEO. But there IS someone more qualified at this stage to take the emerging yet not established company forward. Just not affordable probably. The company hasn't achieved enough yet.
Why so harsh?
Well some things that an experienced or even talented leader will be better at:
- correctly evaluating and hiring talent
- quickly firing bad matches
- setting the agenda and managing dissent
- shaping people's roles to give them the right incentives and recognition without getting played
- speaking to your internal public -- "the troops" -- at times of everyday and unusual opportunity or peril to inspire action
- leading the always-unruly board of directors rather than getting whipsawed and passing it through to the team
That's the hard managerial stuff.
You may also be bad at either sales, marketing, product management, technology or all of the above. More trouble.
Finally, you may by disposition be an unpleasant person -- or perhaps unable to handle yourself in the extreme, existentially vulnerable situations that your company's problems will present. If so, your company has a jerk in charge.
How will you know? Do you find *other* people likable and easy to deal with, or a pain and frustration? If most people get you pissed off, you are probably a jerk. I should know; I was one. I don't think I'm too bad now (meaning - the world seems full of less idiots than it once was).
One other minor point - you may put on airs due to the insignificant title "CEO". Plumbers often write "President and CEO" on their business cards. Remember that.
So good luck in your new job, CEO.
Sent on the go from my Peek
March 26, 2011
Recruiting rich kids vs. strivers
There are many amazing and non-cash benefits that accrue to rich kids,
and more so to the brilliant ones. After meeting many rich and not rich
young people over the years it amazes me how easy it is to forget how
direct the heritability of wealth and power really is.
Rich kids can be fools and wastoids but when they are good it is easier
to be great
- they have the self-confidence of getting what they want most of the time
- great tools like cutting edge machines and phones and personal
prestige they radiate
- coaches and tutors that help build the "natural skills"
- internships and advice that money can't buy but family relationships
create
- parents with free time, money and networks to "volunteer", "donate"
and "make a few calls" for the good of their school, teachers, coaches,
friends and ultimately the kid
- a community of language speakers (even non-friendly) that show how to
walk and talk in the corridors of power
- peers with all of the above too
How great to be smart, driven *and* a rich kid (vs a mere striver from
the middle class boroughs). I bet it even shows on GPAs at purely
quantitative magnet schools.
There are many
amazing and non-cash benefits that accrue to rich kids, and more
so to the brilliant ones. After meeting many rich and not rich
young people over the years it amazes me how easy it is to
forget how direct the heritability of wealth and power really
is.
Rich kids can be fools and wastoids but when they are good it is
easier to be great
- they have the self-confidence of getting what they want most
of the time
- great tools like cutting edge machines and phones and personal
prestige they radiate
- coaches and tutors that help build the "natural skills"
- internships and advice that money can't buy but family
relationships create
- parents with free time, money and networks to "volunteer",
"donate" and "make a few calls" for the good of their school,
teachers, coaches, friends and ultimately the kid
- a community of language speakers (even non-friendly) that show
how to walk and talk in the corridors of power
- peers with all of the above too
How great to be smart, driven *and* a rich kid (vs a mere
striver from the middle class boroughs). I bet it even shows on
GPAs at purely quantitative magnet schools.
David Brooks is right
Clearly, this is a wrong statement. A purely 100% rational person would have no emotions. But surely a balanced person would give weight to the different forces of boldness, fear, caution, prudence etc -- feelings more than rational diktats.
Encouraging statements from RIM
It's a super-exciting transition. And it's got legs to sustain us really indefinitely
Kidding.
March 25, 2011
Share publicly or privately
Startups keep debating the "how public" question as if it is an undecided question. Do you really want all your Facebook friends seeing something?
Overhearing some chatter this morning about these Color guys (link) with their local photo publishing.
"Do I really want everyone around me to see my pictures??"
"Do I really want to see creepy pictures from randoms near me? It's mobile chatroulette"
Wrong, wrong, wrong. I think the entire history of the Internet is a one way arrow toward more sharing, more anonymity, more publishing -- starting with home pages that anyone can visit, blog posts, comments, tweets, Facebook pages, Linkedin "resume" pages, Flickr photos... The fact that it is mobile and instant makes it better and more interesting.
March 22, 2011
The changes in India
So different every time I come here. The process of change, though, is
waves of new buildings and neighborhoods, new types of cars on the
roads, new elements of infrastructure running through like subway lines
or highways...over/under/through the same old dusty messy horrible shit.
But I guess that's how progress happens!
March 20, 2011
The new David Brooks book
Worth it. If only for the hilarious portraits of rich people as they really are. Ferrari ride followed by a toasted sandwich for lunch...
March 17, 2011
Latently recruitable hires
In startup life it's feast or famine -- hiring like crazy or just not
really hiring. That's been my experience. Maybe later it gets more
stable but a key hire is always a big rush and then it's over.
As a result it's difficult to go for the "latently recruitable" folks.
Folks who work somewhere, they are doing well, they are getting
promoted, they haven't even been browsing for jobs or anything, they are
amazingly accomplished doing something big at Microsoft or Oracle or
something, but in the shower they muse "man I would move to NYC to be
Foursquare's CTO in a second".
As a CEO trying to reach that guy, how do you do it? You cannot spend
that much time networking and building your profile so that person will
be aware of your hunt.
Unlike search-driven recruiting sites, someone should make a tool to let
that latently recruitable guy "get offers" by email. Groupon for big jobs...
But meanwhile, I guess that is where recruiters fill in the missing
technology out there.
And these latently recruitable folks get ignored by startup CEOs like
me. So if you are latently recruitable, you better get your name on
somebody's list.
March 16, 2011
Where nobody is competing with Apple
With everyone scrambling to imitate and beat Apple, why are they only competing with the carrier-integrated part?
Everyone has an iPhone competitor and so far it's been all iPad-clones-bundled-with-a-carrier.
Nobody makes an iPod touch competitor -- Zune is being iced, Sony's isn't close.
And only now is there a first wifi only tablet (I couldn't find one for the Galaxy Tab despite rumors last year).
Here is one reason: almost nobody in mobile (Motorola, HTC) has much of a channel to customers outside the wireless carriers. So they make what Verizon asks for, for its response to AT&T. And we get phone stuff.
Samsung has a channel through mass retail, so why not them? They pretty much gave up on music/media players though, so perhaps the idea of an iPod competitor is anathema.
They should be there though.
The wifi side of this thing is way bigger than the 3G. 93% of iPads are NOT 3G (under a million after Apple sold 10mm+ iPads per last Q4 #s).
Is the competition insane? Adding 3G makes the gadget cost more and prices the stuff way above iPad. Apple disclosed their average selling price on iPad last year was $666 -- just a bit above $500 entry level.
And requiring "only" 3G saves no money; the exact same product could ship with no 3G chip.
More devices (wifi or otherwise connected) means more apps, means more ecosystem, and everything else.
My guess is the problem comes entirely from channel conflict -- the wireless carriers insisting.
So where are Dell and HP? They are over 1 year late now. And they will show up captive to another adjacent industry - the laptop.
So while Apple conquered the portable computer (iPod) and is riding it into phone-land (iPhone) and toward PC-land (iPad), the iPod itself is poised complete its transformation from mere music/media player (the iPod flash, nano, etc) to "portable computer with wifi but no 3G" (already over 50% of 2010 Q4 iPod sales).
Nuclear disaster
Those workers trying to save the Japanese plant are unbelievably heroic. Wow.
Chernobyl turns out was not "that bad"
- a few thousand cancer cases directly tied to the radiation
- perhaps a radius of 20-30 miles abandoned
- including the small city near Chernobyl
Today, many of those deaths would be avoided by proper iodine pills beforehand.
March 14, 2011
Google search: I'm not coming back
Every so often over the last 10 years I have switched from Google to
something else for a while, gotten annoyed and switched back.
Several times to Yahoo, startups, fast search, even Bing.
Most recently -- Bing. That was probably 4 months ago now (or longer...)
And I have not felt the need to switch back. My browser defaults are all
Bing.
Call me crazy... but it has been pretty painless. Even a little better.
(I occasionally cross search on Google. Never on Yahoo. Never on any
other non-specialist search engine.)
March 12, 2011
Nonviolence
Basically the Gandhi argument in the Libya case.
From The New York Times:
OP-ED COLUMNIST: Libyan Closure
The deepest reason to oppose Western military intervention in Libya is the
utter moral bankruptcy of the West with respect to the Arab world.
http://nyti.ms/hOBfG9
Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device,
free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/
Basically the Gandhi argument in the Libya case.
From The New York Times:
OP-ED COLUMNIST: Libyan Closure
The deepest reason to oppose Western military intervention in Libya is the utter moral bankruptcy of the West with respect to the Arab world.
http://nyti.ms/hOBfG9
Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device, free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/
March 11, 2011
Instant chat glut. SMS 2.0
GroupMe, FastSociety, Beluga, Kik, TextPlus, PingChat, HurricaneParty and Yobongo
Goodbye Twitter. I'm going committing #tweppuku
I'm no longer going to read Twitter. I'm also going to stop posting to it. Back to...Facebook!
This ecosystem murder is bogus.
A future user interface: siftable gadgets
What a great project. I can see this as an absolute killer accessory range for the new world of touch devices.
Sifteo is to UI peripherals as Bose is to speakers?
March 10, 2011
Peace vs. war as a method for change
Is non-violence a better strategy?
THE rebellion in Libya stands out among the recent unrest in the Middle East for its widespread violence: unlike the protesters in Tunisia or Egypt, those in Libya quickly gave up pursuing nonviolent change and became an armed rebellion.And while the fighting in Libya is far from over, it's not too early to ask a critical question: which is more effective as a force for change, violent or nonviolent resistance? Unfortunately for the Libyan rebels, research shows that nonviolent resistance is much more likely to produce results, while violent resistance runs a greater risk of backfiring.
Reminds me of the excellent book Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker which makes this argument about World War 2.
Another real-time, instant, mobile, local craigslist - Zaarly
I really like this idea and this area. Things that craigslist dominates annoyingly and painfully on the web you can do in mobile and kill them.
Here is a "job market":
Very similar to the instant chatroom I posted about recently (Ask.com's thing...)
March 3, 2011
Chatrooms on the spot
I like it. Instant, disposable, local, mobile chat.
Like my graffy.it publishing idea.
*An Unlikely Entrant In The Location App Race At SXSW: Ask.com*
TECHCRUNCH | MARCH 03, 2011
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/lmaP_oQf_Yc/
There's a fairly insane rush currently underway to launch new services in
time for SXSW next week. Most of these are obviously ... read
more
March 2, 2011
Dumb Indian Laws
"Person of Indian Origin - Tourist Visa Alert: Per requirements of the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, if any person of Indian Origin does not want to apply for an Entry, they may apply for a Tourist visa. The Tourist visa, however, is not non convert-able and non extend-able and there will be a stipulation of a gap of at least 2 months between each visit to India on a Tourist visa."
Reading list additions
Watch the cable guy re-issue.
Paraag Khanna's new book.
Houllebecq's letters with Henry-Levi.
Cross off the "Diner de cons" remake - bad!