The little dustup going on at TechCrunch over Michael Arrington’s CrunchFund has awoken the sleeping blogging beast!!! (me, BTW, I’m the beast. I am. I’m like this big bear with claws and fangs..and this blog is like a little bunny, just cowering in the corner…). Been thinking about this quite a bit, especially with starting my own venture, about making exceptions. What TechCrunch is dealing with is a scaling issue.
To build something exceptional, you must make exceptions. To build something scaleable, you cannot make exceptions.
The truth is, most of the extraordinary, incredible things are built by extraordinary, unique, and frequently difficult individuals. They thrive in an entrepreneurial environment because they are not bound by rules. Only an organization that can embrace that uncertainty can truly leverage that brilliance. Yet most organizations are built to scale. To scale means creating rules and standards. Rules and standards usually means least common denominator. “We can’t pay this Mark Zuckerberg kid $120k! He doesn’t even have a degree!” “Salesman X you didn’t book this plane ticket 2 weeks in advance and therefore this expense report is rejected. Nevermind that it was for a client meeting that closed a $1mm deal.” These rules are made so that nobody really screws things up. But they also ensure that the truly great people never really shine. But the challenge is to build a scalable, repeatable organization. Yet at the same time, people are unique by nature, and the brilliant ones are one in a billion.
TechCrunch works despite Arrington’s eight thousand conflicts of interest because Arrington is Arrington, and the writers are who they are, and the culture is what it is. The journalist’s standards absolutely make 100% sense, but they are also standards which means they are the least common denominator, and if you took someone like Arrington and held him to those standards, he would not be who he is, and TC would not be the powerhouse that it is. Would our country be a much better place if it were run by a truly benevolent, clean, intelligent dictator that could not be corrupted and could reign for 40 years and had full authority to make all decisions? Of course. But such a person does not exist. So a system is designed with checks and balances that makes it much harder for any given president to do the right thing, but also guarantees that we never go astray. It is scalable, but very hard for that person to be exceptional.
So then, what? I don’t know that there are answers. Larry Brown recognized Allen Iverson’s brilliance and made exceptions for him and made an NBA Finals run with a bunch of has-been role players. But even that could not last for more than a year. These two things are at odds. Are you making Michelangelo’s David, or a manufacturable toy? An organization has to be one or the other, recognize it, and be transparent about it. When an organization transforms from one to another, casualties are necessary by-product.
I’m worried. Worried that we’re totally screwing it up. We’re at a point where technology is perhaps the most powerful tool for influence and change available to us, but we can’t get out of our own way. Google’s self-righteous stand against the Chinese government, followed recently by Evan Williams’ declaration of twitter’s intent to circumvent the Great Firewall to me just demonstrates an utter lack of understanding for how to get things done in China. It reflects an approach that values a sense of righteousness over the results that that righteousness demands. It’s more important to feel right than to actually make things right.
It’s easy to sit over here on this side of the world and look down upon the spotty human rights track record of China and turn one’s nose down in disgust. However, whether it’s in marriage, business, politics or friendships, I have never seen a lasting resolution to differences of philosophy come without first having empathy for the other person’s viewpoint. Shouting louder or pushing harder may give way to temporary change, but it lacks the conviction to make that change lasting.
So, how do we better understand why China does the things it does? Well, the easiest way for me to think about it is China = Apple/iPhone, and US = Android (or Windows). With Apple, Steve Jobs decides what apps are good for us. It sucks, people get frustrated, but in the end Jobs does this because he believes he’s delivering what’s best. With an iPhone, you don’t have to worry about porn, about malware and trojans. You don’t have to worry about accidentally installing some major resource hog. But you can’t run background tasks, you can’t run Google Voice (until now). Likewise, China makes decisions based on what it thinks are best for the country at large. China looks to the west and sees porn, gun proliferation, Columbine, Lindsay Lohan, and it says thanks, but no thanks, much like Jobs looks at Android and says thanks, but no thanks.
I’m not excusing China, but most of the people shaking their fists at the East think that China’s citizens are as a whole suffering under an oppressive regime, and that’s simply not true. There are things that are definitely very wrong, but there are also things that are working. Very well, in fact. So when the government moves millions of people out of their homes to build a dam, or run a major crime sweep that may net some innocent people, many Chinese would look at the progress and feel that it is an acceptable tradeoff. Calvin Chin eloquently summarizes this general sentiment in his recent post on TechCrunch.
Ok, so *besides* him
Another important point to understand is that the US views its role on the global stage as the world’s police – if we don’t stand up for what’s right, who will? Meanwhile, China has always been an introverted country – I’ll mind my business and you mind yours. And let’s be honest, aside from a crazy Mongol named Genghis Kahn, the West has had a far worse track record when it comes to global interaction (the Crusades, Christopher Columbus and the Indians, the list goes on and on).
Again, I’m not saying it’s right, just saying that it’s important for us to come from a place of empathy rather than a place of judgment. Besides, we’re not that far removed from slavery, racism, spying on our own citizens, and we’re still the leading polluter (per capita) in the world. We still have major issues with crime and poverty. So before we point out that speck in our brother’s eye, let’s not forget the plank in our own. I’m not saying there’s not a problem, I’m just saying we’re going about it the wrong way.
p.s. For the record, I use an iPhone but am pissed about the whole Google Voice debacle and believe that in the long run I will be using an Android device.
p.p.s. The irony that I’m writing about this on a WordPress blog, which is blocked by the Great Firewall, is not lost on me.
Just had to run off a quick morning rant. ESPN.com ran this article today about Allen Iverson signing with Memphis. Their source for the info? Iverson tweeted about it. Interesting. Being a lifelong Sixers fan, I had no idea that Iverson had a twitter account. So I went to ESPN to read the article and this is what I saw:
Let’s see now, I count at least 5 problems here:
- They don’t mention his twitter name
- They don’t link to his twitter name
- In the video, they go through the trouble of reformatting his tweet, yet they don’t use his actual twitter photo, but instead substitute it for another one
- In the video, instead of mentioning his twitter name, they mention @sportscenter
- I go to the @sportscenter page, and there’s no mention of the Iverson story, much less a link to his tweet
Now, it’s not like the tweet is a side story in this article. The TWEET IS THE FRICKIN’ SOURCE and ENTIRE BASIS OF THE STORY! For this, Mr. Mark Stein at ESPN.com, you earn a coveted monkey bitch slap:
betta recognize!
So today, Joe Stump (whom I don’t know) posted a very colorful rant that I’m sure is creating a strong fanbase at The House That Jobs Built, aka Apple HQ. To summarize – he submitted a version of the app, it got accepted, it had a major bug relating to FB Connect for “users who had nobody who were friends with the application installed” (seems like a major use case, as most people will NOT have friends who have the app installed, but I digress). Anyway, he fixed it, resubmitted it, and it eventually got approved, and then a related bug appeared once again. Now, having resolved said issue, he resubmitted, and has been waiting for forever to get it approved. In the meantime users are killing him in the reviews, he can’t get any word back from Apple, and feels helpless as he watches users get frustrated with his application while he has a fix in his hand, but has no way to get it to the user.
Apple sucks, right? By delaying his patch, they are effectively letting their users deal with a crappy piece of software when the better piece of software is just sitting on some verification dude’s desk collecting spiderwebs.
Joe sucks, right? I mean, with no real insight beyond the blog post, it sounds like he left out a pretty major use-case (unless he assumed he’d have massive scale immediately…just like I assume Megan Fox would totally be into me). He messed that up, and then likely in a rush to get a patched version to fix that issue, either broke something else or didn’t fully test it, once again. So on his third try, he thinks he’s finally got it right, and is super pissed at Apple for sitting on it.
Leaving aside those two discussions, it was really this comment on TechCrunch that got me thinking. Kyle basically said, “anyone who blames Joe hasn’t developed software cause you can never have bugfree software and anyone who tells you so is a liar or is a pompous freak who doesn’t know anything about coding” (I’m paraphrasing, but since Kyle left his twitter URL, but has a private account, I can’t find any info about him).
I don't like to call this a date, I prefer to call this customer development
Anyway, to me, this is what it boils down to: we got a web developer writing a client application. Developing for the web is like dating a chick. In the web world, you release stuff at midnight Monday, realize there are 805 use cases uncovered in the first 30 minutes that you had never anticipated, rollback the changes by 1am, code until 10am the next day, and then deploy again. By Wednesday, you get some feedback and some meaningful stats, and then you can change it a couple more times and re-release by Friday. This is awesome on so many levels because of the ability to iterate fast, and make changes based on real user feedback. Sweet right? At a web company, your developer-to-QA ratio is probably something like 5:1 or 10:1 or 10:0 where the guys who wrote the code are the same guys who test the code. If on Monday the chick you meet is ugly, by Tuesday you could line up another date and start over with little or no consequence, save for a few angry text messages.
I will love you forever, or at least until the next release
That’s all fine and dandy because of the nature of the web. BUT, the reality of the iPhone/iPod Touch is that you’re writing client side software. And when you’re writing client side software, you’re getting married. If you mess up, you just can’t patch and deploy as frequently or seamlessly as you can on the web. You can’t just line up another date. You have to fill out divorce papers. And split assets, and figure out child support, and pay lawyers, and stalk ex-wives on Facebook and…eh hem, where was I? If you’ve ever worked at a desktop software company, the developer-to-QA ratio is often 1:1, and for a 6 month development project, QA will easily take 4-6 months on top of that. Why? Cause at the end of the day, you’re printing that bad boy onto a DVD, and putting that DVD in a box, and then putting that box on a shelf at BestBuy. When you do that, you’d better damn well be sure that that version is the right one, that you’ve tested it, and dated it, and found all its flaws and fixed them or worked around them. Point is, when you’re developing for the iPhone, you have to change your mentality. I’m not saying that you need to QA the crap out of that thing and never release it, but I am saying that I bet TechCrunch commenter Kyle never built client software, and I bet Joe Stump just learned that he might want to date his app a little longer before wedding it to the App Store.
So I’ve been meaning to write a post about this for some time. There are a lot of VC and entrepreneur bloggers who write a whole lot about how to pitch a VC. There’s a ton of advice out there about term sheets, pitch meetings and demos, slide decks etc, which are incredibly useful to the entrepreneur. BUT, I rarely see any posts by entrepreneurs about what a VC should do to win the heart of the entrepreneur. And last time I checked, we both need each other to make money. And, despite the way it may seem, entrepreneurs aren’t just looking for a big fat check, but to work with someone they can trust and respect.
As I mentioned in one of my quarantine posts, I was taken away during a Startup 2 Startup dinner, shortly after Dave McClure gave his Startup Viagra: How to Pitch a VC (which is excellent, btw, both entertaining and informative). So with apologies to Dave, I’ve aped his title and turned it around to give VCs some advice about how to appeal to entrepreneurs (and in the process guaranteeing that I will never ever get funded).
We know you’re busy, but so are we
I ain't got all day buddy
I hear it over and over again from VCs in their blogs and on panels, “we’re busy people, so when we grace you with 15 minutes of our time, make the best of it and don’t screw it up.” But here’s another news flash – starting and running a company is pretty time consuming as well. And while I appreciate the fact that my pitch is taking time out of your busy schedule, THAT’S YOUR JOB! You’re job, and the reason your LPs put money in your fund, is so that you would sit through 1000 of our boring, discombobulated pitch meetings and find the next Google.
On the other hand, an entrepreneur’s job is to build a freaking product and company, of which funding is a necessary evil. So as much as it sucks that we’re taking up your time in these meetings, believe us when we say we’re busy as well, and it’s not just so that we can get to the next pitch meeting. Here’s a tip – TAKE FEWER MEETINGS! If you find that your schedule is overrun, maybe you should scale back. If you have to be 20 minutes late to a half hour pitch meeting, and you’re gonna be pounding on your blackberry throughout the meeting like it owed you money, and then have your assistant pop in 5 minutes early with “an emergency call” so you can skip out on the rest of the meeting, then maybe, just maybe you’re taking too many meetings, and the quantity of your meetings are getting in the way of your ability to do your job right and find the next Amazon.
So, as fate would have it, my flight from Shanghai back to LA was delayed by Russian volcanoes. That’s right, after my swine flu quarantine, I got delayed by freaking volcanoes in Russia. I wish I were creative enough to make this up, but I’m not. So anyway, upon reaching Shanghai Pudong Int’l airport, we were whisked away in a van and sent to a nearby hotel…AGAIN. There I sat from 1pm – 8:30pm, before we were sent back to the airport for our flight back home. After +27 hours door to door, I’m happy to be home again, and mostly recovered from jet lag.
Instead of posting anymore about my over-documented stint at Hotel Quarantine, I wanted to wrap up my posts about China with some thoughts from Startonomics Beijing (I would post about the other events, but, well, this was the only event I made it to). For some background on that day, Mark Hendrickson has an excellent recap over at Tech Crunch, and you can see all the slide presentations over on SlideShare. Here are some of the topics of discussion that I found most interesting/thought provoking:
What South Park can teach us about localization
什麼是douchebag?
Dr. Kai Fu Lee kicked things off that day, and I thought one of the most interesting points he brought up was that most US companies simply think they can take what is successful in the US, translate it into Chinese, and then they will rule the Chinese market. Google, in his opinion, has fared OK, but not terribly like many other competitors in the Chinese market, because it has always tried to assume a more humble approach, choosing instead to listen carefully to the market and trying to meet the market needs rather than dictate based on their success in the US.
Read more…
Ahh…the sweet, sweet fragrance of freedom (or is that the Beijing smog?). I’m at the airport now, and it appears that my saga is coming to a happy ending. Last night I went out and celebrated my new-found freedom with some new-found friends here in Beijing from my initial (but brief) stay in here Beijing. This morning, as I walked through the breakfast buffet at the Westin, I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I picked up food. They were playing that song “Delilah” (I think that’s what it’s called), didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics, but the song, combined with my mood, made it all feel like I was at the end of a movie, and the credits were just about to roll. But as I enjoyed my five star hotel breakfast, I couldn’t help but think of some of the staff at Hotel Quarantine, and how they are still going to be there for at least another month. They themselves don’t even really know when they’re done. And that kinda sucks. If you at least have an end, there is hope, but their stay is indefinite until further notice. And while the Westin staff is unbelievable, I have to say that the staff at the Yanxiang Hotel were also superb, and made a crappy situation much more tolerable. Amazing in light of their own circumstances. So, if you or someone else you know is headed to Hotel Quarantine, remember to be extra nice to the awesome staff there, and give them a little extra room too.
Finally, I can’t help but think that this could have all been avoided if they just scanned us before we got on the plane instead of after. If they found someone with a temperature, just send em home. That way they don’t have to be quarantined halfway across the world, and none of us would need to ever be quarantined. Seems like that would save everyone involved a ton of time and money. But nobody’s asked for my advice, and the cab driver on the way over didn’t seem to care too much about what I was saying either.
Well, I will continue to post on this blog, but it will likely go back to what I originally intended it to be about – Web x.0, product management, and other random musings that come into my head. It’s been fun people (no it hasn’t), but time for this geek to get on a plane and get back home!
Back in my day, we used Yahoo for search, there was no Googles!
As I sit here, in my last 9 hours of quarantine, it’s got me thinking a lot about how different things would be had I been quarantined five years ago instead of today. Keep in mind, five years is not a very long time. It’s the time it takes an overachiever to finish undergrad and tack on a master’s degree, or an underachiever to finish undergrad as a super-senior. Five years ago was 2004. But in what the crazies call “Internet time”, that is an entire generation. Seriously, think about it. Prior to 2004, these did not exist (apologies in advance to Andrew Lih – Wikipedia is the beginning *and* end of my research for these – I’d make a horrible journalist):
Why won't you follow me back? Twitter snob!
- YouTube
- Digg (founded in December ’04)
- Yelp (founded Oct ’04)
And these things happend in 2004:
- Google went public
- Facebook was founded
- WordPress turned 1 years old
- LinkedIn has been launched for 1 year
- MySpace turned 1
- Skype was four months old
Think about that for a minute. All of that has happend in the past five years. Back in the day, it took five years to get from New York to LA!
Flash forward to 2009, and it really is hard to imagine how boring quarantine would be without social media. Not that social media replaces or reduces the need for human interaction, but when you’re forced into a situation that specifically prevents human interaction, social media becomes your best alternative.
Read more…
I’m over the hump! More days behind than I have ahead!
So life here is pretty mundane. There are two beds in my room. When I wake up, I roll out of bed, and into the other, which is affectionately known as my “office”. I log in, browse some headlines, catch up on twitter, and all the tweets from my fellow Geeks on a Plane to see the fun that I’m missing out on. I walk three feet over to the bathroom. One day I decided to brush my teeth after I went and picked up breakfast, thinking I’d be wearing a mask and nobody would know the difference. Well, turns out one person that definitely noticed was me. With that mask on, all I breath is my own recycled air. And actually, one thing I have learned is that it’s important to keep up with things. For the first few days, I just rolled out of bed, wandered around, always wore my PJs around the place (who cares anyway? it’s not like I’m trying to impress anybody, I’m only downstairs for a few minutes at a time etc.). Well, the past day or so I decided to actually get changed, and today I put in my contacts, and suddenly there was a little more normalcy to everything. So, for any of you fellow quarantiners out there reading this, don’t let The Man get to you. He WANTS you to mope around like a sloth. He WANTS you to stop shaving. Don’t do it, don’t let him break your spirit!!!!
I won't let you hold me down!
Ah hem. Right. So anyway, the other thing that kinda sucks here is that there is no AC. The idea is that if anyone DOES have swine flu, it’s probably not good to be pumping that air through the entire building. So as far as choices go, yeah, I’d rather be hot than to have swine flu. I’d also rather have toothpicks jabbed in my eye than to have an elephant kick me between the legs (or would I? that’s a tough one). Anyway, so I spend most of the days with my drapes drawn to keep the temperature down, which makes for a pretty depressing vibe in the room:
Now I'm going to watch Schindler's List and then take a warm bath and slit my wrists
I’ve also started to spend a little more time out and about. I watch the fish swimming in the pond:
This reminds me, I need to clean my son's fishtank when I get home
It’s been good though…I guess they always say, in prison you have nothing but time for you and your thoughts. And I’ve been able to spend a lot of time thinking about stuff, which I may or may not blog about in more detail.
This morning we had some thunderstorms, which have done a great job of cooling down the summer heat. There’s also something very soothing about the rain.
Ha! All of you free people who were planning on visiting the Great Wall today can suck it!
Finally, I find it strangely amusing to see new people arrive at Hotel Quarantine. It’s always that same look, that “How could I be *this* unlucky” look.
Welcome to Hotel Quarantine! May I take your bags?
I think I’m gonna order some pizza tonight to switch it up. Last dinner in the big house. Woo!!
Sorry, I would blog about more exciting things if there were more exciting things happening, but, you know, I spend 22 hours a day in a 200 sq ft room, not a lot happens.
Oh, last thing, a few of you have mentioned you have family members here. Tell them to feel free to knock on 1420 and say hello or if they want to borrow some DVDs. If you want me to write a message for them and stick it on the bulletin board, feel free to leave a comment as well. Just can’t deliver any hugs or kisses on your behalf…we’re in quarantine, afterall.
Want to stay up to date? Add this blog to your iGoogle homepage:
Catching up? Here are the first few posts:
Welcome to The Hotel Quarantine
Life in the Big House
7 People You’ll Meet in Hotel Quarantine
Having now spent almost 3 days here in Hotel Quarantine, and adjusted to life in the Big House, I’ve noticed some common patterns among the types of people I’m encountering and sharing these experiences with. Generally, they fall into one of seven categories:
The ABC
Yo, T.I., hollatchaboy
Why He’s in China:
ABC’s are American Born Chinese. Most of the ABCs are here in China because they heard a friend of a friend of a friend moved out here to teach English and ended up becoming a VJ on MTV and gets tons of tail on a regular basis. His parents love it because they think their little twinkie (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) is finally interested in his cultural heritage, when in fact he’s just interested in going to a club and not being “that asian guy”.
What He’s Like In Quarantine:
After spending his entire adolescent life being the Asian dude that all the girls don’t mind hanging out with but would never date, fighting stereotypes of being a math whiz and battling dumb whities doing the whole Bruce Lee “waaaa taaaaa!!” sounds at him, he is now able take on his long repressed gangsta rapping alter ego. This is a major opportunity for some major street cred, and as he bounces his head to T.I. playing on his iPhone, he thinks to himself, “Yo T.I., I feel ya homeboy. Prison ain’t no joke.” Except, of course, he gets to listen to his iPhone and doesn’t have to be scared of being raped. You can spot him from far across the way by the way he throws that gangsta limp in his walk, and you can hear him using the N word when talking to staff that can barely speak English, much less ebonics.
The family
Couldn't we just go to Six Flags?
Why They’re in China:
Most of the families here are actually Chinese families with their American born kids. For the parents, this is an opportunity to show their kids their roots. For the kids, this just sucks and they wish they could have just gone to Six Flags instead, like the Feldmans did.
Read more…
