My apology and why the tech world is awesome | Hacker News Reader

My apology and why the tech world is awesome

jerryguo.tumblr.com

49 pointsjerryguo11 comments

This is a very limited apology. He was in the news for pretending to be a journalist while researching a startup, sure, but that was merely weird (you might even call it "scrappy," like some of the stories you hear about other startups doing slightly dishonest stuff early on). But that story had plenty of other examples of Guo doing really weird stuff, like getting free air travel and product samples by claiming he was going to write about companies. He vaguely alludes to that in the blog post, but it's a weird omission not to address that. A simple "These stories are all wrong" or even "I was broke and really intended to write about those guys, but it was still the wrong decision" would be fine.

http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/27/jerry-guo-newsweek-groupe...

I agree. This is really a damage control to his own reputation. I don't find the apology sincere at all, given the extent and duration of his dishonesty.

Jerry here. Here's the statement I gave to Gawker about the Newsweek complaints:

As for the letters of complaint, Guo tells us they "stem from the fact a) I just didn't end up writing about some of the places I stayed, because they sucked and I wasn't about to portray them as anything else and b) Daily Beast and Newsweek merged last winter, and I left pretty quickly after that, so with a lead time of several weeks / months, those stories just didn't get written."

Here's a statement from Fareed Zakaria, the editor of Newsweek on our editorial policy:

Mr. Zakaria emailed Betabeat to explain the change. The Good Life, he said, was “an effort to provide a service for our readers and attract new advertisers. It is quite common in that world for reporters to, say, go to a special tasting at a new restaurant or attend a weekend retreat at a new hotel. I relaxed our rules on this stuff for those two pages.

The rest of that Zakaria quote (taken from http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/27/jerry-guo-newsweek-groupe...):

    ...In retrospect, it was a mistake—my mistake—and I
    regret it. We should not have been in the business of
    covering luxury goods—that world is so different from
    the traditional world of news reporting. I was always
    uncomfortable with it but was trying to help to help[sic]
    the magazine survive through tough economic times.

I like this sentiment and think it frees us up to be more like the people we wish we were than the people we think we should be out of fear:

  Startups are not a zero-sum game. We can all win, and by that,
  I mean create value that ultimately helps those around us—by 
  creating jobs, connecting people, making markets more 
  efficient, etc—and some go on to change the world.

Is it naive? Probably. I enjoy my life more and the people I get to interact around me when I am not spending half my energy trying to protect myself from being "p0wn3d" in a theoretical, physical, psychological and financial sense.

ASIDE: I realize that this is only my perspective because of where I am in life... if I were a billionaire on Wall Street, I would likely have a very different take on the human condition.

I am just commenting that I like the positive energy in living your life in an open/collaboratory (word?) way.

Nice apology ... after almost 30 years in business, I still do things like this that I have no rational basis for (usually when I'm dog-tired). There are three important parts to the recovery:

1) Apologize ... it never hurts even if the offended party has no idea what you're talking about.

2) Learn something from the mistake.

3) Not only remember the mistake in the future, but apply the same principles to other situations that might be similar.

You've done a great job with the first two ... and only time will show whether you master the third. From the tone of your apology, I suspect that you will.

    I don’t want to stoop to their level and give a point-by-
    point refutation, but will just let my reporting speak
    for itself and the love our Grouper members have shown us.

I found that this sentence did not match the general tone of the article. It seems out of place in an apology to insist that, while you are a dishonest entrepreneur, you are an honest journalist. I'm sure the statement is true, it just seems like an odd topic to bring up in a relatively short, otherwise focused post.

Bravo guy. Mike Lynch can perhaps get a takeaway from this.

One day, when you make it and all the little script kiddies look at how you did it, they'll fall upon this and learn something.

http://www.betabeat.com/2011/09/30/jerry-guo-newsweek-groupe...

Note that the biggest accusation of them all is not addressed: that grouper is a lie, and is just old fashioned human matchmaking.

See http://gizmodo.com/5845467/how-i-was-nearly-seduced-by-group...

Honestly, imo, even if he didn't mean the apology/still doesn't care, props for at least trying to MAKE STUFF. Contribute through any means.

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