YC is joining Alexis Ohanian's Without Their Permission Tour
blog.ycombinator.com
blog.ycombinator.com
You saw this with SOPA and PIPA. A "grassroots" movement, supported by a slate of tech companies, some of which are by themselves comparable in size to all of Hollywood.[1] I support the position, I support the underlying message, but I find the pretense rather silly.
[1] Global Hollywood box office and DVD revenues are about $90 billion (http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2012/how-much-does-hol...). Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are listed as opposing SOPA, and are each in the $50-$80 billion range. Apple, which stayed neutral on SOPA but is usually more aligned with the content distributors than the content producers, is about twice the size of Hollywood at $170 billion.
Just because you're a tech company and your opponent is a government, doesn't mean you're on the "right" side of every fight.
> We’re thrilled to announce that Y Combinator will be joining Alexis Ohanian on the road starting next week for the Without Their Permission tour.
I think this is how a lot of people here will inevitably read this: The most famous startup incubator is going to be joining Alexis, a well-liked guy, Reddit cofounder, on a tour to promote his book (and by extension, the personalities of the participating parties themselves -- this is just the nature of promotion tours, you don't just raise the profile of a book, album, or movie, you're also raising the profile of the parties involved). The first three stops are Harvard, MIT, Tufts. At each stop there are successful YC alums telling budding entrepreneurs that YC is the way to go. Something I don't necessarily disagree with because I like YC, I'm just pointing out that it's perhaps a bit disingenuous to reduce what's going on here to "just Ohanian's book tour".
It's not limited to just the stops where there'll be YC members.
Ohanian's message is: "you don't need 'their' permission to found a tech start up." No, of course you don't. You have the full weight of "their" support. Admittedly, Ohanian isn't the tech industry, but he's hardly the only one playing the underdog card. I guess it helps with recruiting or something.
* As long as we're the ones doing it to them. If they're doing it to us, they need to get our permission.
There are people who work on the ethics of science and technology full time and they are awesome. If every technologist worked on ethics full time nothing would ever get done. I recommend checking out the work of the STS department of MIT though Open Courseware if you are interested in ethics.
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/science-technology-and-society/
Also, if there is actually something unethical going on, it's best to enunciate it using straight/clear prose following the satire if you actually want to affect the external world.
Given the reviewers of the book however I think that curiosity has certainly bested me this time.
I agree with pg -- eliminating inequality would almost eliminate incentives to take great risks, and would be a disaster for the economy.
However I am reserving any conclusions until I've finished reading it.
By the way, being entrepreneurial is not limited to entrepreneurs. The last part of this book is a testament to that. Charles Best, Debby Guardino, Zach Anner, Zach Weinersmith, Lester Chambers, and countless participants in the fight against SOPA and PIPA wouldn’t necessarily be thought of as traditional entrepreneurs, but in spirit, they are undoubtedly entrepreneurial. They’ve found success because they could use this great equalizer—the open Internet—to spread their ideas, find their audiences, and ultimately surmount traditional barriers.
The open Internet is not a magic wand, but as a technology it has the potential to do tremendous things—to allow awesome people to reach their full potential. It is ultimately incumbent upon us, as builders and users of this platform, to see that it lives up to its own full potential. As we look, wide-eyed, into the future, let’s remember that the baggage of our society comes with us online. While the Internet as a technology is flat, as long as all links are equal, the world we live in is still full of inequality. Most of my now-lionized peers, the founders of the Internet’s original startups, are straight white young men. But as it turns out, the world is not full of only young straight white guys—in fact, far from it. What excites me so much about this technology is how it democratizes knowledge as well as distribution. But the system lives up to its full potential only if all of us have access and the skills to make the most out of it.
In sum, it’s not enough to just go forth and create without asking anyone’s permission, or to help others who are trying to do the same. Like the Internet itself, we are greater than just the sum of our parts. We’re not yet taking full advantage of all our parts, but we get closer every day, thanks to all the individuals and organizations striving toward it. Think of all the genius the world has missed out on simply because otherwise-awesome people got bad “life lottery” tickets. It motivates me and many more to work toward building an open Internet, if for no other reason than it’s going to mean better stuff—better businesses and better nonprofits, better artists and better activists, and, yes, even better politicians. It’s going to enable awesome people to actually be awesome in a way that they couldn’t have been before.
Remember, this is just the beginning. Everything I’ve written about has happened only in the last decade, which is but a moment given the speed of innovation online. Imagine what this next decade will bring. Every child who grows up with an Internet connection and the skills to make the most of it is yet another potential founder, or artist, or activist, or philanthropist, or . . . I don’t know, that’s just it: I can look her in the eyes and tell her that she doesn’t need to ask anyone’s permission to go learn about the printing press, or start publishing her photography, or rally her community to fix a dilapidated playground, or begin working on the next big thing.
No, none of these things are going to be easy, but I’m certainly not going to be the one to tell her she can’t do them. Let me put it this way: if the Industrial Revolution changed the world, the current revolution, powered by software and the Internet, is destined to do the same, but far more democratically. Instead of opening a factory, you need only open your laptop.
I hope you’re convinced. And more important, I trust you’ll do something good with that conviction. Spread the word, give this book to someone who needs to read it, put your politicians on notice, and make things people love.
Start.
Please.
What are you waiting for? Someone’s permission?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AroQUykhIn54dEQ...
Georgia Tech
University of Georgia
University of Florida
University of Central Florida
UNC
Duke
Wake Forest
Vanderbilt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeastern_United_States
Did I miss some?
I know we aren't hitting them all, but we are going to 77 schools (150+ stops) over 5 months, which is already unprecedented for a book tour. I wish we could go everywhere folks have asked, but there's only so much time I can take my team away from their lives and loved ones.
I guess I was assuming you'd target the top 20 largest cities. When you passed through North Carolina, for instance, you skipped over Charlotte. It's a solid 2 and a half hours away from Raleigh, so not an easy trip for students.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_by...
You could setup something at UNCC. They have an enrollment of over 26,000. http://uncc.edu
I'm an investor in coinbase.com and buttercoin.com, so I'm rather optimistic about bitcoin. I've spoken about this a bit to the media + in public:
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/reddit-cofounder-alexis-ohanian...
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1p4i9z/bought_my_bo...
Are you not seeing the full schedule? http://withouttheirpermission.com/tour-dates
It's not really a blog as such but more a collection of press/news about portfolio companies.
And sorry to break it to you, but.... https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=605366512831984&set=...
(Waterloo)
Annddd, you took it the wrong way. Much love for Waterloo, I meant I'm glad you aren't _only_ stopping at Waterloo for Canada :)