Kevin Rose Moves on from Silicon Valley to Watches
bits.blogs.nytimes.com
bits.blogs.nytimes.com
But it's easy for me to judge up here on my mighty throne. He's doing what he wants to do, making money doing it, and overall seems to be doing well. I could learn a thing or two.
If one takes off and becomes famous enough that people can discuss it by name, your name suddenly carries a lot more weight, but you're still just a normal guy (or girl) trying to build/do cool stuff that people like.
He always came off more as a personality
To his credit he did start as a TV personality... ;-)
Ah, I wish Pownce had taken off as well ! The idea and the execution was really cool and it had features that WhatApp and the likes are still missing (agenda, file sharing on the top of my mind).
I don't know why it didn't take off. Adobe Air ?
SimpleGeo, Facebook, Gowalla, Formspring, Yobongo, BufferBox, LE TOTE, Cluster, Wealthfront, Foodzie, The Social+Capital Partnership, Buttercoin, AngelList, Greylock Partners, SV Angel, FOBO, Clever, Fab.com, Tasty Labs, Cozy, Dailybooth, Foursquare, Digg, Nextdoor, Treehouse, 19 more...
I have no inside knowledge on this but I'd assume Digg is where he got the funds to make all these investments.
Jesus. He's a Silicon Valley personality, not a god. He was able to be at the right place at the right time. Anyone in that situation would have made the same exact investments. There was no magic to what he did.
I don't particularly like the values of Silicon Valley nor the, although less importantly and to some extent perceived, values of Kevin Rose. But I even more dislike how those values seem to change arbitrarily. In my book experience counts. I think he, or really his career, is a way better role model for entrepreneurs than today's ivy league graduated, accelerator backed, acqui-hired one.
By far the deciding factor in doing things you like seem to be if you at one point had or took the opportunity to get out of your comfort zone enough to acquire the skills necessary for it. I think those kind of skills are worthwhile to value. Even if it's only simple versions of them like organizing an event, talking on camera or writing contracts.
It's a nice counterbalance to the obligatory "we must be changing the world" emptiness that is so often spouted. Some people just want to work on cool projects with people they like. That's OK.
Should be sufficient.
He moved to Google after his startup Oink/Milk crashed and burned, of course.
In the show "Silicon Valley" they even made a joke about how Rose had to fail at a bunch of stuff before he could "succeed" with Digg, and then subsequently failed at a bunch of other stuff afterward as well.
A bunch of people, including me, just kept commenting "Roll back!!!" But for some reason that's beyond my understanding, they said they could not rollback the upgrade. And that was the end.
That said, I actually still use Digg in its current form today because I find it very useful. I just wish it had the on-site comments, but I understand the moderation nightmare task they'd be taking on if they enabled comments like the old Digg.
Anything that's driven by users rather than vetted and sanitised by trusted writers/editors, will scare lucrative brand based advertisers. Just look at Google Adsense's content rules to see how much advertising shapes the web's content.
I think that's what happened with Digg. I speculate that something similar is happening with Reddit but at a much slower rate - like closing undesirable sub-reddits etc.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/12/digg-sold-to-linkedin-and-t...
They reminded me a lot of people I know who are really passionate about computer hardware. They knew everything about certain brands and their lines, their inner workings, how to fix them, how to get really obscure parts for the them, everything. And they wanted to share their information and talk to other knowledgeable people as well.
It's a pretty vibrant and interesting community. I'm not surprised he chose to get involved in the industry.
You're right about the passion relating to that of computer hardware. The first thing that really intrigued me about watches is the amount of craftsman ship and engineering that goes into making a complicated mechanical watch. As a software engineer, I find similarities in the watch engineering world - so I believe thats why it pulled me in so easily. It truly is an amazing example of human engineering at its best.
It perfectly personifies the idiocy of SV VCs. The kid comes out in a hoodie with the typical college startup story: "changing the world from our dorm room". He has an app called Scan, a barcode scanner, that makes virtually no money and has already garnered almost $10 million in funding. When the Sharks are skeptical, he lays down the most stereotypical tech kid answer ever: "I have some interviews with investors that look at numbers to make a decision and they miss the boat, and then I have investors who look at me to make the decision." This is supposed to sound noble but it just reveals that SV is so full of idiots afraid that they're going to miss the next Facebook that anyone who comes to them and looks like an apathetic college kid and talks about dorm rooms can get $10 million on completely silly business concepts.
The same applies to Rose. The numbers don't matter, it's about having the visage of a trendy tech whiz. This is apparently enough to convince SV investors to part with tens of millions of dollars. I don't know why I'm not out there trying to cash in on that.
In a serious tone, thanks for letting me know. I didn't know what had happened to them.
I certainly admire his seeming willingness/fearlessness to jump into new things. I imagine if I had that same willingness/fearlessness, I'd be more successful.
I've always respected that.
It makes me sad because he's shown time and time again that he's full of good ideas, but he got sucked in to an "expensive niché market". Lusting over watches isn't really a problem that needs solving.
it is a problem to those involved in the collecting, selling, and trading, of watches. the issue here is that you may not see it as worthwhile market but there those who do and considering the sums involve niche markets like this could very well be profitable.
the surest way to not succeed is to close doors before you go through them. there are many areas where small markets exist that are just waiting to be served. establish a model that works at this size and expand outward. everyone's first hit cannot be facebook sized and some never will have such a hit but you can create success and personal satisfaction if you set goals and reach them, just don't set goals where your comparing yourself to others achievements.
Smart watches will help with health, safety, communication, logistics, etc. Old mechanical watches were innovative feats of craftsmanship and engineering of their time. We should carry on that tradition instead of staying in the past.
Does sessions = how many times the app has been opened?
A. I Googled “wristwatch” in about 25 different languages and picked the goofiest. Hodinkee is derived from a Czech word, “hodinky,” which means wristwatch. It’s a silly name, but it works because we’re talking about incredibly expensive things that could be perceived as highly pretentious. It really cuts us down to size and says, “It’s just watches.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/fashion/hodinkee-watch-che...