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.