NSX2

Well, he was a student, one of quite a few, working on the base code of what became Netscape Navigator. One weekend when nobody was around he decided he wanted more out of the project than research credit, so he let himself into the research lab when nobody was around, copied everyone else's code and took off to get VC funding. Later he would dismiss the whole thing in typicall dirtbag fashion, ie, "Well, you know, it's hard to recall who wrote what code, and what counts was I got it out to market first, etc." So basically he stole somebody else's work, took credit for it, and then hid behind the legitimacy that financial success brings in this country.

People are secretive so they can avoid the likes of a Marc Andreeson or a Mark Zuckerburg. As you can plainly see, despite all the talk of "honor" and "our reputation is the basis for our business" and not dealing with companies that are being sued under suspicious circumstances, etc., even "top-tier" VC firms will put their stated ethics aside and jump into bed with the money makers, regardless of how they came to be that way. Who the heck wants to go around for the rest of their life wondering "what could have been" if they kept their mouths shut. And here's a little clue - just because VCs tell you they think you're a noob for using NDAs, doesn't mean they respect you for mindlessly taking their advice. Learn to think for yourself. What would you rather invest in, as a VC - a guy who's taken measures to ensure that everyone who knows about the idea is either part of it or prevented from copying it, or a guy who spoke about the idea with 100 programmers who may very well be trying to secretly implement it behind his back even though they pretended not to be intested? It's called control, and when you're starting up, it's one of the few things that are actually "in your control".

Well, it was a combination of supposedly shared values and reputation by people who I've come to learn are easily manipulated by what other people think about a person and the internet blog-sphere more than any actual first-hand knowledge. Everybody I asked about thought the world about him but when I ask now about firsthand actual experience, nobody in particular actually worked with him on anything. Everybody just "respects" his "rep" although for the life of me I can't figure out what that respect is based on other than a prima donna attitude and not much else.

That's weird. I could have sworn that people other than myself knew about Google ...

Nope, sorry. Multi-tierred share classes in this country goes back to Standard Oil. Overall you can find variations of this going all the way back the the East India Tea Company. Every modern business genius is just rehashing some crap somebody thought up long ago. Stop reading Fast Company.

Well, lazy founder would be me ... I mean the "other founder guy" ... and actually I just tried that and got back just ... 5 pages x 20 results per page, half of them (later pages) mostly irrelevant. So I guess it's just me. Everyone else has super hard working partners who haul rear end, only I make bad partnering choices. Either that or I've found a flaw in Google. If it's just me, why are there so many lawsuits with founders suing each other? I can't imagine they go to court saying, "Darn it, your honor, my partner promosid to work hard - and he wound up working too hard!"

I'll try to paraphrase the best definition I've come across from, of all places, a Harvard b-school prof.: "An enetrepreneur is someone who pursues (as opposed to talks about or plans) a perceived strategic opportunity (perception being the entrepreneurial advantage) regardless of tactical ability (money, position, credibility, skill set, connections, resume, background, etc.).

A bias for action, superior "a priori" perception of potential payoffs, and a high tolerance for bluffing and "faking it till you make it."

I have found no better practical explanation that covers the whole spectrum.

If you're stupid enough to seek the approval and affection of a bunch of lawyers and mega-corp. Office-Space type VPs of whatever, you don't have the confidence it takes to start your own company in general, let alone to do so and persever in this economic climate. With all the time and energy you'd waste in this process you'd probably be able to find ways to do imprtant stuff for free.

This is the funniest thing I've read on this site ... ever.

Okay, maybe I took it too far. But if you think about it I do have a point to an extent. Perhaps I took it too far but I can't help but notice during the last year or so that I've been monitoring this thing and posting once in a while that there is definately a strong undercurrent of "look at this stupid guy and his stupid idea" here among more than a few people.

Or when a "non-hacker" is looking for someone to help out or a hacker who doesn't know a particular technical aspect looks for help, the lashing is severe. There's a difference between constructive criticism, designed to challenge but inspire the recipient, and just being a jerk who gets off trying to look the bigshot by making others feel like losers for sharing private aspects of their personal entrepreneurial struggles.

We all have more in common than differences; for example we're all surrounded by cubicle drones in this life who secretly rejoice at the prospect of us failing miserably because they're too scared to try going out on their own to do their things ... shouldn't we generally be supporting each other and keeping our morales up as much as possible?

If you don't like someone's idea and genuinely think it should be improved, say so. But what good does it do anyone to tell them, "wow your idea sucks ... it's the stupidest idea of all stupid ideas ever!"

Not really; in both cases you have people who don't know what they're talking about giving unsolicited advice the value of which nobody knows a priori ...

>> he made a bunch of money playing poker

Well! I take back what I said. Obviously "making a bunch of money playing poker" qualifies one as an expert in rapidly assigning probabilities of success to ventures undertaken in an increasingly complex world where the law of unintended consequences seems to be trumping everything else.

>> and his current startup has obvious money making potential

And is worth $0. Contrasted with, say, Google ... which until year 3 had no clue as to what their business model would be and therefore had, using your logic, no "obvious money making potential" ... but is now worth ... like, a lot - or so I hear.

If ideas are a dime a dozen then "potential" must be the stuff they use for shipping filler to make sure the ideas don't get damaged during transport.

In other words, he is no more proven than the people whose startups he belittles ...

Methinks you protest too much ...

Are you a management consultant? Because at least those guys figured out how to get paid for their inconsequential opinions on how OTHER people should run THEIR businesses ... remind us all again what makes you the definative expert on OTHER people's prospects for success?

That's your problem, Ryan - you're politely asking for feedback from bitter, jealous members of an elitist mutual-admiration society whose total collective output to date equals ... well, all I'm saying is you should know better! Go ahead, pg! Delete my account! Come on! Give me a negative karma rating!

Exactly ... I know I'm going to lose all 9 of my karma points for this, but: Michael Dell is successful in business and throughout 98, 99, and 2000 maintained that Steve Jobs should just "give up" and "stop deluding shareholders". Good thing Steve Jobs is in the habit of listening to unsolicited advice. So now that the whole world knows that even the opinions of rich, successful people can be totally off and worthless, what makes you naysayers think anybody cares what you think about their startup prospects? For all you know this guy's invented an algorithm to download terabits of video in seconds and is using this "social alarm" thing as a ruse ...

Danny, I'm Romanianian too; click on my profile and shoot me an email if you want to talk more. I understand your point exactly; I have 2 family members who are programmers there in Bucharest and when I called them up half a year ago to join me in my startup efforts, their first response was "You want to do WHAT??!?" Hang in there, send me an email -- emailadrian "at" inbox "dotcom". Things are changing especially since EU integration this year. Don't forget that Romanian programmers put UbiSoft on the Map. Look at that as an example, it's not much, but it's something. A company started by french farmers to make video games programmed first and foremost by Romanian programmers. If it can work 15 years ago, much more can be done now.

Depends.

ONE THE ONE HAND, in my experience drama seems to go hand in hand with lack of strong leadership and ability to light a fire under people's rear ends by painting an inspiring "end result of our hard work" mural. It's like that show on National Geographic Channel, "The Dog Whisperer." Strong presence and ability to focus the group, no problems. Lack of strong presence and ability to manage group focus ... dog pack gets nervous and soon all anxiety gets released by individuals blowing up at each other for the most ridiculous slights, real or (in most cases) perceived. Same thing in monkeys.

I'm not saying people are dogs or monkeys but we are mammals and that aspect of individual/group dynamic behavior seems to have been ingrained in our genetics as a result of who knows how many years.

Strong leaders with big visions and the ability to communicate clear plans to people so well that people think it was their own idea can crush petty squabling instantly; I've seen it too many times to not believe it's a repeatable skill and obviously one of value (who knows where that startup you mention might have went if the participants learned to grow up and work together?).

"Personality conflicts are not something you can work around by force of will."

I think it depends on the individual maturity and the power of the idea and the money at hand to figure out if you can work around pesonality conflicts at will.

Don't tell me if you didn't get along with someone but I came and told you, "If you guys can shutup and work together and finish this feature by the end of the week, Google will buy us for $10,000,000,000" that you wouldn't immediately shutup and make friends and get to work.

Of course you would - so it's a question of mental attitude, not operational impossibility.

What's more important, your ego or the company. I'd hope ALL founders would say, "The company, because if the company takes off I benefit more than being right and makign the company flop."

Honestly I'd rather work hard with someone I couldn't stand personality wise and score and then spend the rest of my life upgrading my "WhySo-And-So-Is-Stupid" blog than arguing and cancelling the startup.

Anything else is amateurish and childish. I mean if your coworker fed kittens to Rottweilers or something horrible like that, well that's one thing. But unless it was something like that,please. Grow up. There are millions of smart programmers all over the world who'd cut a leg off for an opportunity to work in a possibly very successful startup where the biggest issue is "I don't like the guy sitting on the other side of the room."

As for your assertion that "If you don't like the people you're workign with, you're not going to be doing your best work."

I disagree. Maybe YOU're not going to be doing your best work but I've been in a startup situation where I loved eveyrbody and I met some unbelievably talented technical guy who wanted me to jump ship and join him instead. He was a certified genius but possibly one of the rudest pricks you can imagine. Every day long after I stopped communicating with him, for like 3 months, he would send me long emails along the lines of, "Let me tell you why you're messing up and what you're doing wrong and what opportunities you're missing and how you can improve this and you should stop that because that feature is stupid." and so on.

Funny how easy it is to confuse "I like my cofounders and they like me" with "we're making incredible progress ridiculously fast."

At first I thought it was a no-brainer to pass on working with genius guy because he was such a jerk I thought it would be impossible to come to work with him every day, even if he personally wanted to invest the first million out of his first pocket.

"No thanks, I have VC interest, I have a team that I get along with, stop emailing me please."

As I've grown older I've come to realize that that guy was like the character "Mickey" in Rocky: He's nasty, he's mean, he's rude, he's abrasive, he makes you hate to go to the gym and get in shape for the big fight. But a few months with him will leave you much better off than hanging out with people who like you so much that it's all easy breezy.

You might disagree, but I personally respond best to jerks ticking me off and tend to relax and get a false sense of security when I spend too much time with yes-people who I get along with really well.

In ANY creative process there has to be a balance between "flow" and "tension" ... too much tension and the venture cracks ... too much flow and not enough tension and soon you're drifting off in many directions and not getting anything done.

I don't know if startup situations tend to attract manic-depressive types or if they make normal people tend to act manic depressive, but I'm sure I don't have to tell you that many startups have manic-depressive atmospheres.

One day you're going to sneak up like a ninja, crush everyone before they wake up and run off with all the loot while you're playing Queen's "We are the Champion" or House of Pain's "Who's the Man?" in your head.

Next day, you realize you've made a HUGE mistake in quitting your job and you suddenly come to the stark conclusion that you're all doomed, completely DOOMED and what were you thinking?

Then there's a breakthrough and you renounce your humility and realize you're "this close" to taking over the world again. Then tomorrow you're at the pit of despair again. Day after that you're making plans to dynamite your URL on the moon's surface. And so on.

Until that twilight period gets stabilized, which may take weeks or months or close to a year or in some case more than a year, you'd be surprised how useful hostility and anger and resentment can become if you can direct that properly. Sometimes it's all you have when things are bleakest and you need something to keep the fire going.

So to synthesise our arguments, you need people to get along well ... but never too well. All creative acts attract "artist types" and artist types thrive when they have a "I'll show you, I'll show you all!" attitude, not when it's like, "Hey, massage my feet? Sure!"

Need breakfast fuel gotta go.

Just my 2c.

Hey antimattar; might I enquire as to your professional identity, if not personal than firm? I just assume when you say, "if you were my client" ...

With all due respect, WTF?!? You maintain that people are the foundation. Seems like in this case the people were not up to it. Either the "idea guys" had an idea which was not compelling enough to motivate the programmers to overcome their personal conflicts, or the "programmer guys" were acting like a bunch of immature, childish, egotistical amateurs and let their personal opinions and the emotional sparks inherent in any high-pressure environment cloud their professional judgement.

Honestly even if your name was David Heinemeier Hansson and you were in my startup and I found you sitting on your rear end and doing nothing because you had a personal conflict with somebody in the company ... well maybe if you were David I'd toss the other guy out. But anything short of that I'd have to have a serious pow-wow with both sides and lay the smack-down; too much money at stake these days and too much much-needed world changing to let shyness and immaturity get in the way.

So it seems like the idea was not THAT great, or the programmers not too mature, or the leadership completely lacking the ability to establish a vision strong enough and roadmap clear enough to get people to redirect their focus from the obstacles to the opportunity at hand.

So idea guys, programmers, lack of leadership - clearly all "people problems" .... how then do you make the leap in logic that the general idea itself was "stupid even to try."

That's like saying, "Should architects get together with masons to figure out how to build houses more efficiently? Well, we tried that once and the foreman and the architect got into an arguement, so it was stupid even to try."

No, it wasn't stupid to try. The outcome was stupid and that was because the trial components were stupid. Doesn't mean the experiment design was stupid.

On the other hand, what is the implication of your argument, that only programmers can have ideas worth executing and that the rest of the world just sits on its collective rear end and wait until some programmer somewhere thinks up solutions to all the world's ills?

I think not.

High-value transactions? Major transactions? Significant transactions? Important transactions?

Thanks for the reply; I guess I took it for granted in this day and age that of course equity would be considered. But I imagine that all startups offer equity so I really wanted to get to the jist of what would get "geeks" or "coders" as you say past the tipping point. In other words, what are the top 3 things that would make a good "coder" say, "You know what? I'm going to start some specs ... as soon ... as I ... get home ... TODAY!"

The idea? The person? The impact on the world? Free Sour Skittles?

Any sufficiently advanced critique is indistinguishable from the random mumblings of someone who not only can't figure out how to occupy their time with more interesting, useful pursuits but fails to realize that you can't establish any serious personal credibility by trying to wreck the credibility of others.

And of course your pithy, Phil Greenspun-esque comment only adds fuel to my ever-growing flame. :P

Hi! I just finished reading this short, sweet, easy-to-read book called "One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way" by Robert Maurer. It's a psychologist's attempt to figure out why "Kaizen"-based (micro-plans, small steps, continuous action) approaches to project management seem to consistently succeed where other, much more sophisticated approaches never take off.

Executive summary: Kaizen works because people actually take to it and implement it. They do so because making teeny weeny plans sparks the higher order creative parts of the brain necessary to get things done, whereas big, complicated, sophisticated long-term plans cause stress, which in turn stimulates parts of the brain which were wired to shut off the higher orders of the brain so we can focus on running away from hungry predators ("fight or flight"). This in turn leads to "brain freeze" as different and competing sections of your brain literally start fighting with each other for brain resources (sugar, magnesium, etc.) which leads to procrastination which leads to the big, complicated plans never being put into action.

Solution? Make ridiculously small plans to overcome procrastination and bypass your brain's built-in resistance to doing things people need to do to succeed in the modern age.

Example: Next time you feel flustered, just make it your goal to sit down and write 3 lines of code, then go have fun with your Xbox. Easy, right? Too easy, perhaps. Then you think to yourself, "Well, that wasn't so bad. I guess I can write a lot more than just 3 lines ... maybe I can do half an hour's worth of coding." Next thing you know, the sun will be coming up and you'll wonder how you spent the whole night working without even noticing. Sounds too good to be true, sounds silly even, yet this guy's figured out exactly how the brain's wiring gets in the way of modern work and how to bypass it.

Another gem: the manual egg timer. Thing with turn dial. Set to 5-10 minute bursts of intense activity, as in "I'm going to bust my ass clearing my email inbox for just 5 mintues" ... funny how easy it is to keep going way after the first 5 minutes once you actually get the process started.

It's about $12 hardcover. 180 or so small pages with big, big print and plenty of space in between. Fun to read and full of insights as to why you fail when you try too hard to succeed but wind up succeeding when you focus on just enjoying yourself (trying hard makes the brain think you're going to war, shuts of the frontal lobes and gets adrenaline flowing, which in turn sucks magnesium out of your thinking activities and into your body's central nervous system as it prepares for intense physical effort ... which is why you can find yourself "exhausted" after a "hard day's work" when practically nothing of any significance was accomplished.)

ANYWHOOOO ... if you found the above interesting enough to read the book and the book inspiring enough to apply the simple advice and the advice effective enough to improve your coding sessions, I ASK YOU CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING AS EQUAL EXCHANGE:

I am in New York City area. I want to do a startup like the rest of you. I am not a "haxor" ... but my background is in its own way completely relevant to what I want to do. Technically the idea is more of a "different use of mostly already existing technology/platforms" not a "radically new technology" thing, and from my research most of the stuff / functions can be found in open-source applications.

Nonetheless I need some techies. Connections would be appreciated. Or insights into your minds: HOW DO YOU FOLKS LIKE TO BE APPROACHED? WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU IN A STARTUP? Hours? Freedom? Dress code? Impact on the world at large and the resulting improvement in quality of life for humanity? Adrenaline rush of doing something clever and sneaky that will take people by surprise? A philosophical cause? Doing the right thing? Making the world a better place? A solid business model? Endless supply of Red Bull? Xbox 360s in the break room? Bean-bag chairs? Free beer for late night programming sessions?

Seriously, I have read past posts where people without programming backgrounds post "looking for programmers" type of posts that seem to get at best ignored or at worst trashed; how can I bypass this seemingly built-in reluctance of programmers to work with people unlike yourselves technically, but like yourselves in other ways and with different skill sets that would complement your own for a more balanced whole? If you click my profile there's an email if you wish to contact me directly.

Thanks in advance!