bksenior

The other side of the coin are comments like this. "Finally, a new narrative!" This is just as lame as those that canonize him outside of his direct accomplishments. Steve Jobs had two MAJOR successes (Pixar and Apple). He was highly competitive and did aggressively oppressive things and had moments of integrity. I just wish everyone would stop trying to color his biography like they had to write a movie synopsis of his life in a a sentence.

Id argue that is the real lesson here. Be OK with being inconsistent relative to circumstance, if you believe that all great men held firm to their "codes" then you will fail in your emulation of greatness.

TL;DR Life's messy, people can't be summed up in a characteristic , Steve Jobs was a dick and a hero.

Meh. It sucks that businesses like 500px have to be a marter in a bottle necked distribution environment. Its amazing enough that they built a beautiful product that people want to use, found a way to get adoption and have cultivated such a passionate users base. Now they have to go solve a tangential business that wasn't part of their vision or expertise.

Its actually quite simple. We need a massive dose of social proofing amongst those that have already attained the peak of accomplishment as seen in the current system to change their behavior. We are no different now than when we were 6 watching our parents. You emulate those you think live right, and the people that live right in the eyes of those under the spell of the implications of the article look to fame, money and power. If those that wied those act a certain way, those new ways become the pinnacle. This solution is the only non forceful way.

He gets a bad wrap, but as far as a role model for continued commitment to self betterment and helping other within a positon of power he has done an incredible job.

Perpetuity is a funny word when it comes to the law. In hindsight site it always seems to be a synonym for convenient.

This make a wildly naive assumption that paying for a product somehow makes it less likely that they will monetize your likeness. The truth is large companies with any swath of investors are expected to grow, thats how money is made. This means that there will need to be constant new revenue streams added on.

TLDR: Paying for any app just delays the inevitable monetization of content as the company is forced to expand and create more revenue.

This is the journalism equivalent of the problem he is espousing. An article about nothing, a writer with a self-entitled attitude shamelessly riding something topical. No thanks.

I will add that starting anything is difficult and companies like a food delivery service for dogs can easily pivot into an efficient way to get senior citizens their medication, cheaper faster and more efficiently. Many things start small, uninformed and experimentally.

It was done by Chiat\Day or as they are known on Campus "Media Arts Labs"

Eh, not to be negative but their hardest work is still ahead. This reminds me an awful lot of Quora early days. Hyper growth because they tapped into a chatty community with both passion and technical knowledge. They even got some fringe no-tech questions answered (both Quora and RG) in spaces that were universally debated and ubiquitous.

Unfortunately when they (Quora) started to try to scale new verticals the growth rate was significantly reduced and panic set in on both the leadership front as well as the investment front. The act of debating is what drives annotation, not the act of annotating itself.

I'm not saying that the can't do it, in-fact they seem like some ballin' ass hustlers, but they have in fact not yet solidified a product to market fit that can scale universally.

Could this be more of a non-story?

I don't understand this request. Doesn't this lead to every organization having a case for pulling down any video they deem to be in violation of bad taste.

The white house has a beautiful 250 year old document they can get behind that makes the issue black and white (free speech) and absolves them of looking like they played favorites to either side. How is this publicly sterilizing solution the best option?

Eh, that assumes work volume directly correlates to getting closer to product to market fit. There is plenty of research within the study of behavioral economics at that shows when people get to close to their products they tend to become blind to much easier solutions. Taking time off in a very early stage company especially after a less than successful launch can be equally efficient.

I too have spent my non-self employed days of work in the ad game and couldn't agree more. The concept of always"adding value" that has become so parroted in the good circles of the start-up space are relatively ignored in the ad space.

In the old days just creating something "cool" was considered enough value add because the information volume allowed for time for people to focus and decide how that "cool" gave them value. No Mas! If in a few seconds the viewer/user can't own, share, brag, stop and think about or act on what you create, than it is a waste of time.

It was alluded to in the comments, but how is this worse than steak knives, time locking doors, things with exposed wires or any other dangerous objects?

Substance is as subjective as style. A list of equations or prescriptive "how-to"s can have an equally minimal affect on the reader as a rapid-fire anecdotal book of stories. The passage of time can change a book of great substance into a "use leaches to cure leukemia" piece of content.

The point is that this whole argument of intrinsic value is not nearly as black and white as the talking heads have made it seem. Gladwell's structure of storytelling is merely different and may not be for you.

Side Note, it is fallacy to confuse a man who has been accused of being "beholden to corporate sponsors" as one who has not put out any valuable work.

Meeting new people online is not a large problem, people aren't clamoring to do it. So a solution isn't particularly appealing to the masses, no matter how pretty or how many billionaires are behind it.

There is a great scene in Curb Your Enthusiasm where someone spills wine at the table and the lady yells "Somebody Do Something!" and Larry says "Why the f*$k don'you do something," I never understood these clever articles explaining why smart people are selfish. Most people writing these articles are more than capable and often (in Kara's case) rich with access to attention of the masses.

There are plenty of people with big ideas, feature them, befriend them, help them get money. If you think something is important build it or help they people building it leverage it. The solution is never to make the people doing things you don't consider big feel small themselves.

YC views the idea as proof of experimentation and in turn a bias for doing and not only thinking. It would be like NFL scouts watching tape of prospects doing home improvements around campus instead of placing football to decide what they physical school sets were. The idea is a lense in which to judge talents they consider statistically more likely to produce a successful entrepreneur.

The other good point already made was that YCs investment best leveraged if you ready almost right away. No matter how you smart you are, identifying a problem, creating a solution and assembling a team takes time, valuable time. In most cases this process would put you a bit further out from some of the expertise that YC has to offer.

This seems a bit naive. One needs to continually generate resources to continue to be able to finically stomach bets on risky ventures (startups). It wold be the equivalent of a farmer giving away all his crops and not having money to fix the engine on his thresher the following harvest.

Dependent on the details this should be applauded. Although I think it would be much more interesting if they took part of their money and created grants for companies doing good in the world that would have trouble sustaining profitability.

The other piece to that is in most cases these events are the only time some groups of friends or strong acquaintances have the opportunity to hang out and bond face to face. confer. I would argue that is human nature to want to celebrate with friends who you only see on rare occasion and drinking tends to be the most easily and socially acceptable way of doing so. In many cases it is at these events that many times acquaintances become stronger relationships through just hanging out as people post conference.

Andre the Giant was fascinating. Athletic, intellectual and self-aware of how he was perceived. I highly suggest watching this 40 minute biography to truly understand how ridiculous his life was.

Andre The Giant "Larger Than Life": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxck08l_aFc

Can an architect patent design features when building a house?

It is incredibly important not only because of the sexism angle, but it opens up a pretty clear case of the appropriateness of handling customer complaints in a public forum.

Flagging something do to a perceived "possible flamewar" is no better than lame use of fallacies to discount such a commonplace and pregnant problem.

Agreed that success is not guaranteed. The other two factors are context and success expectation. You can't win NBA MVP and expect to successfully go and sell cookware (unless you are known for being a cook outside of the league) it is not what people trust you for. You also need to look at the size of the audience of your accepted expertise. Tony Robbins is known, but apparently not enough to float a primetime television show.

This is the model of new media for any type of artist.

Create enough value that you establish yourself as an expert in whatever your art is and then exploit secondary pursuits. I constantly refer back to Diddy getting famous with music, but also establishing himself as a partying/lifestyle expert and then making a killing on Ciroc. 50 cent did it with vitamin water and fitness, Athletes do it with endorsements.

It is the Tony Robbins model. His books didn't make him rich but they allowed him to charge 500k a speaking gig.

Your initial art is your marketing that develops your right to charge money for future art.

Shipping ideas is hard and is a multi phased process in which technical building is only a small portion. Finding an audience, not f'ing up your product once adopted, growing your team and letting the experts do their job without hopping in to meddle is just as difficult to do. I am not the biggest fan of how Oink was handled, but this guy clearly creates and understands leverage and in 9/10 cases that is more valuable than the perfect technical product.