=====
Everything has become excessively complicated and confused, which is exactly the condition computers were supposed to remedy. I can shamelessly say that Semco was swept along on the electronic tide, going from the Stone Age to the Space Age in just a few years. But the more I learned about microchip management, the more I came to fear it.

I once visited a small unit of our three days before the end of the month.

"What do you think this month's billings will be?" I innocently asked the resident computer wonk.

"We already know. We have the number here in the terminal."

"How can you? There are still three days left in the month."

"Oh, no. We stop billing four working days before the end of the month."

I was shocked. It meant inventory was tied up longer than it had to be, increasing interest costs, and orders would sit for days before leaving the plant, increasing customer frustration. Just picture Federal Express stopping for a few days each month to feed paperwork to its computers.

"Well, we have to fill out the basic invoice, send it to the head office, wait for batch processing on the central computer…"

"Wait," I interrupted, "why can't you just issue the invoices on your own terminal?"

"Because then they wouldn't be automatically recorded in the accounts receivable program, which cross-references all the invoices."

"I see," I said, although I didn't. "Go on."

"The lot is batch processed after all invoices from all our units are gathered - we run them in numerical order, for tax purposes - and then our invoices are returned to us. And then we can ship the products."

"How did you do all this in the past?"

"Oh, that was very primitive. We would wait until the last minute, then type out the invoice. Sometimes we would be here in the middle of the night, getting invoicing out of the way, to make the month's sales larger."

"How many invoices did you issue then?"

"About 150."

"And now?"

"About 120."

Two days later the unit was off the computer and back on the primitive manual system. And soon invoicing rose 15 percent, as employees got back to making last-minute shipments in all-out efforts to move finished products out the door. And within a month all the other computer terminals at our business units had been returned to headquarters, and our mainframe there was disconnected.

This much seemed clear: either you can adopt sophisticated, complex systems to try to manage the complications, or you can simplify everything. [emphasis mine]

Finally, we chose the other path.

=====

This reminds me of when I was at the University of Maryland. Near the end of my time there, the higher-ups were convinced that they needed to use an 'enterprise' software system to run the university and made a multi-million dollar purchase of a huge do-everything software system from PeopleSoft. The thing was, the university systems, while old, still worked fine and were fairly simple and already adapted to all the nuances of the university. After years of circular discussions, failed attempts, and additional millions spent, the 'new improved' system was still just a dream.

If they had just chosen simplicity and incremental development to update the existing system - as needed - and - piece by piece - I'm sure the outcome would have been much more pleasant for all involved (except, perhaps PeopleSoft, he he).

=====
Without rules all answers are suggested by common sense. No, I can't define what common sense is, but I know it when I hear it. Some of our people stay in four-star hotels and others, sometimes with much higher salaries, choose lesser digs. Some people spend $200 a day on meals; others get by on half as much. The point is if we can't trust a manager to use good judgment about such things, we sure as hell shouldn't be sending him off to do business in our name.

A company makes, sells, bills, and, God willing, collects. It doesn't need to know if the taxi ride being claimed by a manager was for business. Or if another manager couldn't have stayed in a hotel with three rather than four stars. With few exceptions, rules and regulations only serve to:

1. Divert attention from a company's objectives.
2. Provide a false sense of security for executives.
3. Create work for bean counters.
4. Teach men to stone dinosaurs and start fires with sticks.

The desire for rules and the need for innovation are, I believe, incompatible. (Remember, Order or Progress.) Rules freeze companies inside a glacier; innovation lets them ride sleighs over it.
=====

While this may seem counter-intuitive to some, I've often seen this principle in action. For example, when I was working for a startup that was acquired by a multi-billion dollar software company everything seemed to slow down by a factor of about 10X after the acquisition. All of the sudden there were all these rules that needed to be followed - many of them rather pointless. At the startup, we always had free drinks available. The acquiring company decided that we now needed to pay for the drinks - a quarter each. So programmers that were making about $50 an hour were now asked to go find quarters throughout the day for drinks. That means, a programmer making almost $1 per minute was spending several minutes every day worrying about quarters for drinks. I would estimate about $10 lost per day per programmer just to make some bean counter at headquarters feel good about 'saving' money. That is just one of many examples where the company decided on Order over Progress.

Be careful whenever you have the idea of creating a 'money saving' rule, because if you don't think through the non-obvious costs, you could lose a lot more than what it seems you're saving! Semco and Google are great examples of focusing on the real business priorities.

Cause 1: The belief that effort and result are directly proportional.
Cause 2: The gospel that the quantity of work is more important than the quality of work.
Cause 3: "Things are a little uncertain at the office right now. I'll just have to work a little longer until they straighten out."
Cause 4: Fear of delegation, and its cousin, fear of replaceability.

This was a fascinating read and made me think more about my motivations and my career. I find that I have hardly any motivation at all to work on a project that is solely a money-making adventure. For me to be passionate about what I'm doing there MUST be significant meaning in the pursuit. Usually it's enough that I'm solving a significant pain-point for a large group of users, but there must be more to drive my passion to its highest level. What really drives me is delivering the equity in opportunity (in concrete and definable terms) to those who really need it. That doesn't mean necessarily that my project has to *directly* and *immediately* contribute to generating profound humanitarian blessings. If what I'm doing can create the wealth to ultimately deliver those blessings, that will also drive my passion on a project. So what might look like a purely money-making venture, really is a means to an end.

The main problem with this is that I must work in a level of abstraction. I must be working with the goal to create wealth that will later be used for a greater good. That middle step of wealth creation can be a distraction from the end goal. I don't care in the least for wealth or power just for its own sake. It must be connected to a higher cause in order for me to care. My most demotivating experiences ever have been when I was working for someone who only cared about the personal wealth and gains from the venture. Seriously, how boring is that? However, the times that I've worked on a team where we were passionately solving a problem and helping others in a defined measurable way were the most glorious and high-inducing times of my career.–

Marc's post is the first thing I've read that really clearly explains the 'why' behind the current venture capital market. He illustrates what's happening in the context of history. Very enlightening.

Also check out Marc's other articles on venture capital:

The truth about venture capitalists, Part 1
The truth about venture capitalists, Part 2

This is an interesting lesson for me on detractors. Last night when I went to bed I had about 780 karma and this morning I had about 730. Puzzled, I looked at my comments and noticed that some poor soul (obviously in need of a hug) had gone through and down-modded loads of my comments. Apparently they attempted some sort of random pattern so as not to be suspicious and they only got as far back as 22 days before their clicker-finger got tired and they gave up.

This experience reminds me of the detractor posts aimed at various early stage startups that I've seen popping up lately. I don't understand the mentality behind it, but it obviously exists. The worst offenders launch their attacks anonymously - probably from a hidden subterranean lair (read: Mom's basement). Fortunately, the startup community is full of great examples to follow that seem immune to detractors and even appreciative of them (Matt Mullenweg touched on this at SXSW).

My questions are:
How would you handle this on your own site?
Would you put in algorithmic controls to deter anonymous detractors?
Or would you go for a more community-correcting approach?

___ Update ___

Paul Graham left this response in the comments:

I found out who did this and zeroed their karma, which will take away their down arrow. Will add protections against this. Also fixed your karma.

___ Update ___

Note: To avoid *any* misunderstanding - please know that I'm not personally invested in arbitrary karma point fluctuations on niche sites like YC.News ;) Experimenting with the karma concept is just useful as an example in understanding the interactions and perceived value in an online community.

So, I signed up for YC.News 31 days ago with the goal of increasing my team's chances of getting an interview for YCombinator's Summer Founders Program. Once we were turned down for an interview, I decided to keep contributing to YC.News since I found it so valuable as a community. It's been an interesting month, and last night I finally passed Daniel Ha as the #1 karma leader on the site. I don't expect that lead to last very long (Sam Odio is coming up fast), so I figured this would be a good time to write about my experience and what I've learned from my involvement.

Microcosm
YC.News is an interesting microcosm where contributors are rewarded with karma points by other users when their submission or comment is deemed valuable. In that sense, each karma-motivated contributor is like a startup trying to provide what people want. The market reward for pleasing users is money, while the YC.News reward is karma, contacts, and a little recognition.

Tactics
The obvious goal is to provide submissions and comments that are valuable to a large portion of the YC.News community.

The way to do this is also pretty obvious:

- Observe the articles that are most popular and submit similar stories
- Experiment by submitting stories that are of personal interest
- Add insightful detailed comments

When I would come across a good article on a blog that was new to me, I would add it to Google Reader. Those blogs added up pretty quickly. I also used Technorati's RSS feeds of custom searches to find interesting stories. "ycombinator", "y combinator", "startups", "entrepreneurship", etc are good terms to monitor. Pretty soon I never even had to leave my RSS reader to find good stories to submit.

Also helpful is to submit articles when the most users are using the site, otherwise your new submissions could get buried on the 'new' page before folks even get a chance to see them.

Trends
The stories I submitted earlier in the month seemed to have gotten more traction than the stories I've submitted over the last week or so. I'm not sure if that is because the community dynamic is changing, but that would be my guess since the quality of my submissions seems to have remained static. As the month has progressed, it has taken more and more submissions to find a story that would become popular (15+ karma).

I've also found that I relate less and less to some of the popular stories. For example, the #1 story as I write this is "MBAs Go Contrarian on Google" which is an article (if you can call it that) of one and a half sentences that to me is pretty dull. That article has a karma of 12 while some of the really interesting stories I submitted today like "Video: Seven Steps to Easy Rails Deployment on EC2" are decaying in the 'new' section with only a default karma of 1.

Sure, it would be easy to 'game' the system and bump articles to the front page where they would get more traction, but of course that would defile the experiment and also hammer my real-life karma ;)

Value
I have learned a great deal from many of the articles and comments on YC.News and I've tried to be generous in adding karma points to those submissions of greatest value to me personally.

A huge benefit is the many super-talented guys that I've gotten to know directly or indirectly through the site. When you're not in a university setting, being able to make good contacts like this is invaluable.

It's also been a good experience to learn first-hand what it is to be an active contributor in a social-user-contribution site. Before this, I didn't really understand how compelling and addictive it could be to be in a tight community of your peers online (I've never had a myspace/facebook/whatever account).

Drawbacks
Though I tried to only participate in YC.News on my breaks, I found myself getting sucked in to working on YC.News for much longer than I anticipated. I'd be in denial if I didn't admit that it slowed down my own development efforts - both in writing my own articles and in coding on my own project. I'm glad that I did the experiment, but it was more costly time-wise than I anticipated.

Conclusion
Great experience and though I plan to still participate in YC.News, this experiment is over and I'll turn my focus more exclusively to finishing my product and readying for launch. I hope that once I launch my own service (don't worry it's not a social networking site), there will be a strong interactive user base that I can be heavily involved in. I think that will be the most fun and the smugmug and scribd guys are an excellent example of that.

Update: I'm now an active Facebook user :)

Yesterday I drove over to Stanford to attend Paul Graham's talk on Handling Investors. As I pulled up to the Stanford Oval, I saw Paul and Trevor Blackwell walking to the event. Actually Trevor was riding a motorized unicycle that he had put together and which Paul described it as a one-wheeled segway. As we walked I asked how the application reviews went. They said that it was brutal and that there were about twice as many apps this time: 425.

When I did my app, I really liked the last question which was to tell about something 'surprising' or 'amusing' that you had discovered. So I asked if they had had many good answers to that one. Paul said that there were some really good ones, but that inexplicably many had left that question blank! Then he chuckled and said "Actually, there was a guy who submitted this wonderful algorithm for wiping his ass." I couldn't believe he remembered that - but I guess that would be hard not to remember and I told him "That was mine!" He answered "Really? That was really yours? Small world!" That was pretty funny. But, the saying is true, "A clean bum, is a happy bum" ;)

Anyway, we got to the auditorium and then I discovered that my battery was dying on my audio recorder. Total bummer - so I didn't get the podcast to share. Sorry guys :( But I did take pretty good notes and I'm sure Paul will be putting it out as a full essay at some point :) The following is taken from my notes and memory. These aren't direct quotes from his talk, but it's pretty close. Enjoy!

___ Update2 ___
PG has just released the official essay based on this talk at: http://paulgraham.com/guidetoinvestors.html
___ Update2 ___

___ Update ___
Comment from Paul on these notes: "This is fairly accurate as on-the-fly notes from a talk go, but certainly nothing like a transcription. There's a lot missing and a few things that have been misunderstood." Yep, that's why I prefer to podcast! Be sure to read Paul's real essay when it comes out :)
___ Update ___

There are two important principles at YCombinator:
The first most important thing is to build a great product that people want. The second is how to handle investors and is the focus of this talk. I've been dealing with investors for twelve years and have been on both sides of the investment table. It's a weird world and there are many surprising things about it. It's much different from the programming world.

Here's a list of 21 surprising things I've learned along the way.

1. Investors make silicon valley
I wrote an essay on what makes silicon valley what it is. Basically it comes down to two key elements: nerds and rich people. And it's more important to have the rich people, simply because the rich are less willing to move! If there is a group of great programmers in Cincinnati, the rich people are not going to move to be near them. It's always easier for the poor hackers to move to where the rich established people are.

To reproduce silicon valley, you need angels. Many are former founders. Shockley Semiconductors was the real seed of silicon valley. Urban legend tells the story of HP being the start of silicon valley, but this is only because nobody liked Shockley and they didn't want to give him credit. Shockley was a mad man, but he hired really smart people, who then left because of him and started their own successful companies that made the valley what it is today.

2. Of investors - angels are the most critical
Angels are very different from VC's. VC's are investing the aggregate funds of other people's money and they get paid whether the fund succeeds or not. Angels on the other hand are writing checks straight from their own bank account and thus much more 'invested' in the success of the startup. When there is investment, it is always the angels first since they will invest in riskier things. The way the media tells it, you would think that only VC's funded Google. However, Google was funded by angels and the VC's didn't come in till late in the game with Google at a 75 million valuation!

3. Angels don't like publicity
On the other hand VC's do. VC's have customers and have to market themselves to build their funds and attract talented founders.

Angels are private investors that do not have a staff and therefore do not want to be deluged with outside requests for their money.

Also, no deals are done by email. They're all done by introduction. Investors mostly see it as a sign of incompetence or laziness if you can't manage to get a real introduction. So email is basically a waste of time when it comes to seriously approaching investors.

4. Investors are not like founders
This is especially true for VC's. To hackers: What if someone said that you had to stay in an office all day making nothing and just looking at other people's proposals? You'd say their nuts! That's exactly what VC's do and why they are so different from good hackers. It's the same difference evident between novel writers and editors, artists and art critics. One set are the makers and the other set evaluates what the makers are making. It's true that you'll find some VC's with a technical background, and those VC's are the best, but they are still fundamentally different from hackers.

5. Most investors are momentum investors
VC's in general are pretty clueless, yet they make a lot of money. How do they do it? Well, it's possible to make lots of money even if you don't know anything. For example, in 'program trading' there is a simple algorithm which is basically:

when you see the stock start to go down quickly, then sell
when you see the stock start to go up quickly, then buy

That's how VC's operate - they basically just look at Alexa and buy what's hot.

This is what VC's care about:
A) traffic
B) what other VC's think of you
C) the quality of your team

It can be a perpetuating cycle when all the VC's are constantly looking at what all the other VC's are doing. This can be to your advantage when looking for funding. Once you have a small amount of funding from an investor, you can go to the next investor with the fact that so-and-so is investing in you, and you're much more likely to get funding, then you can go to the next investor with the fact that you have these two investors and so on.

6. VC's look for big hits
You need to seem like your going to go public, and in order to go public, you need to have huge revenues. This is why companies that are essentially just a 'feature' have trouble getting funding. You can't build a huge hit off a feature typically.

You need to demonstrate that you're ambitious to the point of insanity. When you walk in, it needs to be clear that you are going to build a huge company.

This is one reason investors love Max Levchin. After PayPal, he certainly didn't need the money, but started Slide because of his naturally high ambition.

7. Investors look for stars
In the past VC's made the mistake of looking for the next Bill Gates. But Microsoft was a bad example to use. They essentially got a monopoly dropped on them by IBM. It was like IBM was walking by real slow with their wallet full of money half-way hanging out of their back pocket!

During the bubble one of the big mistakes investors made was investing in MBA's as founders who would then hire hackers to develop their idea. That's like investing in Steve Ballmer and hoping he hires Bill Gates!

Fortunately, most have learned their lesson and now look to invest in the next Larry and Sergey.

8. The contributions of investors is underestimated
One of the main reasons for this is that neither the investors nor the founders have an incentive to share this information. The investors don't want credit for the success of a company, because then they would be wrapped up in the value of the company and that could make it harder to sell since they don't come with the startup when it's acquired. So it's in their best interest to promote the company as successful on its own merits. The founders likewise are also motivated to market the company as a self-contained success story for the same acquisition-related reason.

Since all the credit usually goes to the founders, other potential founders often think they have to be god-like in everything they do. This is a dangerous notion, because it's not true - there are many huge contributions from others. For example, does anyone know who did Gmail, Adsense, and the 'Don't Be Evil' slogan? Most people have never heard of him, but it was Paul Buchheit, not Larry or Sergey.

One of the great things about Startup School is that potential founders get to come and hear successful founders speak and then realize that some of those guys really aren't all that smart.

9. VC's want to invest large amounts
This is because they have a large amount of money in their fund, but only a few partners to distribute it. So to avoid spreading themselves too thin, it's in their best interest to invest big in a smaller number of startups.

Some of the lame VC's are in it just for their percentage on the fund and will raise a large fund, invest big in a small portfolio of companies, and watch it fizzle.

Angels are different in that they want to invest the least amount possible since it's coming right from their pockets.

10. Valuations are made up
They are strictly fiction at the beginning. The VC wants to invest $X and they want 1/3 of the company, so they'll just use those figures to get the valuation!

VC's want to invest more, but this decreases the liquidity possibility. If you take a high valuation, then you have to sell for a SUPER high valuation.

It's tempting though for founders to seek a high valuation for ego/competitive reasons.

11. VC's are afraid of limited partners
This is surprising. You would think that VC's would just tell their fund investors that if they don't like what they're doing, they can take their money and leave. But VC's are very concerned about how they look to their limited partners and this affects the risks they are willing to take. Even if a deal looks super promising, if it has the potential to make them look dumb, then they'll pass on it. They have to wait until that startup is doing well, or other VC's are investing in similar startups before they will invest themselves.

12. There are 2 kinds of judgments: Admissions and Grades
If you get a bad grade in a class, but think you did a great job, then you feel entitled to go and talk to the teacher and challenge the decision. On the other hand, that entitlement feeling isn't present if you apply to a college and get denied. This is because in admissions there are a limited number of seats available and a cutoff point at which no more people can be accepted. Like in the olympic tryouts - the top X% of swimmers for a country may get to go to the games, but those below that threshold don't get to go. It's not much different in getting funding - you can just slide off the edge and just not make the 'admission'. When I was rejected by Harvard I thought I sucked. Now I see it as laughable. Have you ever been to the admissions office? A rejection in an admissions scenario is not necessarily a reflection on you. At YCombinator we go through and rank all of the applications, then we take the top 30 for interviews. Recently we looked at some of our early teams and compared how they are doing now with how we rated them in the application process. It was scary! One of our most successful teams was at number 30! Just one more down and they would have missed the cutoff.

13. VC's are like High School girls
A) fickle
B) your stock is based on what the other girls think
One good strategy would be to bribe 10% of the popular girls to like you, then the other girls would follow!
Remember that if you are not sufficiently deferential and responsive to them they will drop you. One of the top angels told me that if someone doesn't return his email within 24 hours then he writes them off.

14. Investment process is never 'done' till the money is in the bank
You can't stop selling yourself till the deal is completely closed and the funds have been transfered. You need to make sure that you seem so hot that at any moment another investor could swoop in and take their place.

15. Investors like to co-invest
A) makes them feel better
B) makes it less likely for a competitor company to get funding if multiple VC's are committed to this one

16. Investors collude
Investors are not covered by anti-trust law. Sometimes they will get together to hose a startup. Like if the army and air force of a repressive regime play a game of baseball together, they are competing against each other, but in the end they are still united in ruling the country's population.

This can also be a positive for founders since VC's will often pass a deal on to another VC if the company is too similar to another company already in their portfolio.

17. VC's will sometimes hose one company to benefit another
VC's win if their *whole* portfolio wins. So there have been times when a VC will sell one of their portfolio companies at a slashed down price to another one of their companies. The VC and the acquiring company win. The sold company loses.

18. Investors have a different risk attitude than founders
Investors are rich enough to be rational. Founders are typically poor and thus more risk averse. So when a deal for a $30 million acquisition comes along, the founders may be much more motivated to take the deal rather than keep going to build the company. The investor may be more motivated to have the founders keep going since his risk is much less in percentage terms.

19. VC's vary greatly
They all look alike if you go and look at their website profiles: blue button shirts, jacket, slacks, etc. But the best VC's are the ones that have *good* product ideas and have *useful* advice. There is a very sharp dropoff in VC quality.

20. You need investors
There is much empirical evidence that this is true. Very very few companies make it without the help of investors.
The wrong question to ask is "Do I need investment?"
The right question to ask is "Will taking investment help me?"
Remember that your competitors may have investment and thus a competitive advantage over you if you don't.

21. Investors like it when you don't need them
Some founders approach investors as if they are asking for permission to start a company. That is very much the wrong approach. You need to make it clear that the train is leaving and if they want to be on it, they better get on. That being said, you have to mean it 100%, because if you don't, they'll be able to tell. A good way to mean it 100% is to have a solid backup plan. What also helps is to start cheap and avoid doing the expensive things till later so you don't *need* the investment, but can get real momentum going for your company.

You're startup needs to be like a cockroach - hard to kill, even after a nuclear war. Don't be a delicate beautiful flower, be a cockroach.

Imagine the VC on his hands and knees with a cockroach on his back riding him with a harness. That's the approach you want to take.

_____________________

Update: View the comments for this post at: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=12282

I've been developing a framework using EC2, S3, S3DFS (DFS = Distributed File System) along with SQLite to try and solve the database problem on Amazon Web Services.

S3DFS allows you to mount an S3 bucket to one or multiple EC2 instances as if it were a local filesystem. It works at the block level and has read/write caching - so is very fast. (Note: It's free to use for development, but otherwise requires a paid commercial license.)

Since SQLite uses flat files and has no database server or client, it is ideal for use on S3. SQLite only scales well to a point, so to get around its limitations I am separating each user into their own database (each database is a separate flat file). This can sometimes be a bad idea, but SQLite allows you to attach multiple databases together to essentially create a temporary master database where you can run queries across all the user databases at once. This will be handy for search indexing, site-wide stats, etc. In order to change the user databases I will have utilities to allow global scheme alterations.

So, by adding EC2 instances that are all attached to the same S3 bucket, and using round-robin dns to distribute traffic among them, you can theoretically scale a web service infinitely. Just launch a new EC2 instance and add it to the round-robin dns pool and you're done! Even that could be automated to respond dynamically to traffic.

Imagine the long-term cost-savings from only having to build your app and architecture once and not having to go through a more complex scaling process.

Certainly you should only worry about scaling after your app is up and running, but what if you didn't have to ever worry about it? That's the goal of this framework.

This is pre-alpha of course and I'm still in the development and experimentation stage, but I wanted to share with the community and get some feedback!

Update: To follow the feedback on this topic, see: http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=10001

Update2: I have decided to change my strategy a bit to bypass some of the limitations inherent in SQLite and S3DFS. Rather than have the user database files sit directly on S3 via S3DFS, I will have them reside on the EC2 instance and just back them up frequently to S3 via S3DFS. This will be faster, less complex, and more stable. When I get to the scaling part of the app, I'll probably use a reverse-proxy solution and divide the user database files across multiple EC2 instances. Thanks to the guys at Lunchgeeks for their help on this!

VC Rick Segal's approach seems the most charitable.

His tact works similarly in dating.
(Note that I date with the goal of marriage in mind - I'm definitely not a 'player', which makes this a good analogy to the good VC's - they're hoping to 'marry' founders when it's a good match)

Many guys burn bridges when they have to break up with a girl. However, that's totally unnecessary! I've certainly done that when I was a teen, but have found the charitable approach much more effective. Let me be clear that 'charitable' does not mean unclear or deceptive in the breakup. On the contrary - it's being very clear and honest about the breakup with the girl. That being said, you *do* withhold any information that would unnecessarily hurt her (ex: you're not attracted to something about her that she can't help).

The breakup needs to establish that:
1) the relationship is not a match for you, but that that is no reflection on her personally in the slightest
2) you genuinely admire the N number of amazing things about her
3) you hope that you both can still be good friends, but that you understand and honor her wish if she thinks it's better not to
4) the romantic possibilities of your relationship are just not there sufficient for marriage and never will be (let her move on with closure!) Don't worry, if you change your mind later you can crawl back on your knees to her and tell her you were wrong - but you have to let her go and pursue other possibilities.
5) you are open to talk with her about it at any time - this will usually relieve a lot of her anxiety about having to wonder why you broke up later.

Note: Be careful about the 'still being friends' thing. If you are hanging out too much with her, most other guys will avoid asking her out - and you don't want to hinder her ability to move on. Be sure to honor her space and let her know that you are doing that so she doesn't feel rejected by it.

Success stories:

2004 girlfriend: Good breakup, she decided it was better for her to not have contact. I honored that and imagine she has gone on to great things.

2005 girlfriend: Good breakup, though we did get back together several times. Ultimately it ended, but our communication was so good that we have remained best friends since then and talk regularly about our new relationships. We both are huge advocates of each other - she sells me to other girls and I sell her to other guys. We do business together too since there is such a high level of trust.

2006 girlfriend: Had a great time together, but we both knew it wouldn't work. We had great communication and though it was hard for me to let her go, I did and that really impressed her to the point where we have a similar high-trust, high-advocate relationship as with 2005 girlfriend.

2007 girlfriend: Ended pretty recently. So far so good. Very hard for both of us. But we've had good communication since and it is evolving well into a good friend relationship.

Note that these tips assume that you are only dating reasonably sane girls - with psycho chics this probably won't apply ;)

It's important to remember that going the charitable route is often harder in the short-term than the alternatives, but it's important to suck it up and have the kahoonas to do it right. Some guys may be tempted to not give her a clean break or feel they have to diminish her as a person to satisfy their own insecurities. DON'T DO IT! Seriously, it will hammer your karma and make life much more difficult for you in the long-term. To illustrate: 2006 girlfriend only dated me because of the good things 2005 girlfriend told her about how good our relationship and breakup was. The same with 2007 girlfriend. It's really the way to go - be respectful and honor them, because more often than not, they will return the sentiment.

Granted that my experience is pretty limited, please share your own success stories in the comments!

Update: When thinking more about this, I find that it applies also very well to leaving a job with the best possible feelings.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ycombinator-StartupSchool

This podcast contains all the published podcasts from the last 3 years of Startup School. Talks from 2005 and 2006 are linked to the official recordings and those from 2007 are linked to my lower quality recordings until the official ones are released.

If you were not there this year and are short on time - I'd recommend listening to Paul Buchheit, Paul Graham, and Greg McAdoo first.

We see a good example of the 'eat light' strategy from 37Signals:

Yeah. We've gotten quite a lot of VC calls. But one of the things we're seeing that we really don't care too much for is that way too many companies are taking money when they don't need it. And the whole idea we had was that having too little money is a great way of getting great product, because it's a way to get focused.

So we have definitely said to ourselves, "We don't want any outside money. We actually don't even want to grow our team." We're trying to design our products in a way that they can scale with more users without us having to scale as a company. So, through Signal vs. Noise, we're trying hard to deliver a pushback to companies that feel like they have to hire a bunch of people as early as possible and to take money to realize their vision by saying, "If your vision of your product costs a million bucks to make, try rescoping that idea in your head so it fits in $100K and get it out there earlier. Instead of having a 1-year product cycle, what could you do in 1 month?"

And sure, that doesn't work for every company, but in the web age, it works for way more companies than are trying to.

- From David Heinemeier Hansson's interview in Founders At Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days by Jessica Livingston

For extra bonus points, listen to Sapolsky's hilarious lecture on the subject (m4a quicktime file).

Headed over to the D & A Cafe tonight and decided to try the baby octopus plate. Can-I-Keep-It-Down Rating: 7. Funnily, the experience was much like eating haggis. If you're really hungry and eat a little haggis, it's quite good. However, there's a particular threshold that you cross when you've eaten enough and then you realize how disgusting it is and start to question your judgment and the whole meaning of life in general :P

Btw, here's my D & A Cafe Yelp Review:

It was cheap. It was late. I was naive.

While eating I kept reminding myself that I might visit China someday and that I better learn to deal with mystery food and sticky: floor, table, seat, silverware, waitresses, everything.

The only real cool thing about the experience was how they clean the bathroom. I went in there (out of necessity - just couldn't wait) and as I looked around - it was obvious that they had just cleaned it (walls, toilet, sink, ceiling, everything, no joke) by using a water hose and letting all the junk go down the drain in the middle of the floor. It was actually really clean after the hosing - and everything was well, very wet. It was really quite awesome.

Kathy Sierra recently presented a test for whether people have "passion for their work", and I would add that it also indicates if they are more motivated by other factors (usually money/fame potential) than the pure nerd-draw of what they are doing.

* When was the last time you read a trade/professional journal or book related to your work? (can substitute "attended an industry conference or took a course")

* Name at least two of the key people in your field.

* If you had to, would you spend your own money to buy tools or other materials that would improve the quality of your work?

* If you did not do this for work, would you still do it (or something related to it) as a hobby?

I also came across a similar test by Bruce Campbell (of 'Evil Dead' fame) for those pursuing a Hollywood career. I think it applies well to those in the startup world too - especially when the industry is nice and hot (like now). Below is the test adapted for Silicon Valley. See the original here.

I aspire for a career in the web *.0 industry because:

a) I need a quick million:
b) I have personal problems and being rich and famous will solve them
c) I failed as a Clinical Psychologist / MBA / Marketing 'guru'
d) I've got alpha-nerd hormones in my blood

My ultimate goal(s) is(are):

a) To keynote speak at DevCon or:
___1) SXSW
___2) OSCon
___3) FantasyCon
b) To be famous. I will be famous when:
___1) Linus drops my name at parties
___2) I get recognized at my high school reunion
___3) Everyone on the planet knows and loves me
c) To be stinkin' rich. I will be rich when:
___1) My phone stops getting cut off
___2) I can buy medicine for little Billy
___3) I can buyout Google and work on any project I want
d) Both b and c
e) To be gainfully employed doing what I enjoy

My main influences are:

a) PC Magazine
b) Woz, Paul Graham, Steve McConnell, etc
c) Last episode of Lost
d) Myself and my vast experience reinventing the wheel

I hope to become involved in this type of project:

a) Quick and dirty, flip-it-fast
b) Solid quality design, incremental development
c) Forget it, Mom will drive

I know I am talented because:

a) Um, because my friends and loved ones say so?
b) I know it in my heart
c) I received the "Ken and Barbie" award in high school
d) I have an extensive list of successful projects

I define talent as:

a) The ability to do one thing, really well
b) The ability to be mediocre at lots and lots of things
c) The ability to get slammed at a kegger
d) The ability to make my friends think I'm cool

My unique talent lies:

a) As a CEO - I want to run the business
b) In the cave of code - I want to program…
c) As CEO in the cave of code - I want to be a hyphenated biz-tech person
d) In strategizing what others should do

I define the success of a startup by:

a) How well the public offering goes
b) How lucrative the acquisition is
c) How many users love our private profitable company
d) How many good-looking women/men I met after fame

I will be successful when:

a) I meet the right people
b) My new Hummer arrives
c) I own my own island
d) I get that tummy tuck for Christmas
e) Hell freezes over
f) Nonsense, I am successful now

I will fail if:

a) I don't meet the right people
b) Failure is not an option
c) Enough people tell me I will
d) The odds are too great

The market price of my soul is:
(hint: you will need to know this at some point)

a) $1,000,000 in tax-free Municipal Bonds
b) 3 magic beans
c) I cannot be bought! My self-esteem is priceless!

Bruce concludes with this advice:

Take this test before you ride the rails west. Hint: there are no right or wrong answers.

These are compelling questions that might pull folks into honestly looking at their motivations and expectations in the work they've chosen. The understanding they gain could really save some from wasting their time on projects that they have little passion for - and perhaps lead them to create something amazing in a field with a better fit.

]]> http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/07/examining-motivations-hollywood-and-startups/feed/ http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/02/its-confirmedi-have-a-brain/ http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/02/its-confirmedi-have-a-brain/#comments Sat, 03 Feb 2007 01:58:50 +0000 Matt Jaynes JustForFun http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/02/its-confirmedi-have-a-brain/

After much doubt and speculation…it's been verified

I spent two hours today in a magnetic tube reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL: "My mind is going … I can feel it."

It was quite exciting actually. I arrived and knocked on the door and it was answered by two gorgeous women with bubbly personalities. I filled out the paperwork and we joked a little, then one of the women took me to the MRI lab. There we verified that I did not in fact have any unusual piercings, metal plates in my head, and was not pregnant. Whew! Now on to the show! She made my bed on the platform and then tucked me in and made sure I was comfortable. Once I was maneuvered into the tube… "darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time… The stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as a life age of the earth… But it was not the end. I felt life in me again." [LOTR]

I was really surprised when the two hours were up - I had really been preparing myself for an 'age of the earth' in there. When she showed me the pictures of my brain I was really blown away. I didn't expect seeing my own brain to have such a profound effect on me. I realized then that I had only ever really thought of my brain in the abstract - as if it were just a magic crystal ball in my cranium where my 'mind' dwelt. Seeing the structure of my brain and hearing her explain the different parts and functions of *my* brain was truly enlightening. That experience and the beautiful women running the study really made the whole event thrilling.

They said they would send some of the actual photos in a few weeks and I'm really looking forward to that. It's interesting that even though I've seen many pictures of brain scans - I've never had much more than a passing interest in the actual systems of the brain until I saw my own. For some reason there is something about that personal connection that intrigues and fascinates us. I believe that's a major component of why social networking on the web has really taken off. It allows users to create an image of themselves (whether imagined or real) and have real control over defining the development of that 'self' and it's interworkings with others in the network.

Side Note:
Funny enough, when I was driving to the hospital I was listening to Science Friday and an interview came on with the topic: "Can Thoughts and Actions Change Our Brains?" It was quite liberating to hear about how adaptable the brain can be. I highly recommend listening to the episode (mp3) if you have a chance.

]]> http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/02/its-confirmedi-have-a-brain/feed/ http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/01/whats-with-the-web-20-angst/ http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/01/whats-with-the-web-20-angst/#comments Fri, 02 Feb 2007 04:16:44 +0000 Matt Jaynes Tech http://blog.nanobeepers.com/2007/02/01/whats-with-the-web-20-angst/

Oh the Angst…

Last night I attended the Beyond Web 2.0 event in Fremont, CA. One of the main things I noticed there was the angst and inner struggle some of the presenters (and much of the audience) seemed to have with the term 'Web 2.0'.

One presenter started his presentation with his #1 prediction for the future: that the phrase 'Web 2.0' will become a "dirty word". In discussing this, he admonished us that "Web 2.0 is harmful - don't use it." Then, strangely enough, he proceeded to use 'Web 2.0' liberally throughout the rest of his talk.

The next presenter also seemed distraught over the term and stated in his introduction: "There is no such thing as Web 2.0." Then after disavowing it, he launched into his speech with the term 'Web 2.0' littered throughout and even focusing almost exclusively on what he saw as the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 and 3.0.

It was quite comical and got me thinking about why they had unapologetically denounced the term, yet then felt compelled to use it extensively in their presentations.

Pink Fishnet Stockings

Those pink fishnet stockings sure were hot when you took them out of that crisp new package. But man, when you saw your aging drama teacher wearing the same ones with bulges in all the wrong places, you almost lost those tater-tots you ate for lunch. You ran to the bathroom and tore them off - but wait, you didn't shave your legs, and it was cold outside, so you grudgingly pulled them back up and hung your head as you walked through the halls the rest of the day in misery.

Such has it been with 'Web 2.0' - a victim of its own trendiness. It didn't really have much of a chance after the marketing folks got hold of it. What might have been a plain and useful term was soon used to describe 'hot' new kludgeware companies with 'sizzle'. Of course, nothing is more nauseating to the alpha-nerds than this type of spasmodic marketing hype. And so, 'Web 2.0' is not harmful, useless, or non-existent as some believe - it has just become *embarrassing*… like those poor fishnets.

Laziness - the Virtue

So, why the irresistible compulsion to use the phrase 'Web 2.0'? Laziness. Expediency. Pure and simple. It's a *much* more efficient way of presenting a larger concept than explaining the full concept every time you need to use it.

For example, if you know nothing about 'Saturday Night Fever' and I tell you that it's a 70's disco movie, you'll be able to visualize it immediately. Why? Because you know all those things that are associated with the 70's - the hairstyles, the clothes, the lingo, etc. There is a fuzzy set of characteristics that generally define the 70's. So I just tell you the era of the movie rather than a long description of the hairstyles and clothing.

Web 2.0 is nothing different. It's a classification that has a fuzzy set of characteristics - just like Generation X or the Baroque period or the Pleistocene era. It's quite hilarious to see all the hand-wringing by folks trying to specify an *exact* definition for Web 2.0. It's like someone losing sleep trying to nail down *exactly* what the hippie era entailed. You can't. It's fuzzy. There are overlaps. It's O….K…. just breathe. You've dealt with ambiguity before - you can get through this ;)

The Whole Point

When these presenters used the term 'Web 2.0', they did so fluently despite their inner turmoil. And from what I could tell, the audience was able to understand the presentations and the term just fine. It seems like they innately knew that it was just the description of an era of the web - they just hadn't made the connection consciously.

Look at these roughly defined generations of the web:

Web 1.0: From ~1995 to ~2003
Web 2.0: From ~2004 to ~2008
Web 3.0: From ~2008 to ???

Then just plug into each 'version' what was generally going on with the web at that time and presto! You have solved the whole mystery that has been propelling this debate!

Hopefully this will give some of the tortured souls of Web 2.0 some rest…

Update: For excellent coverage of the Beyond Web 2.0 event see Jeremiah Owyang's review.

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