Friday, December 17, 2004
THE 5 TECHNOLOGIES YOU MEET IN HEAVEN
By Alan Brody
[This is a story about the PC, an American invention that is about to die on a distant shore. But all endings are also beginnings…. if we just knew it at the time…..]
The last hours of the IBM PCs life were spent in frantic negotiations. Few could accept that a stodgy company which surprised the world with the PC and becoming a household name with Charlie Chaplin commercials could wind up like this. But it had been slipping for a long time and it was hard to let go. No one in management could foresee an afterlife.
Luckily an old ThinkPad on our network, long given up for dead, had flickered back to life….bringing us this story.
As we mourned on earth, in another place, the PC was being warmly greeted by a young man in a red shirt. He was standing in a quiet area with shelves and shelves of computer equipment and said "Hello."
"I recognize you," said the PC. "You used to wear a suit. Now you look like a fast food salesman."
"At COMPUSA with think of this as brain food. Like all food, no one asks where it was raised……My role in your life was to teach you about resting on your brand. Commoditization can kill you," said the man in the red shirt," if your brand is not innovative." Then he added cheerily, "We don’t mind if it’s not made here. My suits weren’t, nor is my red shirt."
"Innovation? That’s risky," said the PC thinking about all the things they did trying to save the PC after the dotcom crash of 2000, price-dropping, offshoring, acting like youngsters – and all to no avail.
Next the PC saw a vast network with huge, humming computers. Telephones rang, routers buzzed, power lines hissed. It was the Internet. It seemed to ignore the PC.
"Weren’t you my friend?" asked the PC.
"For a while," said the network. "But any computer would work with us. So you weren‘t that special, and you weren’t even fun. People even used us to get the best price from other PC makers. So they didn’t need you. Sorry."
"But we made Business excited about the Internet with our eBusiness commercials! Don’t you remember?"
"My role," said the Internet, "is to tell you that if the commercial was such a big deal you should have called it iBusiness. You’re iBM not eBM. And thanks for making it sound like you invented the Internet."
As the PC was drafting a quick email to his ad manager, a man on a boat appeared to take him up a giant river. "Watch out!" said the cherubic looking man, "there are flesh-eating fish in the water."
"Like piranha!" said the PC.
"In a way," said the boatman. "You see, we all feed off you. We sell everything here. Even your computers."
"I always meant to ask, why Brazil, what was wrong with ‘Mississippi’…and why am I here?’
"Well, we learned we can make as much money selling used as new. So even if someone bought a new computer once we could make money when the nest two people resold it.
"OK, but didn’t we get the first sale."
"Not really. Everyone else offered more or sold for less..."
"Stop it," said the PC, "you’re killing me."
Soon they pulled into a bay. The PC thought he would get some relief but he quickly found himself listening to the same story. "You mean anyone can sell anything at anytime? No license, no storefront. No brand….Gotta go!"
Next, a man came wading toward him, asking: "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?"
"Stop yelling," said the PC, "of course I can hear you."
"No you really can’t," said the man, "and besides, I’m not talking to you. My purpose is tell you that missed out on the cellular market."
"Well, WE certainly wouldn’t have paid you to go around asking that inane question," said the PC.
"That’s the point," said the man, "you wouldn’t have to. The customers do. Unlike you, we give away the hardware and then people pay us to make phone calls all day long. Soon all life will be like that……. someone will give you a car that you will pay to drive….."
"We used to that, it’s called leasing. We even pioneered time-sharing."
"No," said phone man, "this goes beyond that and its for everyman…..it could be like cars in the congested areas of Paris where they just sit around on the street until you need them in. The same will happen to all hardware. Maybe even your home….."
"That’s called renting…….."
"My role is to tell you not to get hung up on owning hardware. It’s the service that counts."
The PC shuddered, and asked the big question. "If we are all renting, and no one here is manufacturing, how will we pay for it all?"
"I’m glad you asked that question," said the phone man, "let Google take us to heaven."
"Now that’s search. I knew we should have put more into it……" the PC said, as an engine drove them to a cloudy place where everyone was busy, but quietly content.
"So this is heaven." Said the PC, "everyone works……on laptops! Who makes them?"
"Brands aren’t that important up here," a voice boomed. "Its what you do with them that matters…….that’s what we’re here to teach you……"
"Look we did a great job designing and selling them……but the truth is, they were just a necessity to keep our corporate customers satisfied so they’d keep on buying the big machines where we’d make real money."
"Hmmm," came the voice, "I’m going to introduce you to your final guide who will show you the real meaning of life…."
A man with large square-ish glasses appeared, he looked strangely old and young, like an aging teen. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a lot and gave away millions to AIDS charities in Africa. But to his competitors, he was merciless.
"I told you to own the chip, like Intel did. Or to buy my operating system when you could still afford it," he smirked. "But you wouldn’t listen. You only cared about hardware….now look at you."
"Look Bill," said the PC rearing up. "You got yourself a bad name in the industry and those antitrust lawyers put you in your place."
"Really, and weren’t they using Windows throughout the lawsuit?…..still using it today," he said. "It’s not about a brand, it’s about having a monopoly."
"Well look at you," said the PC, "You’re so hated, you’re neither in heaven nor that other place…..where they manufacture things."
"When you’re a monopoly,"said Bill, "you can be wherever you want. The best ideas come to you- and you can pull the plug on the competition at any time."
"I think I’ll be going now…….." said the PC.
"Not to heaven…..! If you want to keep making things, this is where you go," Bill said, pointing to a landscape of dank, smoky warrens. They were crowded with sad-eyed people in faded bunny suits. People were coughing and rushing about..
"We don’t belong there!" said the PC.
"You do, if you can’t innovate……if you don’t add value."
"Look," said the PC with a bead of sweat forming, "our mission was to service really big machines. Along the way, we got executives to love PCs, fire their secretaries and type their own memos. We even got them out of suits and into starched golf shirts. We may have started casual Fridays…."
"You don’t get it, do you?"said Bill. "Anyone can make big iron today and my people can service your accounts as well as you do. I’m here to tell you that your real purpose in life is to take those big services you offer to the Fortune 500 and make them available to the little guy. Logistics. Sales & Transaction Management. Inventory Control, Customer Relationship Management ….everything."
"Oh we can’t do that."
"What you don’t understand," said Bill, looking Yoda-like, "is that it won’t chase away your big customers. It will make them clamor for more features and more services. It will drive innovation."
"We definitely can’t do that," said the PC with the sweat streaking down his cheeks.
"Well what do you want to do in the afterlife?" asked Bill impatiently.
"Other billionaires have gone broke, and come back. Look at that fellow in real estate. Maybe there’s a TV show in it…..?"
"Only," sighed Bill, "if you had a personality. That’s better than a brand"
[Prologue. The PC died a natural death. Computers wound up being traded on the commodity exchange along with sugar and pork barrels.New homebuyers got them free with the electricity or attached to their phones. Lucky former PC sales execs were hired as extras for Men In Black II and now, if you buy the series on DVD you get the computer free.]
[This is a story about the PC, an American invention that is about to die on a distant shore. But all endings are also beginnings…. if we just knew it at the time…..]
The last hours of the IBM PCs life were spent in frantic negotiations. Few could accept that a stodgy company which surprised the world with the PC and becoming a household name with Charlie Chaplin commercials could wind up like this. But it had been slipping for a long time and it was hard to let go. No one in management could foresee an afterlife.
Luckily an old ThinkPad on our network, long given up for dead, had flickered back to life….bringing us this story.
As we mourned on earth, in another place, the PC was being warmly greeted by a young man in a red shirt. He was standing in a quiet area with shelves and shelves of computer equipment and said "Hello."
"I recognize you," said the PC. "You used to wear a suit. Now you look like a fast food salesman."
"At COMPUSA with think of this as brain food. Like all food, no one asks where it was raised……My role in your life was to teach you about resting on your brand. Commoditization can kill you," said the man in the red shirt," if your brand is not innovative." Then he added cheerily, "We don’t mind if it’s not made here. My suits weren’t, nor is my red shirt."
"Innovation? That’s risky," said the PC thinking about all the things they did trying to save the PC after the dotcom crash of 2000, price-dropping, offshoring, acting like youngsters – and all to no avail.
Next the PC saw a vast network with huge, humming computers. Telephones rang, routers buzzed, power lines hissed. It was the Internet. It seemed to ignore the PC.
"Weren’t you my friend?" asked the PC.
"For a while," said the network. "But any computer would work with us. So you weren‘t that special, and you weren’t even fun. People even used us to get the best price from other PC makers. So they didn’t need you. Sorry."
"But we made Business excited about the Internet with our eBusiness commercials! Don’t you remember?"
"My role," said the Internet, "is to tell you that if the commercial was such a big deal you should have called it iBusiness. You’re iBM not eBM. And thanks for making it sound like you invented the Internet."
As the PC was drafting a quick email to his ad manager, a man on a boat appeared to take him up a giant river. "Watch out!" said the cherubic looking man, "there are flesh-eating fish in the water."
"Like piranha!" said the PC.
"In a way," said the boatman. "You see, we all feed off you. We sell everything here. Even your computers."
"I always meant to ask, why Brazil, what was wrong with ‘Mississippi’…and why am I here?’
"Well, we learned we can make as much money selling used as new. So even if someone bought a new computer once we could make money when the nest two people resold it.
"OK, but didn’t we get the first sale."
"Not really. Everyone else offered more or sold for less..."
"Stop it," said the PC, "you’re killing me."
Soon they pulled into a bay. The PC thought he would get some relief but he quickly found himself listening to the same story. "You mean anyone can sell anything at anytime? No license, no storefront. No brand….Gotta go!"
Next, a man came wading toward him, asking: "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?"
"Stop yelling," said the PC, "of course I can hear you."
"No you really can’t," said the man, "and besides, I’m not talking to you. My purpose is tell you that missed out on the cellular market."
"Well, WE certainly wouldn’t have paid you to go around asking that inane question," said the PC.
"That’s the point," said the man, "you wouldn’t have to. The customers do. Unlike you, we give away the hardware and then people pay us to make phone calls all day long. Soon all life will be like that……. someone will give you a car that you will pay to drive….."
"We used to that, it’s called leasing. We even pioneered time-sharing."
"No," said phone man, "this goes beyond that and its for everyman…..it could be like cars in the congested areas of Paris where they just sit around on the street until you need them in. The same will happen to all hardware. Maybe even your home….."
"That’s called renting…….."
"My role is to tell you not to get hung up on owning hardware. It’s the service that counts."
The PC shuddered, and asked the big question. "If we are all renting, and no one here is manufacturing, how will we pay for it all?"
"I’m glad you asked that question," said the phone man, "let Google take us to heaven."
"Now that’s search. I knew we should have put more into it……" the PC said, as an engine drove them to a cloudy place where everyone was busy, but quietly content.
"So this is heaven." Said the PC, "everyone works……on laptops! Who makes them?"
"Brands aren’t that important up here," a voice boomed. "Its what you do with them that matters…….that’s what we’re here to teach you……"
"Look we did a great job designing and selling them……but the truth is, they were just a necessity to keep our corporate customers satisfied so they’d keep on buying the big machines where we’d make real money."
"Hmmm," came the voice, "I’m going to introduce you to your final guide who will show you the real meaning of life…."
A man with large square-ish glasses appeared, he looked strangely old and young, like an aging teen. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a lot and gave away millions to AIDS charities in Africa. But to his competitors, he was merciless.
"I told you to own the chip, like Intel did. Or to buy my operating system when you could still afford it," he smirked. "But you wouldn’t listen. You only cared about hardware….now look at you."
"Look Bill," said the PC rearing up. "You got yourself a bad name in the industry and those antitrust lawyers put you in your place."
"Really, and weren’t they using Windows throughout the lawsuit?…..still using it today," he said. "It’s not about a brand, it’s about having a monopoly."
"Well look at you," said the PC, "You’re so hated, you’re neither in heaven nor that other place…..where they manufacture things."
"When you’re a monopoly,"said Bill, "you can be wherever you want. The best ideas come to you- and you can pull the plug on the competition at any time."
"I think I’ll be going now…….." said the PC.
"Not to heaven…..! If you want to keep making things, this is where you go," Bill said, pointing to a landscape of dank, smoky warrens. They were crowded with sad-eyed people in faded bunny suits. People were coughing and rushing about..
"We don’t belong there!" said the PC.
"You do, if you can’t innovate……if you don’t add value."
"Look," said the PC with a bead of sweat forming, "our mission was to service really big machines. Along the way, we got executives to love PCs, fire their secretaries and type their own memos. We even got them out of suits and into starched golf shirts. We may have started casual Fridays…."
"You don’t get it, do you?"said Bill. "Anyone can make big iron today and my people can service your accounts as well as you do. I’m here to tell you that your real purpose in life is to take those big services you offer to the Fortune 500 and make them available to the little guy. Logistics. Sales & Transaction Management. Inventory Control, Customer Relationship Management ….everything."
"Oh we can’t do that."
"What you don’t understand," said Bill, looking Yoda-like, "is that it won’t chase away your big customers. It will make them clamor for more features and more services. It will drive innovation."
"We definitely can’t do that," said the PC with the sweat streaking down his cheeks.
"Well what do you want to do in the afterlife?" asked Bill impatiently.
"Other billionaires have gone broke, and come back. Look at that fellow in real estate. Maybe there’s a TV show in it…..?"
"Only," sighed Bill, "if you had a personality. That’s better than a brand"
[Prologue. The PC died a natural death. Computers wound up being traded on the commodity exchange along with sugar and pork barrels.New homebuyers got them free with the electricity or attached to their phones. Lucky former PC sales execs were hired as extras for Men In Black II and now, if you buy the series on DVD you get the computer free.]
After the Goldrush - Still (Not So) Crazy After All These Years
A Review of the Town Hall meeting with Razorfish, Bolt, MTVi etc.
By Alan Brody
The Producers Guild and National Academy of TV Arts & Science New/Advanced Media groups had the bright idea of bringing back some of the Silicon Alley "stars" of the bubble years for a Town Hall type chat.
What do you say, after all we’ve been through, to see familiar figures like Razorfish founder, Jeff Dachis, Bolt’s Dan Pelson, MTVi’s Nick Butterworth and Silicon Alley Reporter’s Jason Calacanis in a respectable but less-than-filled auditorium, 5 years past their heyday?
Like the rest of us, they looked a tad paunchier, a little thinner on top. But most of all, they didn’t have their game faces on. Without that bubble attitude, the swagger, they were just 5 guys you might see on the subway.
Still, if you could deal with the anti-climax, and some couldn’t, there were lessons to be gleaned.
As the conversation moved from insider banter, which sounded like a Silicon Alley High School reunion to an analysis of lessons learned, the mood turned to a refrain of "oh, how we miss being a revolutionary."
Lesson no. 1: Being part of a revolution makes you feel special and it shows.
It may happen only once in a lifetime but it defines life for you – being a player in a big movement. On the other hand, dealing with the post-revolution blues, is another story. Most of the panelists admitted to experiencing some kind of depression and you can understand why: You were also struck how the early movers, the ones that got it right at the beginning, made a lot of money. Razorfish’s principals were already millionaires by 1996, thanks to a capital infusion by Omnicom. By 2000 the company had thousands of employees with office in dozens of countries and had a market cap of over $6 billion. Very head stuff for a 20-somethings.
Naturally, they all longed for day, but the canny ones still get to dine out on it and it will be their calling card for years to come as the internet continues its path to becoming mainstream. Broadband is now standard, which means so much of what they anticipated is finally real.
The group still believes great fortunes can be made but few were brimming with the possibilities of yore. Today, a new generation of kids has arrived that are totally net-savvy. 18 year olds can make and cut movies, 12 year olds are online and IM’ing as if it were the air they breathed. Yet the group seemed to speak as if they might have become too old for much of this…..Like science fiction writers, they seemed to lose enthusiasm as fiction become fact…..
Lesson no. 2: When you are no longer the erupting volcano, find the next one and charge an entrance fee.
Of the four original dotcom players. Only Calacanis is in the dotcom business - aggregating other peoples’ blogs. Butterworth is distributing other peoples’ content on DVDs, Dachis is buying up old-fashioned cash-positive businesses and Pelson is walking his dog and doing some investing.
The Entrepreneurial spirit is by no means dead but is now looking to others for guidance. As we’ll see form lesson no. 3, it is not who think.
Lesson No. 3: No one loves VCs after the fact.
Except for Calacanis, who took money from TV’s "The Benefactor," Mark Cuban, no one had a kind word to say about VCs and all encouraged the audience to avoid them. The fact is, Wall Street, lawyers and VC are accused of having made "the money" and also for hyping the industry in such a way that it lead to the crash. Perhaps. But it is worth noting that experienced entrepreneurs encourage you to stay away from investors for as long as possible. Forever, if you can. Apparently, owning your own thing is worth more than becoming a billionaire because you tend to stay on, you’re in charge and you feel good about it and you’re more likely to keep what you made.
There is also an underlying resentment of corporate culture. Most panelists spoke glowingly about open source computing and the beehive model of work - a kind of libertarian environment where everyone is bound by enlightened self-interest to take on tasks for a common cause, providing their work, resources and skills in return for ways of making their own money.
Pro or con, this may be a true phenomenon because it ties into the decentralization of cities, the universal connectedness and the rugged individualist-beatnick-hippie-libertarian ethos of the Internet.
While most of the panelists agreed there is no reason for the business to be in New York from a technology or content point of view - what with real estate prices and all – New York remains a lifestyle choice. It is also the place to be when you want to sell something, especially if you are going after corporate America
Lesson No. 4: Its not about the money, its about the ride.
This flies in the face of everything you learn in business school (which no one went to or if they did, they claimed helped them not at all, as entrepreneurs). But it’s true. Even Donald Trump says, if you don’t like a business, don’t do it. You won’t succeed and if you do you’ll hate it and act in some way to undermine it.
The entrepreneurs claim they were driven by the fun, the discovery and the chance to take on the big media, especially broadcast. There is some classic Freud here (as in, "every son want so kill his father") but it is also the truth. On the other hand, if they weren’t concerned with money, you wouldn’t have Dachis giving advice like: "make sure you make money every day." It may be a complex dynamic…..
but most investors agree that first there is passion and then business savvy. The business guys tend to jump ship when times get tough (it’s just about the money, right?) but the guys with passion are willing to go underwater even if they might wind up with the bends.
Jeff Dachis put up one million of his own money to shore up his falling stock. He also believed that his mission in life was to keep his staff, his family, earning a living so imagine his shock when he found out they were badmouthing him on F***d Company. Passion has its limits and apparently, good VCs know how to weigh this.
Lesson No. 5: The smart person is the one who gets sober before the party is over.
The entrepreneurs always have a hard time believe that others don’t share the love of company that they do. That’s because it isn’t their company, and entrepreneurs tend to forget that. On the other hand, their passion is inspiring and the first question from the audience made that clear. A dotcom veteran of a big name company, unabashedly declared herself reinspired and desirous of getting going again.
Lesson No. 5 Trust Your gut and find other you can learn from
The panel was pretty much unanimous about trusting their instincts but also in finding good mentors and experienced people who could advise. Apparently, even when you’re on top of the world, asking others for advice works - is either it humbling you enough or flatters them enough that mentors will give it.
Lesson No 6. Publicity is great until it is used against you..
While no one said how great it was being invited on to 60 minutes or the Charlie Rose show to talk about the revolution, everyone complained about being blamed for the hype after the bubble-burst. ("Hey I wrote columns saying how bad it was," quoth one.) Surely, they protest too much. Of course they were part of the hype, and part of the downfall. Since they are unlikely to be sued by anyone, why not stand tough and say "we did what we believed was right. We can’t be blamed for a perfect storm or investor hysteria." What matters is they survived and basically they were right. Being the poster boy is only market crash away from being a dart board. Get used to it. Or as the Brits say, "its better to be a has-been than a bloody never was."
Interestingly, a number of the panelists had recently been to China and were not quite inspired: smoggy, no eCommerce (no credit cards) and you need a general in your pocket to do business since the military runs the show. On the other hand, the Internet cafes are full and people love to play games all day long. Once upon a time these people would have seized upon that as an opportunity – eyeballs, addicted gamers, worldwide phenomenon. But they didn’t.
That’s why you have to respect these guys – and yes, they were almost all guys – but the next revolution is coming from another place. Apparently they are caused by passionate people with something to prove…..and this group has proven it already.
By Alan Brody
The Producers Guild and National Academy of TV Arts & Science New/Advanced Media groups had the bright idea of bringing back some of the Silicon Alley "stars" of the bubble years for a Town Hall type chat.
What do you say, after all we’ve been through, to see familiar figures like Razorfish founder, Jeff Dachis, Bolt’s Dan Pelson, MTVi’s Nick Butterworth and Silicon Alley Reporter’s Jason Calacanis in a respectable but less-than-filled auditorium, 5 years past their heyday?
Like the rest of us, they looked a tad paunchier, a little thinner on top. But most of all, they didn’t have their game faces on. Without that bubble attitude, the swagger, they were just 5 guys you might see on the subway.
Still, if you could deal with the anti-climax, and some couldn’t, there were lessons to be gleaned.
As the conversation moved from insider banter, which sounded like a Silicon Alley High School reunion to an analysis of lessons learned, the mood turned to a refrain of "oh, how we miss being a revolutionary."
Lesson no. 1: Being part of a revolution makes you feel special and it shows.
It may happen only once in a lifetime but it defines life for you – being a player in a big movement. On the other hand, dealing with the post-revolution blues, is another story. Most of the panelists admitted to experiencing some kind of depression and you can understand why: You were also struck how the early movers, the ones that got it right at the beginning, made a lot of money. Razorfish’s principals were already millionaires by 1996, thanks to a capital infusion by Omnicom. By 2000 the company had thousands of employees with office in dozens of countries and had a market cap of over $6 billion. Very head stuff for a 20-somethings.
Naturally, they all longed for day, but the canny ones still get to dine out on it and it will be their calling card for years to come as the internet continues its path to becoming mainstream. Broadband is now standard, which means so much of what they anticipated is finally real.
The group still believes great fortunes can be made but few were brimming with the possibilities of yore. Today, a new generation of kids has arrived that are totally net-savvy. 18 year olds can make and cut movies, 12 year olds are online and IM’ing as if it were the air they breathed. Yet the group seemed to speak as if they might have become too old for much of this…..Like science fiction writers, they seemed to lose enthusiasm as fiction become fact…..
Lesson no. 2: When you are no longer the erupting volcano, find the next one and charge an entrance fee.
Of the four original dotcom players. Only Calacanis is in the dotcom business - aggregating other peoples’ blogs. Butterworth is distributing other peoples’ content on DVDs, Dachis is buying up old-fashioned cash-positive businesses and Pelson is walking his dog and doing some investing.
The Entrepreneurial spirit is by no means dead but is now looking to others for guidance. As we’ll see form lesson no. 3, it is not who think.
Lesson No. 3: No one loves VCs after the fact.
Except for Calacanis, who took money from TV’s "The Benefactor," Mark Cuban, no one had a kind word to say about VCs and all encouraged the audience to avoid them. The fact is, Wall Street, lawyers and VC are accused of having made "the money" and also for hyping the industry in such a way that it lead to the crash. Perhaps. But it is worth noting that experienced entrepreneurs encourage you to stay away from investors for as long as possible. Forever, if you can. Apparently, owning your own thing is worth more than becoming a billionaire because you tend to stay on, you’re in charge and you feel good about it and you’re more likely to keep what you made.
There is also an underlying resentment of corporate culture. Most panelists spoke glowingly about open source computing and the beehive model of work - a kind of libertarian environment where everyone is bound by enlightened self-interest to take on tasks for a common cause, providing their work, resources and skills in return for ways of making their own money.
Pro or con, this may be a true phenomenon because it ties into the decentralization of cities, the universal connectedness and the rugged individualist-beatnick-hippie-libertarian ethos of the Internet.
While most of the panelists agreed there is no reason for the business to be in New York from a technology or content point of view - what with real estate prices and all – New York remains a lifestyle choice. It is also the place to be when you want to sell something, especially if you are going after corporate America
Lesson No. 4: Its not about the money, its about the ride.
This flies in the face of everything you learn in business school (which no one went to or if they did, they claimed helped them not at all, as entrepreneurs). But it’s true. Even Donald Trump says, if you don’t like a business, don’t do it. You won’t succeed and if you do you’ll hate it and act in some way to undermine it.
The entrepreneurs claim they were driven by the fun, the discovery and the chance to take on the big media, especially broadcast. There is some classic Freud here (as in, "every son want so kill his father") but it is also the truth. On the other hand, if they weren’t concerned with money, you wouldn’t have Dachis giving advice like: "make sure you make money every day." It may be a complex dynamic…..
but most investors agree that first there is passion and then business savvy. The business guys tend to jump ship when times get tough (it’s just about the money, right?) but the guys with passion are willing to go underwater even if they might wind up with the bends.
Jeff Dachis put up one million of his own money to shore up his falling stock. He also believed that his mission in life was to keep his staff, his family, earning a living so imagine his shock when he found out they were badmouthing him on F***d Company. Passion has its limits and apparently, good VCs know how to weigh this.
Lesson No. 5: The smart person is the one who gets sober before the party is over.
The entrepreneurs always have a hard time believe that others don’t share the love of company that they do. That’s because it isn’t their company, and entrepreneurs tend to forget that. On the other hand, their passion is inspiring and the first question from the audience made that clear. A dotcom veteran of a big name company, unabashedly declared herself reinspired and desirous of getting going again.
Lesson No. 5 Trust Your gut and find other you can learn from
The panel was pretty much unanimous about trusting their instincts but also in finding good mentors and experienced people who could advise. Apparently, even when you’re on top of the world, asking others for advice works - is either it humbling you enough or flatters them enough that mentors will give it.
Lesson No 6. Publicity is great until it is used against you..
While no one said how great it was being invited on to 60 minutes or the Charlie Rose show to talk about the revolution, everyone complained about being blamed for the hype after the bubble-burst. ("Hey I wrote columns saying how bad it was," quoth one.) Surely, they protest too much. Of course they were part of the hype, and part of the downfall. Since they are unlikely to be sued by anyone, why not stand tough and say "we did what we believed was right. We can’t be blamed for a perfect storm or investor hysteria." What matters is they survived and basically they were right. Being the poster boy is only market crash away from being a dart board. Get used to it. Or as the Brits say, "its better to be a has-been than a bloody never was."
Interestingly, a number of the panelists had recently been to China and were not quite inspired: smoggy, no eCommerce (no credit cards) and you need a general in your pocket to do business since the military runs the show. On the other hand, the Internet cafes are full and people love to play games all day long. Once upon a time these people would have seized upon that as an opportunity – eyeballs, addicted gamers, worldwide phenomenon. But they didn’t.
That’s why you have to respect these guys – and yes, they were almost all guys – but the next revolution is coming from another place. Apparently they are caused by passionate people with something to prove…..and this group has proven it already.
