Drew Yates

[ripped out of a Think Gene comment thread… because… well, see title.]

What really concerns me is that not socially respecting the responsible production of children is pushing the culture of nations towards what is not conducive to modern liberal values. Yes, demographic planning is politically and sometimes ethically challenging. But the alternative is (geometrically) worse.

See: LEBANON. Who were the Shiites a few generations ago? Lebanon was: Maronite > Sunni > Druze. Shittes were just some backwoods ghetto nobodies who had lots of babies. But thanks to the “magic” of geometric expansion: Hezbollah. Two weeks ago these “nobodies” piled into rickshaws and careened through Beirut in a delightful if a bit rowdy little weekend military adventure.

As liberal society, what are we going to do about that? Occupy Iraq because we can trust bunch Saudi sunni koran nerds are going to keep the shiite ghetto boys busy until everyone depends on good ol’ Uncle Sam? Oh wait.
Hezbollah Seizes Swath of Beirut From U.S.-Backed Lebanon Government [NY Times]

So, before I incur liberal American political damage here, I’m not really talking about USA as much as globally.

(Drew’s little reminder that these issues exist beyond the largely benign confines of NYC and SF / LA.) Sorry… I like(d) Lebanon.

Iceland Facing Meltdown as the Credit Crunch Sinks its Currency

Banks all over the world have spent much of the past few years devouring cheap money, but Iceland’s taken the whole thing to quite an extreme. Its big players - Landsbanki Islands HF and Kaupthing Bank - have been on an extraordinary borrowing spree, sucking in vast quantities of cash to fund lending and acquisitions across Europe and the United Kingdom.

Ah, so in other words, in a country of 300,000, a few too-risky banking transactions will sink your currency and end your independence for the foreseeable future.

I strongly do not recommend visiting the main page of this website.

Click’s YTMND galley

It’s recently popular in the press to write about how Iceland is happiest nation in the world. (No Wonder Iceland has the happiest people on earth, The Observer, John Carlin)

I visited Iceland last month on business for about a week.

Iceland seems great statistically because there is no national underclass. Most Icelanders would be considered “middle class” today in the United States: some college, literate, aspiring to home ownership, and employed in services.

In every other country, the national statistics are skewed by some underemployed, undereducated, and often foreign “labor class” (or worse, welfare class). There is no “ghetto” in Iceland (though strangely, graffiti is everywhere). Why?

Because every modern nation was at one time “industrial,” and industrial countries must import/create/preserve a labor class to work factories and plantations. But Iceland went from “frozen rock” to “modern service economy” in about 70 years.

I assure you that it’s not a magical fairyland where everyone is happy. It’s more like an American suburb of 250,000 (maybe Seattle?) where everyone is white and employed in an office… and a glacier/volcano/wind storm has trimmed away the unpleasant urban and rural elements and plunged them into the Arctic ocean.

Icelanders have the same hopes and strifes one would expect in such a suburb.

I sent my parents Paul Graham’s new essay “Lies” in an email in which I mentioned that I had been mean last year.

As in “stop being mean to your sister.”

Though while today, we mean “mean” as “nasty and cruel,” it originally meant “crude like a common peasant.”

So: “stop acting like how common people would act to their sisters.”

Or: “stop acting common.”

Yet today, we tend think of all groups as bell curve. So “common” is means “mean.”

And today, people must behave civilly to work together. So to act “mean” means to act “nice.” So “Why can’t you act like everyone else” means “be nice,” not “be crude.”

So is “mean” nasty or nice?

Why are people here so confused at Half Sigma? (is it because he’s been writing rabbly posts, and so now his comments are full of rabble?)

Rich people don’t care about money because they are rich. It’s like how smart people don’t care about grades because they are smart. So if YOU are smart, translate your complex obsession / disdain / apathetic relationship with grades and school and that’s about how rich people feel about money and work.

Rich people don’t want to associate with working classes (anyone who feels obligated to earn a paycheck) for the same reason smart people (like professors) don’t want to associate with students: because students are trapped in some miserable, artificial game of achievement, and that’s depressing, obnoxious, and scary.

Yet, abstractly, you’re outraged because “education today” is so terrible. You’re frustrated because people either seem willfully stupid, obsequiously pedantic, or hopelessly uninspired. And you’re worried, because everything seems to be “dumming down.”

So what do you do?

You form isolated exclusive intellectual discussion groups on the Internet to discuss why people are so stupid, why education is so bad, and why it’s everyone else’s fault.

And that’s why rich people are Democrats.

So in conclusion, I will participate in an exclusive intellectual discussion group on the Internet to complain about how stupid people are because they don’t understand why rich people tend to be Democrats.

I’m getting sick and tired of the manufactured exclusivity sold by “tech news” sites. The one great asset of Silicon Valley, and West Coast America in general, is it’s social freedom. Social barriers exist here like everywhere, but they are surmountable within a lifetime[1]. Especially in small technology companies, status is so volatile that the people at the top not only understands what it’s like at the bottom (often, because they were there once themselves), but they realize that today’s software engineer could be tomorrow’s technology leader.

So an informal culture of mentoring and networking exists unlike anywhere else in the world.

The Tech News industry seeks to destroy this fragile and unique culture for their own benefit. Why?

They’re adding an artificial layer of competition, status, and prestige to surmount. Tech News benefits when not enough to be “in” with the VCs, an elite university, or top management. One also has to “know” the “right people” in media, too.

Yet —and here’s the kicker: ANYONE CAN PUBLISH ANYTHING ON THE INTERNET THEMSELVES.

So how does one become the “right people” to create an illusion of scarcity and prestige —when anyone can publish anything?

• Pretend that you’re too important for everyone and treat everyone like shit!
• Segregate groups of peers into “in” and “out” groups which you determine! Make tech entrepreneurs feel even more isolated and paranoid and less trusting of each other!
• Abuse your partners and contractors because you are “the tech media” and the repercussions of incurring your ire are far too professionally expensive!

My beef is with Jacob Mullins of Venture Beat. He asked me via a friend to do some “emergency” freelance design work for [removed]. I (very foolishly, taking for granted the casual help-everyone hacker attitude that makes groups like SuperHappyDevHouse and PlugandPlay Tech Center so great) do a two-day design and code turn around over the phone, I REDO design the next week for free (though I asked for a lunch with the Life Science VB reporter, which he couldn’t even do) and then you ignore all my emails and calls? Why, because I was naive enough to try to help your project and didn’t follow proper “business procedure” on a little favor project that barely met my project minimum?

And then you have the audacity to use one of my files on your public website?

And THEN you blow off my friends at their key event when they’ve bent over backwards and held your hand for yours?

Well, fuck you, Jacob Mullins. Because I’m still going to help my friends on little projects whenever I can without reducing my conduct to your pretentious, cowardly east coast “business is business” crap. Keep your name-dropping, rush-wait, “I’m from YALE,” bureau-law business sludge to yourself.

I know that I’m just a young guy starting out in life. But does that mean you have to treat me and my friends like crap? Just because someone is still small, we’re supposed to shut up and take it “or else?” Or else what?

Hauling your ass to small claims court is a waste of my time and energy. You officially (and publicly) have my permission to keep my project minimum AND I’m granting you an retroactive, unlimited license to use the files I made for you since apparently need the money and the help so much. What I want now is a written apology.

You’re going to write me that apology, or I’m going to punch you in the face.

So unless you’ve had a “nervous breakdown” and have been in the hospital for the last month, I’m going to punch you in the face unless you write me an apology note. I am going to punch you in the face because you are a douche, you don’t belong in Silicon Valley, and you deserve it.

Because if there’s one thing I hate more than quietly enduring abuse under the guise of “professional interest,” it’s Internet Tough Guys.

So know that it’s more important to me to punch you in the face than it is to avoid “unnecessarily” risking my professional and civil liberties.

And regardless of where life takes me, I will remember forever that Saeed of PlugandPlay opened my beer even though I had no business with him, and you insulted me after asking for my help. I’d still like to believe that if you treat people like human beings and not like rungs on a ladder or email addresses with bank accounts, that you’ll be rewarded, and if you don’t, that you’ll be punished. Must be a bit of that lingering Midwestern protestant sentiment.

Thanks for becoming my amusing side project, Jacob. Computer work gets so dulling, you know? Stunts like this keeps the entrepreneurial spirits high.

[1] Often, if social barriers are surmountable, they are done so generationally. For example, your parents work hard to send you to the local state university, you work hard to send your kids to be doctors or lawyers, and your children work hard to send their kids to go to elite universities. This is because the barriers are cultural, not material. In Silicon Valley tech companies, the culture between the top and the bottom is close enough to interact. For example, everyone wears jeans and t-shirts, and Woodside’s stubborn even if a bit disingenuous “we’re just a small town in the woods, let’s have breakfast at Buck’s” attitude.

Like “leader,” “entrepreneur” is one of those feel-good, self-help bullshit titles that have been diluted to mean everything from “I made Google” to “I attended a motivational seminar at the community center last Thursday evening. Want to join my sales network?”

Specifically, somebody in my extended family informed me that whenever I talk about “what I do,” it sounds like crazy nonsense. Like, I’m unemployed and I should get a “real job” or something.

Being an entrepreneur is like being an artist: it can mean anything on a spectrum from “delusional loser” to “starving genius” to “visionary power broker” to “I thought it sounded cool.”

So to better serve the general public in its endeavor to better reduce all human interaction to a numerically-prescribed procedure, I present:

Drew Yates’s Entrepreneur Quiz!

…for the family, friends, and bar patrons in the vicinity of an entrepreneur and the similarly-inflicted. By this test, one may more accurately determine how impressed and/or ashamed one should be to associate with noted entrepreneur.

0) Is he an entrepreneur? One must OWN a company to be an entrepreneur!

Yes. They own significant equity in their business. They could hypothetically sell their ownership of the company.

No. They do not own significant equity in their business. They own no assets other than the wages, salary, commission, or bonuses paid by the company.

If yes…

• A) add 10 points
• B) add 5 points
• C) add 0 points
• D) subtract 10 points
• E) ??? (too much variance to judge)

1) What kind of entrepreneur? My experience is technology startups, so what I say may not be relevant for corporate spin-offs, private-wealth ventures, finance, real estate, government contracting, etc.

A. Startup: small company, very fast growth, emphasis on exit (big payment at the end of a few years by an acquisition or IPO), usually technology-oriented

B. Product development without business priority (like open source projects)

C. Consulting, contracting

D. “The Secret” enthusiast, multi-level marketer

E. Employee of startup company

2) Does he seem well-accomplished, bright, articulate, confident, creative, and likable?

A. Yes. With a heart and mind like he has —with a bit of luck— he could do anything.

B. I think so. He certainly has some weaknesses, but he’s probably very good at what he does.

C. I guess he was a nice guy.

D. Wasn’t that like the guy whom my high school hired to give a motivational speech about “diversity,” but then we like saw him working at 7/11 senior year and he totally sold us beer?

E. Serial Killer or Programming Language Inventor?

3) What is his employment history?

A. previous success at other startups with a successful exit (significant profit from IPO, acquisition, or selling equity)

B. leadership management (”vice president” of a bank doesn’t count) or a senior engineer from a good company or consulting firm

C. middle-class desk job, like account manager or database programmer

D. level 59, World of Warcraft

E. Recent university student (4 year or graduate school)

4) Have they released a product?

A. Yes, with paying customers.

B. A beta, prototype, or proof of concept

C. No, but they’re working on it and they know what they’re building

D. No, and they have no obvious ability to execute.

E. Have been working in academia or industry doing research

5) Have they raised funding?

A. Yes, at least a Series A from a reputable venture firm. ($1.5MM+)

B. Yes, at least a seed round or angel funding ($150M to $1.5MM)

C. Personal savings, friends and family, small grant programs ($20M to $150M)

D. No.

E. Privately wealthy

6) Do they have a team?

A. Yes, they work with a team of experienced, talented founders and have already hired several employees (10+ non-founders)

B. A team of competent, complementary founders (3+) with talents and perhaps some employees and contractors

C. A pair of founders or a single founder working with maybe one or two reputable contractors

D. Just one lonely guy…

E. Team of students

7) How well do they run their business?

A. IPO-potential track

B. Business is registered, works with reputable law firm and accounting firm, reasonable business practices

C. Working in residental space, funding by credit cards, no or cheap law help, maybe no accounting help

D. What’s an LLC?

8 ) How good is the idea?

A. “I use this, know people who would use this, I can imagine many people paying for this.”

B. “I don’t understand this, but it seems like something people would buy in their market.”

C. “I don’t see how this could ever make money” or consulting / contracting / services

D. Perpetual motion machine

E. Too specialized / academic to tell

Scoring:

• 80: You buy him drinks, and you blow him on the drive back to your place.
• 79 to 40: You’ll be cooking breakfast
• 39 to 20: He’d better buy you dinner, first
• 19 to 0: Three date minimum, just like everyone else
• less than 0: Looks like it’ll be “Sex and the City” ice cream night again. Did I remember to feed the cat?
• ???: Probably a student or a recent graduate. You can safely ignore anything about what anyone says about who they are to be before the age 25 to fit whatever preconceived notion is most convenient to justify your level of sexual attraction.

(score interpretation open to debate depending on familial or gender orientation)

===

To be fair, here’s my score:

0) yes

[10] 1) A, though until recently most of my work has been C (contracting / consulting)

[10] 2) A, though particularly because I’m a generalist

[??] 3) E, I’ve been working at / with startups since high school, I’m not a senior developer, and I didn’t have an exit from my consulting business

[5] 4) I’ve released other products with paying customers, but because the products and the markets were small, I’m calling it “beta” as we’re integrating it into a new product

[0] 5) I’ve raised seed funding in the past under $150M, and it looks like my new business will also successfully raise a seed round, though this deal is not signed

[??] 6) I’m working with a team of two other recent students with the active guidance of two veteran advisers, but ultimately, we are a team of students

[0] 7) Working on it…

[5] 8 ) Because we’re working on a business-to-business product, not a consumer product

score: 30 + [??]*2

Looks like I’ll be buying dinner… That’s OK, a nice conversation over steak I can do.

From the comments of Open Letter to Comcast (Mountain View, CA)

Andrew,

First thank you for the feedback, I will make sure it is shared. Your update is correct, the initial screens allow you to set up your Comcast.net email address and activate the modem. They are meant to make the process easier and not require additional phone interactions or a manual process, nor are they meant to be intrusive. I also want to apologize for the trouble with the web form. I have forwarded that to the web design team and asked that further tests be conducted with Firefox.

On a more positive note, I did run some tests on your modem and everything is looking good.

Thanks and I hope you enjoy the service.

Frank Eliason
We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com

Frank,

If you want to please your customers, install your cable modem to work WITHOUT the complex MAC capturing software and THEN train the technician to ASK to install additional “value added software.”

Many computer-savvy people are not going to appreciate an unsolicited upsell for your corporate partners and “web destination” corporate strategies. In fact, as you can see, it will piss off your most connected and vocal customers.

As for your feedback form: it’s a simple submit-to-a-database web form. Your IT department is lying to you if they claim that Firefox is somehow more difficult to support. If you need IT help, I recommend asking a some local high school student with a blog. They have websites that work and build them for free. You don’t. For your customers’ sakes, you should to ask yourselves what they know that you don’t.

-Andrew