Beta - Latest Comments in We don't "get it"

Re: We don't "get it"

jessie — Tue, 18 Apr 2006 22:38:06 -0000

http://losbird.org/bbs/messages/6363.html complimentwhosewondered

Re: We don't "get it"

google.cz — Fri, 27 Jan 2006 19:00:32 -0000

the best search engine in hole internet - http://google.ca/me

Re: We don't "get it"

Oluseyi — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 11:19:02 -0000

Yet, strangely, the talkers don't seem to have personally benefitted other than having their legacies venerated. The *DO-ERS* and their subsequent *USE-ERS* received the actual benefit/reward.

Since most of the people responding here are doers (builders) and users, is it surprising that they find the explosion of speculatory verbiage unproductive? The bane of my existence is the difficulty in transitioning from talking about things to doing them!

Re: We don't "get it"

wauter — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 11:00:32 -0000

It is very very likely people talked about the first computers, or even the CONCEPT of computers, this way. And now look what we're all using to have this discussion :)

To name some more, I think the same goes for computer screens, democracy, those highly astronautic 'everybody should be able to think what he wants' philosophers right before the French Revolution, that funny guy with the white hear who had this 'mass is a form of energy' idea...

Sorry if this contribution isn't really a contribution.

Re: We don't "get it"

Wayne Stoker — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 16:37:23 -0000

"We believe that it is possible to talk about technology at that level and that if that work is combined with critical analysis; we believe the output can be very useful."

I challenge you to demonstrate this with a concrete example.

I've listened to too much MBA BullSh*t over the last 20 years to believe that anyone who talks in these terms knows what they're talking about.

Joel is a refreshing return to earth and concrete. You astronauts can go have your cool-aid party without us, thank you kindly. We're busy building stuff that actually does something useful, rather than wasting oxygen spewing gibberish

Re: We don't "get it"

Terrence Cox — Mon, 31 Oct 2005 08:58:11 -0000

Nobody understands that kind of meandering diatribe (It's like a drummer tyring to hit every drum in his set at the same time) when spoken. Whether or not it had meaning has at this point become incidental. There still remains the fact that his ideas weren't CLEARLY (as far as I can see/read) expressed.

Doesn't that count for something?

As for Dean Harding, thanx a million for the "Web Economy Bullshit Generator" link. Awesome! I knew there was a reason I got turned off when someone attempt to blow smoke up my bottom with this "vapor speak".

Re: We don't "get it"

David Gibbons — Sat, 29 Oct 2005 05:24:32 -0000

Joel; here's a translation to layman's English that I blogged up which may help you understand what Yochai was saying. It was actually one of the more substantive comments from these fascinating sessions. When you disagree with some-one smarter than you, you should really keep it to yourself, chances are, you just don't get them.

# the "non-economic" activities we all undertake in our every-day lives; our chores and hobbies ... have recently been discovered to be valuable to economic production,

# ... and are increasingly favored as a preferable operating strategy in new business plans and economic models.

# This is a NEW way of getting things done, it is creating new OPPORTUNITIES and will also result in new PROBLEMS to be solved, the most important of which is how to,

# ... use this new output for GOOD, while not exploiting and corrupting the social values and systems that gave rise to it in the first place.

Re: We don't "get it"

Jake Kaldenbaugh — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:47:38 -0000

Andre, I would argue that in order to create optimal business models that lever this (or any) phenomenon, you need a deep understanding of it. The type of people who are willing and able to analyze topics like this usually tend to be very precise and structured in their analysis. Accordingly, they tend to speak in the same way. Yochai seems to me to be very thoughtful about what he is trying to say. His research is cutting edge and I think he just wants to make sure that he is accurately conveying his emerging theories.

I respect that and I wouldn't denigrate him or an entire segment of innovators and entrepreneurs because of it.

Re: We don't "get it"

Andre — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 18:33:13 -0000

Jake, how come you could say that in a line and a half, and Yochai took half a page? I think that was Joel's point: if you want to offer up a though-provoking topic, just do it, don't recite a dissertation of dairrhea...

Re: We don't "get it"

Jake Kaldenbaugh — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 11:11:49 -0000

So, am I an idiot because I get what Yochai said? He's basically talking about how it's possible to make money off of people's ability to self-organize and desire to communicate. Granted, he's not giving away the answers on how to do that either, but I think that was the point of the meeting. I think USV would *really* like to build optimal business models designed on leveraging this phenomena in order to make a lot of money.

Seems pretty simple to me!

Re: We don't "get it"

Phil — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 08:51:45 -0000

David: "When we think about making money, we're used to thinking about, (a), using money to motivate people to work, and (b), setting up markets and companies to organize working people. Now we're seeing a situation where people are organizing themselves, socially, and doing things together for fun, and yet still producing stuff that someone can somehow make money off of."

...

Basically, it's not about technology, at all. It's about what people do with it.

Or rather, it's not about making money out of technology - it's about making money out of what people do with it. More specifically, making money out of things that people are already doing with technology, without money being involved.

(Which is why social software does not equal Web 2.0 - on which see http://phenomenologic.blogspot.com/2005/10/good-neighbors.html.)

Re: We don't "get it"

Sammy Lin — Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:58:32 -0000

I agree with Ben Jackson's comment:

" I think some people are trying to see if they can re create the DOT COM bubble all over again by creating some hype over a very esoteric concept..."

Or perhaps, no concept whatsoever?

Metricom, during their pre-2000 high VC days, bought into a very small Internet marketing company. One was a young charismatic gay black fellow who could blow WWW-marketing smoke up your ass all day long. The VCs fell under his marketing spiel (which meant nothing at all). They paid millions for empty marketing advice and in the end, of course, nothing came of it. It was incredibly exasperating to watch this process unfold.

That fellow made more in a month than I made in my career. And IMO he knew exactly what he was doing.

Re: We don't "get it"

Julio Nobrega — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 23:48:33 -0000

The only thing that I can agree about Web.nextVersion() is that the humanists need to own this communication form.

Everything else is meaningless. People talk about social networks like if you can build it in 7 days. There's no Bible 2.0, no 10 commandments. I can't attend a lecture and learn how to improve my business. There's always something else to learn, a new concept to acquire, parallel services that converge nowhere.

The internet can produce information at a faster rate than we can manage. I am still TYPING MY THOUGHTS. You guys need to figure out how I can make questions faster, because my imagination isn't confined to a fixed resolution on this monitor screen.

I just know the next problem, not the next solution ^_^

Re: We don't "get it"

Bob Aman — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 15:20:22 -0000

Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication, which is baffling—the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather than admiration. Possibly this trend results from a mistaken belief that using a somewhat mysterious device confers an aura of power on the user.

—Niklaus Wirth

Re: We don't "get it"

Charlie Federman — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 05:24:32 -0000

It seems to me that the conference was indeed quite worthwhile to Joel.... and to all that are digesting the 'long tail' of postings.

If it helped him, and others, crystalize a view that much of what is going on is hot air and not fully baked; that is an incredibly valuable insight. As a VC, who participated in the nuclear winter of '00, where there were simply too many new and similar companies being started and funded, I can appreciate an informed contrarian view and see its importance...both to him and the industry.

He will stay away from spending time with many 2.0 entrepreneurs. And probably be involved with other souls that have the potential to do incredible things in other arenas.

The software world is a rich mosaic of niche (some become huge niches) specialty companies. To the extent we, as an industry, have a sense of balance in creating, investing, and using great software, whether it be 1.0, 2.0 or x.0 we should increase productivity and prosper.

Re: We don't "get it"

Jerry — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 03:06:54 -0000

I'm commenting. Is this Web 2.0? I find it tragic that the commons has become so common. Oh well, we might as well capitalize on it.

Re: We don't "get it"

cc — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 22:32:52 -0000

Joel is right. Fluff. Reminds me of an Orwell piece that far too few people have read.

google it: "Politics and the English Language" orwell

Re: We don't "get it"

David Moles — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 19:20:40 -0000

Lao Tzu: And just because you call it BS doesn't mean it's BS. Like the man said:

The truth is not always beautiful,

nor beautiful words the truth.

Those who have virtue,

have no need of argument for its own sake,

for they know that argument is of no avail.

Re: We don't "get it"

Paul Montgomery — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:06:24 -0000

Oh, is that all Joel was complaining about? Thank goodness, I thought it might have been something important.

I think most of the people building 2.0 companies would actually find that they are on Joel's side if they read this thread.

Re: We don't "get it"

Dawn Douglass — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 16:49:26 -0000

Web 1.0 = "company towns"

Anybody here remember "company towns"? Wealthy barons invaded empty space and built utilitarian roads and simple schools and menial homes that all looked exactly alike down to the one color of paint.

"The company" essentially owned you ("You load 16 tons and whadaya get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St. Peter don’t you call 'cuz I cain't go, I owe my soul to the company store"), while they raked in millions for the owners.

But eventually, enterprising people came to town and started support businesses, and the spouses and children of company employees started making their own independent money. While the wealth of the town increased, the power of the barons decreased. Which brings us to…

Web 2.0 = "public communities"

After a time, after the "easy big money" was gone, the physical assets of the company town were either purchased by small companies with a permanent stake in the area or given to the community. The two most important replacements for the company were (1) a local government and (2) a bank.

In the ning, local governments were more about the bookkeeping of town assets and deciding who'd get access to those assets, rather than for things like law enforcement. Banks were primarily there to help entrepreneurs build private enterprises, and thereby earn returns for themselves.

Now here's the important question for this VC blog: How likely is it that you are going to be successful at creating a company town in 2005? I'd say the chances are next to zero, so why are you still talking about and looking for that kind of opportunity?

Instead, you should be focusing on building an infrastructure around a common goal and then providing access to money to build independent companies that relate to and tie into that goal and infrastructure. And then your "exit strategy" would to get those many successful companies to pay you back and then some, and to eventually sell your created "community assets" to the community itself.

Here is an example: Because of the clout of your cash, you could get a company like Star Bucks to partner in an enterprise whereby visitors to Star Bucks could print off their own personal newspaper, customized so that stories, columns, comics and even ads are relevant to their particular interests and needs. What is the community asset that would be produced?: the personal information and shopping data of the people who use this service. What are the relevant companies you could help create (or expand) around this goal?: the hardware and software companies that would build these newspaper dispensers, content providers who would supply the stories and comics and so on, advertising companies who would provide local and national ads… You could even help monetize existing companies. Craigslist would be a natural for this…customized classified ads, printed only for those people who are actively looking for a particular thing. These newspaper vending machines could eventually be everywhere, including next to the traditional papers on streetcorners. Input your username and password via your cell phone and out pops your paper as you're walking by.

VC's don't have much time left to get it right. The more we entrepreneurs are forced to do it on our own, the more capable and determined we're becoming of doing it without you. There are many solid, pratical, lucrative and actionable ideas that don't come dressed up in made-up proformas and other 1990s MBA bullshit that doesn't mean crap today. Demanding old rules for a new game isn't going to get your very far, IMHO.

MBA, class of 1993

Re: We don't "get it"

Brad Burnham — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:22:56 -0000

Just to be clear… I agreed with Joel, that separating the world into two groups, one who “gets it” and one who doesn’t “get it” is just dumb. I also admitted that even though we learned a great deal at Sessions, there were still a lot of unanswered questions.

Joel went on to suggest that the conversation at Sessions was a lot of hot air. There, I could not disagree more strongly.

I have been going through the transcript of Sessions for the last couple of days. Yes, much of the discussion is abstract. Yes, it takes some effort to follow (in part because our stenographer was not a technologist). But for me, at least, the effort has been well worth it. There are some great insights there.

Re: We don't "get it"

Paul — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 14:09:20 -0000

The emperor is indeed naked. Now could everybody please just get back to work?

Re: We don't "get it"

Paul Holden — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 13:18:37 -0000

Hey, I can think of plenty of actionable ideas to synergize the process going forward. Is that all I have to do to get some of your money?

Re: We don't "get it"

charlie crystle — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:56:09 -0000

In defense of USV (ya like apples, guys? how do you like these apples?):

They held a session with a lot of smart people. Not all agreed. They were open about it, documented everything, and provided it free for all of us to consume. They aren't stupid. They aren't rolling out the carpets for anything called Web 2.0. They talked about concepts, and now we're talking about those concepts. They started dialog, and dialog does advance understanding even when wrapped in jargon.

USV did a good thing with this, and the results shouldn't be dismissed. I don't agree with a lot of it, but I have a lot of respect for the players, especially Fred Wilson and Tom Evslin.

So let's keep the tone upbeat, the posts respectful, and talk about ideas. Cool?

Re: We don't "get it"

Lao Tzu — Tue, 25 Oct 2005 12:52:50 -0000

Just because you can decipher the BS doesn't mean it's not BS.

As far as Web 2.0 goes, it seems just a perfect example of what a wise man said many centuries ago:

those who know, don't talk.

those who talk, don't know.