Maciej Ceglowski - Barely succeed! It's easier!

Maciej Ceglowski：勉强成功反而更容易 Maciej Ceglowski 对现代硅谷发起了经济与文化层面的批判，认为风投支持的初创企业运作在一个封闭且高度计划化的生态系统中，痴迷于超高速增长和向投资者讲故事，而非创造真正的客户价值。他指出，普及化的云基础设施、开源工具和便捷的支付处理器，让独立创始人和微型团队有能力比资金雄厚的竞争对手活得更久。他列举了 Instapaper、NewsBlur、MetaFilter 以及自己的书签服务 Pinboard 等独立运作的成功案例，倡导建立持久且能盈利的“生活事业”（life businesses），保有属于自己的从容与尊严。最后，Ceglowski 呼吁开发者不要再将互联网当作供投机掠夺的淘金场，而应将其视为承载真正手艺与社群的永久家园来悉心守护。 硅谷的运作方式与其说像自由市场，不如说更像计划经济，初创公司通过炮制增长指标来争夺投资者的资金，而非争取真正的付费客户。 (19:00) 骤降的基础设施成本、可靠的开源工具以及现代支付服务，使独立开发者和小团队无需风险投资也能打造出可行且持久的软件业务。 (25:21) 小型自给自足的数字化业务虽常被科技文化轻蔑地称为“生活方式型企业”，但应被视作正规的“生活事业”，它们能带来创作自主权并与客户建立真实的连接。 (33:57) 创作者不应将互联网视作开采后便抛弃的淘金热土，而应将网络视为值得长期进行文化与生态守护的永久家园。 (37:58)

[33:57] Maciej Ceglowski: If you're just trying to make a living and create something neat you're doing a lifestyle business, but for me this has been lifestyle changing. [35:18] Maciej Ceglowski: People want you to succeed if they like your product, so they're actually happy to pay you, and people started coming to Pinboard specifically because I was charging money, which blew my mind.

[0:02] [Music] [0:11] thank you so much it's a real honor to [0:13] be here today I want to warn you that [0:16] this is going to be an incredibly [0:18] inspirational talk uh if so if at any [0:22] moment you find yourself feeling un well [0:25] um just kind of check out you know maybe [0:27] tweet something take a breath and come [0:29] back in when you're ready and it'll be [0:31] totally fine um we're going to start [0:33] kind of soaring like a falcon at the [0:35] 10,000 meter level uh cover all of [0:38] history and technology and culture and [0:41] the interplay between them uh through [0:43] the span of human existence and then [0:45] we're going to begin kind of a spiraling [0:47] descent um through a series of you know [0:50] concentric spirals where I rant about [0:52] startup culture and why I hate it U at [0:55] some point we we'll enter the cloud uh [0:57] and then I will talk about the cloud and [0:59] how I feel about that um and as we come [1:01] out of the cloud uh we're going to do a [1:03] deep dive going to Deep dive right to [1:06] the the low hanging fruit um we level [1:09] off we're going to pick off the low [1:10] hanging fruit as a takeaway going [1:12] forward uh they're going to be eminently [1:15] tweetable and if enough forward momentum [1:18] remains in the talk we try to pull it up [1:20] and soar to kind of a high emotional [1:23] Crescendo at the end of the talk so your [1:27] minds have probably filled with [1:28] questions at this point [1:30] uh why would the falcon go get the low [1:34] hanging fruit why not get the fruit at [1:35] the top of the tree where it can just [1:37] grab them with its Talons as it goes by [1:39] and nobody gets the high- hanging fruit [1:41] uh and some of you might be wondering [1:42] well you know why would a falcon eat [1:44] fruit it's uh why doesn't eat mice and [1:47] rabbits and then some people will be [1:49] saying that's a California condor it's [1:51] not a falcon at all [1:53] so and the beauty of this talk is that [1:55] there are no right or wrong answers to [1:58] these questions you have to kind of find [2:00] the answer within to uh you know what on [2:02] Earth it is that I'm talking [2:06] about so I want to start at the very [2:09] high level uh talking about what's [2:11] possibly the worst pitch meeting in [2:13] recorded American history um it happened [2:15] in 1532 in what is now Peru between uh [2:20] poor Emperor adala uh the god king of [2:23] the Incas and a band of 160 Spaniards um [2:28] you may have heard of this it's famous [2:29] because it's one of these things that if [2:30] you saw it in a movie you'd walk out [2:32] because it's so unbelievable but it it's [2:34] a historical event so adala came to the [2:37] pitch meeting with 880,000 uh of you [2:40] know his finest Warriors he was carried [2:42] on a litter by uh Nobles resp [2:45] resplendant dressed because it was a [2:46] high honor to carry uh the emperor and [2:49] they were met by The frier Who came out [2:52] and gave a short and very poor elevator [2:55] pitch for Catholicism at the end of [2:57] which he handed the emperor a Breviary [3:00] Emperor wasn't impressed and he threw it [3:01] to the ground and that was enough [3:02] pretext of course for the slaughter to [3:04] commence the Spaniards had hidden [3:05] themselves around the sides of the [3:07] square and they had although they were [3:09] outnumbered 400 to1 um they had horses [3:12] they had guns Cannon and of course they [3:13] had Steel weapons and armor so um in the [3:17] middle of the slaughter even the [3:19] Spaniards were freaked out by the fact [3:21] that as they were trying to get to the [3:22] emperor and pull him down off the [3:24] platform um as they sliced and diced [3:26] people would just jump in to take of you [3:28] know their fallen comrades place it was [3:30] so important to them that the emperor [3:32] not touched the ground and there were [3:33] these Mony python scenes where you know [3:35] they' several Limbs and people would [3:36] still be holding up the platform with [3:38] their shoulders [3:41] so the uh the emperor was kidnapped and [3:43] he died shortly afterwards never [3:45] learning what a godsend he'd given to [3:47] Keynote speakers uh you know for years [3:49] to come because there's so many [3:50] directions you can take this episode one [3:53] of them of course is you know the power [3:54] of technology or you know conflict of [3:57] civilization sort of thing for me it [3:58] demonstrates the of [4:01] culture the you know there's nothing [4:03] that that separates us from these Incas [4:05] that we're so uh eager to die rather [4:08] than see their Emperor hit the ground [4:10] you know we're the same mentally and [4:11] biologically just have a different [4:13] upbringing and [4:14] worldview and if you know you're a [4:17] reflective person that's kind of a [4:18] terrifying thought because it's easy to [4:20] think well you know these people are uh [4:22] you know are kind of Loco but maybe [4:24] there's something in our own culture [4:25] that is equally irrational viewed from a [4:27] distance but that we would Happ [4:30] U you know go to our Graves doing [4:33] so this has puzzled people before and [4:35] you try to get very rational about it [4:37] and analyze yourself and make sure that [4:39] you know your your your own culture is [4:41] sane uh but I think it turns out that [4:45] for us human beings it's impossible to [4:46] actually step outside of who we are and [4:48] look dispassionately at our cultural [4:50] beliefs and the first person I ever [4:51] heard talk about uh culture in in the [4:54] context of computers was this guy Larry [4:56] wall who's a really a wonderful man you [4:58] know I was [5:00] was one of those visual artists who Got [5:02] Hijacked into uh into programming and my [5:05] point of entry was Pearl I didn't really [5:06] know what I was getting into but Pearl [5:09] was Larry Wall's baby and love it or [5:11] hated as many people's opinions are [5:13] polarized it was uh a different language [5:15] than all the rest and one of the things [5:18] that Larry that was exceptional about [5:19] Larry wall was that when he was [5:20] designing Pearl he actually thought [5:22] ahead to what kind of culture he wanted [5:24] around it what kind of people he wanted [5:25] to be pearl hackers and he made a point [5:28] although the language was ugly by [5:30] everybody's standard uh it was [5:31] incredibly versatile and useful so what [5:34] ended up happening is there was a [5:35] community of people who were all holding [5:37] their noses and using Pearl because it [5:39] got things done when their normal tools [5:41] wouldn't uh but that Community was [5:43] incredibly eclectic and diverse uh for [5:47] computers I mean you know let it's not [5:50] dream too big um and you know and Larry [5:55] wall it's no accident that he's a really [5:56] religious guy and he has trained as a [5:58] missionary um he you know kind of [6:00] explicitly said that he wanted people to [6:03] uh you know really exercise their minds [6:06] and look at you know to be able to look [6:08] at uh their own points of view from [6:10] another Direction and that's why he [6:12] wanted to have this eclectic group of [6:13] people around Pearl so on the one hand [6:16] you know he terrified me with this [6:17] thought that you can't actually step [6:18] outside of yourself and evaluate your [6:20] culture on the other hand he there was [6:22] this kind of U bit of relief that you [6:25] know it's perfectly okay to think about [6:27] what kind of people you want in your [6:28] world when you're design find something [6:30] technical it doesn't you know it falls [6:31] within the spec if you want it [6:33] to so when I was a kid and I imagine [6:37] this hold true for a lot of you uh when [6:39] people talked about tech culture this is [6:40] what they talked about you know uh we [6:43] were going to be living in space uh [6:46] we're going to have these little tiled [6:48] patio Ranch houses in space and uh you [6:51] know sci-fi and paintings like this they [6:53] were all hokey and silly but uh they at [6:56] least gave you an idea of what it would [6:58] actually be like to live in a world with [7:00] these cool Technologies uh so you know [7:04] culture was was a device that you know [7:06] took things that were abstract like [7:08] rockets and lasers and faster than light [7:10] travel and then in sci-fi you could read [7:12] about what it would actually be like as [7:13] a human being to live in that world and [7:15] of course Tech culture ended up crappier [7:17] than we thought it was going to be [7:18] nobody's in space almost uh and today I [7:22] want to actually rant at you about U [7:24] about tech culture because I think it [7:25] kind of sucks and I want to hopefully [7:28] motivate myself or you or all of us to [7:30] make it better um and when I talk about [7:32] tech culture being kind of lame I don't [7:34] mean the standard critique that you know [7:36] there's child predators and there's [7:38] scams and identity theft and people [7:40] aren't using apostrophes correctly and [7:42] that you know teenagers are tweeting [7:43] instead of reading PR like they used to [7:45] do all like Jonathan fransen style [7:47] culture High culture not at all [7:49] what I mean is that like more people [7:51] could be doing really cool stuff than [7:53] our doing it uh people could be having [7:55] more fun than they're having and uh you [7:58] know things could be a lot more [8:01] distributed and decentralized like they [8:03] used to be in the good old days and we' [8:05] have a better world for it [8:08] um but I face uh I face a handicap here [8:11] so on the one hand I come from [8:14] California and one of our main [8:15] industrial exports is these motivational [8:17] speakers right who uh they come to your [8:19] country they put on a microphone like [8:21] this uh they stride the stay bestride [8:23] the stage confidently and on the left [8:25] here Anthony Robbins will tell you that [8:27] you know uh you must awaken the Giant [8:29] within uh and Tim Ferris you know he's [8:31] the author of The 4-Hour Work week and [8:34] and the 4-Hour Body and the 4-Hour [8:35] orgasm basically if you can't do it in [8:37] four hours Tim Ferris doesn't want to [8:39] talk to you uh and Ray kurile uh he's [8:43] going to tell you to pack your bags [8:44] because you're about to get uploaded to [8:46] an eternal life of animatronic Bliss [8:48] probably on a Google server uh maybe [8:51] funded by some sort of I don't know in [8:52] Universe kind of AdSense that hasn't [8:54] been figured out yet but you know the [8:56] singularity is imminent and I would like [8:58] to come here and I would like to insire [8:59] us that we all shoot out the door and [9:01] make Tech culture a better place but I [9:03] faced this problem my own culture I was [9:07] born in Poland I was raised by polish [9:09] parents I am a slav Slavs believe that [9:12] the world is a place of dirtiness and [9:15] pain uh you know if you can get find a [9:18] warm Corner enjoy half a cooked potato [9:21] uh in relative safety and comfort while [9:23] marauding armies are destroying your [9:25] fields and you've already plucked the [9:26] fruits of life and are soon going to [9:28] draw the vengeance of a smiting God upon [9:30] you um this worldview while close to my [9:33] heart makes it challenging to be a [9:35] motivational speaker so I've tried to [9:38] square the circle today with this [9:40] doctrine that I call barely succeed U I [9:44] want to convince you today that if [9:46] you're willing to work hard and if [9:49] you're willing to follow your dreams and [9:51] not be intimidated uh you two you know [9:54] can find success kind of within your [9:57] mildest dreams um [10:01] and furthermore I want to convince you [10:03] that it's actually a really cool and [10:05] opportune time to be trying to do small [10:07] projects uh that can successfully [10:09] compete against uh lavishly funded [10:11] startups or really big companies and I'm [10:13] going to deploy a a kind of an economic [10:16] argument why I think startup culture is [10:17] riding from the inside and I'm going to [10:20] uh I have an humanistic argument to give [10:22] as well and then at some point I'm just [10:24] going to resort to Raw appeals to [10:25] emotion to try to kind of drive it home [10:27] and we'll see how how um how well it [10:30] gets but I honestly do believe that [10:32] startup culture is outdated and you must [10:34] understand another Slavic quality is [10:36] this kind of innate laziness if you look [10:38] carefully at this painting uh you know [10:40] nobody's actually pulling this boat [10:41] they're just kind of leaning forward the [10:43] only only the new guy is is making any [10:46] effort and then um note also that the [10:48] boat is facing in the opposite direction [10:50] um and I'll leave that to the mysteries [10:53] of of [10:55] art so if you're going to come to [10:58] someone's country and start talking [10:59] about barely succeeding we should [11:01] probably discuss what it means to [11:02] succeed at all so there are some [11:04] different ideas about success most [11:06] obvious one is just like having lots of [11:08] money and I think in in computer land [11:11] people aren't actually motivated purely [11:12] by money it's it's neat sometimes when [11:14] they are because it's very easy to [11:16] understand it's almost mathematical like [11:17] what their motivations are but most [11:19] people aren't uh aren't so crft who are [11:21] in in Tech that said you know we all [11:23] need money to actually do the things we [11:25] want to do and and and pursue them only [11:28] people who are very rich have the y of [11:29] just you know uh being dabblers so we [11:32] have to have an honest conversation [11:33] about where the money is going to come [11:35] from but the the form of success that's [11:38] uh more beloved and endemic in startup [11:41] culture is this sort of quest for Empire [11:44] this is corneus Van Cornelius Vanderbilt [11:46] who probably had the greatest business [11:48] Empire the United States ever saw he was [11:51] a steamship and then a rail road Tycoon [11:54] and lots and lots of people want to be [11:56] like him or Steve Jobs where you take an [11:58] idea maybe find some Gable stoe to build [12:01] it for you and then you deploy it into a [12:04] vaster and vaster Company and you know [12:06] go through all this SK dugery [12:07] competition and end up you know having a [12:10] giant Corporation as your legacy and [12:12] this is kind of the the standard [12:14] endorsed startup [12:16] dream and then there's the idea of [12:18] meaningful work this fell is Joe Sutter [12:20] he is the chief engineer on the [12:23] 747 very very modest guy and I recently [12:26] read his book about working on the plane [12:28] this was buil before there were [12:31] computers to help with any of it so it [12:33] was all handdrawn and then they actually [12:34] had to build a plywood version to see [12:36] that all the parts fit it was an amazing [12:37] piece of work and Joe Suter was an [12:39] extremely modest writer somewhere at the [12:41] end of his book mentions that sometimes [12:42] when I'm tired of reading at the airport [12:44] I like to go stand at the window and [12:46] watch the 747s land and I thought boy [12:49] that's an awesome career to have if I [12:51] was him I would not be able to shut up [12:53] about building the 747 you would not [12:55] want to sit next to me on that plane I'd [12:57] be like see that window I design that [12:59] window you know you see that chair [13:02] that's me so uh and the thing about our [13:06] field is it's distressingly easy to go [13:10] through a really like rich and [13:12] intellectually stimulating fun career [13:14] working on lots of projects uh with [13:17] great colleagues learning all the time [13:19] and not leave any sort of Mark at all [13:21] before I started pinboard u I worked on [13:24] lots of things but as I reflect on them [13:25] there's nothing that's left of what I [13:27] ever worked on um you know for various [13:30] reasons startups that failed or you know [13:32] work at Big corporations that just kind [13:34] of turns over but when I think in the [13:37] Long View like that's you know there was [13:38] no meaningful work that I did that you [13:41] know that the world would not have been [13:42] different without me there and that's a [13:43] depressing thought to feel the worst I [13:45] ever felt about it was at live Journal [13:48] where my job briefly was to work on an [13:49] ad server you know I had to make sure [13:52] that the ads that were shown [13:53] corresponded to the you know the user [13:56] that was viewing them and I broke it for [13:58] about 5 hours [13:59] it was a big Kur fuffle but I realized [14:01] later that night that for 5 hours I had [14:02] made everybody's life better who visited [14:05] live Journal you know 200,000 people [14:07] that day had been briefly uplifted [14:09] because I failed you know to do what I [14:11] did and that was uh was a terrible [14:13] thought I wanted to actually pull the [14:14] audience but I can't see you well so if [14:16] you could clap all of you who have [14:18] worked on something for three months and [14:19] seen it just completely you know go down [14:21] the drain clap if that's happened to you [14:23] in your career all right and then how [14:25] about everybody whose six months of work [14:27] is just gone [14:30] all right almost in life and who's [14:31] worked on something for a year or more [14:32] that's you know obliterated no one ever [14:35] all right I'm I'm really sorry to hear [14:37] that so uh the I guess the Clapping is [14:40] kind of people who listen to this on [14:41] audio are going to be puzzled like you [14:42] know at the strange Australian [14:44] sensibility but that's on [14:46] you so I want to launch into my rant on [14:49] startups uh why I hate them so much so [14:51] talk about the standard model of [14:53] startups uh it's it's a lot like the [14:54] standard model of physics you know it [14:55] was developed in the 50s and 60s [14:57] perfected in the 70s and it's both [14:59] proven incredibly effective and very [15:01] very stultifying uh and just like the [15:03] standard model of physics the standard [15:05] model of startups ignores you know 96% [15:07] of reality because you just can't figure [15:09] out what to do with it uh unlike the the [15:11] the standard model of physics the [15:13] startup one actually uh has been [15:15] changing a lot in recent years and has [15:16] reached a kind of decadent [15:19] phase so let's look at what it is first [15:21] we'll start with a classical version [15:23] that we all kind of know by heart so you [15:25] know two young men of course uh meet uh [15:28] fall in love and decide create a product [15:30] so you know it's software maybe it's [15:32] Hardware they make a prototype that's [15:33] good enough that it persuade someone who [15:35] has the capacity to write a check to [15:37] write that check and form them as a [15:39] corporation U this is Mike marulas and [15:41] investor number one in apple uh and [15:43] after that check is signed the the the [15:46] the job of the startup becomes to grow [15:49] as fast as possible I'm going to switch [15:51] companies here and show a picture of you [15:52] know the early Microsoft Team U for some [15:56] people in uh computer land you know [15:59] growing is the definition of a startup [16:00] you're supposed to hire hire and hire [16:02] more and demonstrate traction and you go [16:05] through these complicated funding rounds [16:07] I'm these diagrams are going to get [16:08] pretty abstruse and we don't have time [16:10] to go into the details but I want you to [16:11] understand how complex this process is [16:13] basically you're asking people for money [16:15] once twice and again and hiring in [16:16] between you get a mezzanine round that [16:18] sounds very elegant I'm not sure what it [16:20] is U and the goal of the process is at [16:23] the end to reach uh this please excuse [16:26] my language glorious exit event where [16:29] where uh the company is sold at IPO on [16:32] the public stock market and everybody [16:34] who invested in it gets very rich and [16:35] the public is gifted with uh with a new [16:38] Corporation um you know now there's like [16:41] I said there's a lot of ins and outs to [16:42] this uh the model has been changing in [16:44] recent years uh for example you know it [16:48] used to be important to have an idea [16:50] when you started the idea has been [16:51] devalued a little bit uh it's you need [16:54] an idea to demonstrate that you're [16:55] really smart but it doesn't have to be [16:56] the same idea you're actually going to [16:57] do in fact pivoting once or twice it's [16:59] kind of an elegant introductory move to [17:00] your startup uh the same thing goes for [17:03] Revenue it's not detrimental to your [17:07] chances of getting funded to actually [17:08] have Revenue but it's considered a [17:10] little bit go because you know you're [17:11] wasting effort you could be doing on [17:13] gaining market share I love this graph [17:15] particularly because it shows not only [17:17] the you know exponential hockey stick [17:18] curve we've grown to love with startups [17:20] but also there's this section on the [17:22] bottom called the Living Dead Break Even [17:25] no growth you know uh so I'm a Zombie up [17:28] here talking to you because pinboard has [17:30] had 22,000 active users for over a year [17:33] now and uh you know I don't even know [17:35] how I maintain a pulse but somehow I've [17:38] pulled it together the coffee is very [17:41] strong so there's also this added [17:44] complication now of an incubator model [17:46] so suddenly we've come up with these [17:47] incubators right that you don't just go [17:50] to investors and Angels you start [17:52] getting incubated uh and like within the [17:56] incubator you get a little money but you [17:58] also get introduced you know up the [18:01] ecosystem to the higher forms of life [18:03] and it's sort of more of a social [18:04] capital thing I fail to understand it [18:07] perfectly uh and then the um the nature [18:10] of the exit event has also changed the [18:13] IPO is sort of day class say and now the [18:16] thing you do is you get acquired usually [18:17] by Yahoo or someone else who has a lot [18:19] of money and is low on ideas and buys [18:21] your company um and what happens if you [18:25] know you fail to get acquired uh people [18:27] speak of it in Whispers is dreaded uh [18:29] Aqua hire of course where your company [18:31] is still bought but it's bought for a [18:34] pittance basically to save the expense [18:36] of trying to hire your team uh you know [18:39] indirectly and in the aqua hire you're [18:41] stuck in this sort of limbo where you [18:42] have to stay within the company for two [18:43] or three years before then you're [18:45] released back into the wild and the [18:47] whole process can begin a new so this is [18:49] a very brief tutorial on how startups [18:51] work right uh and now I want to talk [18:54] about how they don't work the main [18:57] critique I have of startups is that even [18:59] though these people are Venture [19:00] capitalists what they're practicing is [19:02] no longer capitalism um if you talk to [19:05] people in Silicon Valley they're all [19:07] libertarian free marketeers but these [19:09] companies do not compete on the free [19:10] market they're not offering products uh [19:13] and services and then you know trying to [19:14] best each other in that [19:17] uh in in The Wider world they're [19:19] competing for a resource which is [19:21] venture capitalist attention and venture [19:24] capitalist money they're optimizing for [19:26] being able to tell really persuasive [19:28] stories to venture capitalists in order [19:30] to obtain additional funding and [19:32] sometimes those stories involve having [19:34] to collect chits in the form of users or [19:36] eyeballs because you don't have [19:37] customers when you run a startup uh you [19:39] know to persuade the investors that [19:41] you're on track but it's really you know [19:43] an Insider game and we had this you know [19:46] back when I was growing up we called it [19:48] central planning uh a bunch of really [19:50] smart people whose job it was to figure [19:51] out exactly where to put the money and [19:53] what stuff to work on based on stories [19:55] that they heard from the field some of [19:57] them quite inventive uh so I'm very [19:59] skeptical of this model that as soon you [20:01] know as soon as we stopped caring about [20:03] Revenue uh I guess it was during the [20:05] first bubble as as being relevant you [20:08] know we entered into this closed system [20:10] and when you get the sense that Silicon [20:12] Valley is really far up its own ass with [20:14] the stuff it works on that's kind of the [20:16] reason this is happening is this uh this [20:19] closed [20:20] loop I want to talk briefly about this [20:23] model of how uh customers and and [20:26] companies relate to one another like you [20:29] when you go to the corner store and you [20:31] buy a packet of peanuts it's pretty easy [20:34] to understand what's happening you're [20:35] giving money to the person they're [20:36] giving you peanuts and uh you don't have [20:39] to say much more about it but as soon as [20:40] you start talking about business models [20:42] in computer land it gets very [20:43] complicated somehow there's this [20:45] triangular relationship between [20:46] investors and companies and users the [20:49] users don't get to pay directly for [20:50] services they don't really have a claim [20:52] on the company at all but there's all [20:53] these bizarre flows and things that [20:55] happen uh because the Company's trying [20:57] to demonstrate to their investors that [20:59] they should be funded further um when [21:01] advertising enters into the mix you get [21:03] an even more complicated system you have [21:04] the advertiser who's producing something [21:06] that you have to then kind of shovel [21:07] into the user the user is generating [21:10] data in your system that gets passed [21:11] back up to the advertiser and this whole [21:13] beautiful Tableau is something you show [21:15] to the investor to get more [21:18] funding [21:20] so that's kind of uh one critique I have [21:24] of of startups a more serious one is [21:27] that it basic basically only favors one [21:29] half of this couple uh right now at [21:32] least my corner of the world is full of [21:34] Steve Jobs wannabes and we have precious [21:36] few Steve wak wannabes I think the [21:38] balance should be reversed uh what [21:40] startups have to offer someone who wants [21:42] to be like Steve Jobs is great you know [21:44] you get put in a role where you have two [21:47] jobs fundraising all the time or uh [21:50] trying to hire and grow your team and if [21:52] you're an Empire Builder that's Nirvana [21:54] for you but if you're someone who like [21:56] works on cool things and has a neat idea [21:58] and wants to develop it what happens is [22:00] as soon as you're funded by a startup [22:03] you have to drop everything and become a [22:04] manager and become a fundraiser and [22:06] you're no longer doing the thing you're [22:07] good at so it's this real waste of [22:09] talent when people get caught in this [22:10] treadmill and you see it over and over [22:12] again uh when you listen to people in [22:14] startups how fundraising consumes all of [22:16] your time past uh you know past [22:20] imagining all right I'm going [22:23] to I'm going to come back to this point [22:25] in a second uh but this idea of constant [22:29] growth the the the fetishizing growth is [22:33] actually a really smart move on the part [22:34] of part of startups because the only [22:38] thing that is still expensive in Silicon [22:40] Valley and and anywhere else is labor [22:43] you know we've gotten to a point where [22:44] almost everything else costs very little [22:46] or nothing and I'll give a more detailed [22:48] argument for that later but labor is [22:50] still expensive so uh in order for [22:52] venture capital and and incubators and [22:54] all these people to remain relevant you [22:55] have to convince companies that they [22:56] need to grow and grow and grow and lots [22:58] of money which they can only get from [23:01] investors all right this uh is is more a [23:03] criticism of startup culture than the [23:05] economics of the business but I think [23:08] it's it really sucks like we have uh you [23:11] know this is Paul Graham and one of his [23:13] uh one of his why combinator groups and [23:16] this is a man who you know who's gone on [23:18] record saying that he would never work [23:19] with a woman who might consider having [23:21] children because you know she'll have [23:23] kids and then she won't be able to work [23:24] on the startup or he's explaining the [23:26] fact that you know it's it's kind of [23:28] natural that there's very few women [23:30] applying to Y combinator because we hire [23:32] people who are friends and it's not [23:34] usual for people of different Sexes to [23:35] be friends with one another so having [23:37] finding two women who are friends you [23:38] know it's uh it's it's he has a math [23:42] equation explaining how rare it is um so [23:45] you know I I think these kind of [23:47] attitudes are endemic in computer land [23:49] especially in Silicon Valley and it's [23:52] not about hating women but it's about [23:54] this kind of willful cluelessness and [23:56] this idea that it's perfectly fine that [24:00] basically half of humanity is excluded [24:02] uh and and we're losing half of our [24:04] talent because somewhere along the line [24:06] we create a environment poisonous for [24:08] women whether it's you know first [24:09] learning uh computer stuff or later on [24:14] you can U you can find out all about it [24:16] in at length online the point is they [24:19] just don't care and so this is what [24:21] really roused me up about startup [24:22] culture and makes me want to hoist a [24:23] black flag is like you know we need to [24:25] get these people out of here and have a [24:28] more fun culture uh and like this photo [24:31] appeared um just recently this is the [24:33] CEO of Yahoo you know an enormous Tech [24:36] corporation uh in a photo spread in [24:39] Vogue I'm not saying anything about um [24:42] Marissa Meyer's motives I I don't know [24:43] the woman and I don't have any Judgment [24:45] of her for making the choice to appear [24:47] in a photo spread in a fashion magazine [24:49] the point I want to make is um this is [24:52] not an issue that ever faces Larry [24:54] Ellison or Larry pagee they never have [24:57] to care about this even if GQ as a joke [24:59] where ask Larry Ellison hey will you [25:00] appear in a fashion issue he wouldn't [25:02] have to sit down and think like what [25:03] will this mean for men in technology [25:05] even the concept of men and technology [25:07] is kind of visible you know men is [25:09] technology so uh you know we have a [25:11] really badly broken culture with respect [25:13] to women and it's 2013 it's really [25:16] really you know it's kind of late in the [25:18] game for [25:19] this [25:21] so like what is the point of startup uh [25:25] the startup model you know it's uh it it [25:28] was always the case that you had a lot [25:31] of money and you had people who were bad [25:33] at identifying good ideas and good ideas [25:36] cost a lot of money to try out so this [25:38] was a system that let people you know [25:40] try to scout out Talent give them a [25:41] modest sum give them access to resources [25:44] and then count on the fact that one in a [25:46] thousand or something would be such a [25:48] huge hit that it would pay for [25:49] everything else and of course this is [25:52] the same model that is used by the [25:53] record industry and the publishing [25:55] industry uh that is you know you're [25:59] trying to make hits and that's how you [26:01] make your profits what I find Curious is [26:03] that startups have uh in Silicon Valley [26:06] are gleeful about the fact that they've [26:08] destroyed uhu you know publishing and [26:10] are destroying recording these outdated [26:12] dinosaur business models but they [26:14] continue to use the same business model [26:15] themselves they apply all of this energy [26:18] and thoughtfulness into clever ideas for [26:20] companies but none of that energy and [26:22] thoughtfulness into like clever ideas [26:24] about how companies could be like [26:26] different business models ways to you [26:28] know ways to build a thing and and fund [26:31] your [26:33] project so this conference is 10 years [26:36] old and I just wanted to drive home the [26:39] point that everything has changed [26:40] rapidly in those 10 years and we really [26:43] can't escape from this startup trap U [26:45] because of technological changes so [26:48] first off uh 10 years ago hosting was a [26:50] matter of buying yourself a computer and [26:52] finding a place to put it um it was an [26:54] extremely expensive fixed cost [26:56] especially if you had to rapidly expand [26:58] uh in the interim we found you know [27:00] we've created basically all these [27:01] virtualization services from Zen all the [27:04] way through the various uh cloudy type [27:06] things where you can just rent stuff [27:08] rent space as a commodity and uh for [27:11] prototypes basically the cost of Hosting [27:12] has become [27:14] free when you look [27:16] at there we go when you look at the [27:18] building blocks like the kind of Legos [27:19] that you can actually make products with [27:21] uh there's been an enormous explosion [27:23] like all of the stuff that you used to [27:24] have to code up yourself now exists and [27:26] it's open source and it's used by the [27:28] biggest companies in the world so it's [27:29] debugged you know halfway to death you [27:32] can rely on it um from the Frameworks [27:35] that kind of started appearing 2004 2005 [27:37] that became good enough for production [27:39] uh things like Sphinx which is a search [27:41] engine varnish a caching layer stuff on [27:43] the client side like jQuery and these [27:44] other JavaScript libraries Rock Solid [27:47] relational databases message cues all [27:49] these pieces everything had to be [27:50] customade before is now just on off the [27:52] shelf and free and in most cases open [27:55] source and finally uh ways to get money [27:58] 10 years ago you couldn't really charge [28:01] people uh you couldn't charge them small [28:03] amounts of money it was impossible and [28:04] if you wanted to charge them big amounts [28:05] of money you had to set up a payments [28:07] Gateway people were exceptionally [28:09] skittish about giving credit card [28:11] information online for good reason and [28:13] there was just no mechanism for it and [28:15] in the interim we've seen an explosion [28:16] of stuff uh first of course was AdSense [28:19] which had its own Revolution but then [28:21] there were things like PayPal uh brain [28:23] tree stripe these services that let you [28:26] collect money directly from users as [28:28] well as a lot of these app stores and [28:29] ecosystems that they give an outlet for [28:32] you to sell stuff on but they also [28:33] created a culture where it was [28:35] considered normal to pay a small amount [28:36] for an app and that has bled over into [28:39] the web it's normal now to maybe pay for [28:41] a website you won't get laughed at by [28:43] everybody and then finally on the device [28:45] side you know I put the iPhone up [28:47] because it's so important but equally [28:49] important are browsers that are just [28:50] work and our standards compliant and you [28:52] can you more or less do the same thing [28:54] across all of them JavaScript works fine [28:56] on them and people have smartphones that [28:57] they carry around now that can run the [28:59] web whether it's Android or Apple so all [29:01] of this like massive effort you used to [29:03] have to put into and I know you CSS and [29:05] and and javascrip people are grumbling [29:06] it's not true but really like remember [29:08] what it used to be like and you know [29:10] that it's gotten a lot lot better so you [29:11] can count on people having these [29:13] devices what I argue is that together [29:16] this is kind of a revolution that makes [29:17] it possible for small companies to uh do [29:20] amazing things and so I have a Rogues [29:22] Gallery okay of course I'm going to put [29:24] myself up there uh but here's a [29:25] competitor in Germany this is someone I [29:28] send people to when they think book uh [29:30] pin board is too texy so he runs it by [29:32] himself very successfully I can't wait [29:34] to meet him um insta paper is a famous [29:37] example Mar armman basically invented [29:39] this category by himself and ran it by [29:40] himself until he wanted to work on a new [29:43] project uh news blur is [29:46] U benefited greatly from the uh sudden [29:50] Google Reader disappearance this was a [29:52] pet project of Sam clay and suddenly you [29:54] know he's got a business on his hands [29:56] that he runs completely by himself [29:59] um you might think you know well you can [30:01] do these kind of uh nambi pami [30:04] bookmarking and uh uh inaer Lake sites [30:07] but what about real stuff so here's a [30:09] search engine that is built as as a [30:11] project by one person eventually you [30:13] know it acquired employees and got [30:14] funding but for a long time it was just [30:16] a solo effort Duck Duck Go when the [30:19] revelations about American spying came [30:20] out in June they were just hammered with [30:22] traffic because their whole business [30:23] model is privacy [30:26] um you know you might say you can't [30:28] build a game but of course Minecraft is [30:30] one of the top selling PC games of all [30:31] time this is going away from the barely [30:33] part of barely succeed but you know I [30:34] have to uh I'll be heading back there [30:37] soon enough um uh if you want a game [30:40] that barely succeeds a what is it dwarf [30:43] Quest I can't remember the name but it's [30:44] this incredibly uh it looks like line [30:46] noise but it's this incredibly deep game [30:48] that is basically someone's life work uh [30:50] and that has fanatical following you [30:54] know social networks same thing they [30:55] exist they're just in a different form [30:57] than what you're used to meta filter has [30:58] been around since 1999 has a wonderful [31:00] Community run by one dude uh rivalry is [31:03] a great example of a husband and wife [31:04] team that you know eventually grew into [31:06] a small company um every once in a while [31:08] a startup in Silicon Valley thinks you [31:09] know gets cocky and tries to take down [31:12] rivalry and take over uh the knitting [31:13] vertical as they call it and you know [31:15] about six months later they get their [31:17] ass handed to them in a beautifully [31:18] crocheted little bag with a bow that [31:20] just sent back um because rivalry is [31:22] secretly a social network and not just a [31:24] place to exchange patterns in knitting [31:27] um Fortune well you know everyone's [31:29] scared of Fortune but Chris P is one of [31:31] my heroes he runs this thing and he's [31:33] you know he has an amounts of traffic [31:35] that few websites ever see decided not [31:37] to turn it all into a money maker [31:39] because he likes U kind of the phenomena [31:41] that it represents and love or hate [31:43] foran all of the stuff you see on [31:45] Facebook and elsewhere comes ultimately [31:47] from there it's this real cultural [31:49] generator um and then just some examples [31:51] that you can also do stuff with Hardware [31:52] back Blaze was a backup company they [31:54] build their own servers they were uh you [31:56] know they started as a small effort and [31:57] this is my pal Luke Crawford over in [31:59] California who bought 50 giant servers [32:02] and he and he rents them out of space uh [32:05] individually to people who know what [32:06] they're doing what I loved about Luke's [32:08] approach to marketing was that he [32:10] basically has a Blog about everything he [32:11] does wrong and every failure and every [32:13] mistake and knowing that all hosting [32:15] companies make mistakes the fact that [32:16] Luke is actually talking about his makes [32:18] me want trust him and want to host with [32:19] him um and I can't talk about these [32:22] without mentioning lava bit um you know [32:25] I have calms about their business model [32:27] but lavabit showed an enormous amount of [32:30] Courage you know lar Levon showed [32:32] enormous amount of Courage by standing [32:34] up to the American government as the [32:35] only company that's that's openly done [32:36] it uh and it shows you this kind of that [32:39] when you run your own project you also [32:41] have quite a bit of latitude as far as [32:43] freedom of conscience you can make these [32:44] types of stands you're never going to [32:45] see Google you're never going to see a [32:47] funded startup make a stand the way he [32:49] did and is continuing [32:51] to and then I can't resist I I had a [32:54] stupid idea as a joke I talked about uh [32:57] starting [33:23] [Music] [33:57] bad things about me um can I get a time [34:00] check I don't want to talk too L too [34:03] long 5 5 5 okay we'll wrap it up um [34:08] lifestyle business if you if you Google [34:10] this uh you're going to see everything [34:12] is a picture of someone on a beach with [34:13] a laptop which makes no sense because [34:14] the laptop you can't see the screen on [34:16] the beach and the sand is going to get [34:17] in there and if you're on a lifestyle [34:18] business you can't afford to be [34:19] replacing your laptop but anyway um you [34:22] know it's a lifestyle business and I [34:24] would counter that this kind of thing is [34:26] a life business uh you know you if you [34:30] work at Facebook you spend all your day [34:32] trying to get people to all get in the [34:35] same room virtually speaking and mingle [34:38] and then when you go home to your San [34:40] Francisco apartment you go out and you [34:42] seek out the artisanal butcher who will [34:44] sell you the $35 a pound pork cutlet [34:47] that has a whole biography attached to [34:49] it because you're looking for something [34:50] real and authentic and different and and [34:54] small so there's this real tension like [34:56] not every restaurant has to be [34:58] McDonald's not every hotel has to be you [35:00] know a worldwide chain we can have bed [35:02] and breakfast and we recognize that a [35:04] world is nice when it's run this way but [35:06] somehow that doesn't carry over in the [35:08] internet if you're just trying to make a [35:10] living and create something neat you're [35:11] doing a lifestyle business but uh for me [35:14] this has been lifestyle [35:18] changing I was going to talk briefly [35:20] about uh some of these lwh hanging fruit [35:22] but I don't want to uh get between you [35:24] and beer basically techniques you can [35:26] use to compete against big [35:30] companies the two points I want to [35:31] quickly make are that for one even in [35:34] the biggest companies sometimes the team [35:35] that you're competing against is Tiny [35:37] for example Google Reader was run by two [35:38] people for a long time on maintenance [35:40] Yahoo pipes that I worked on for a while [35:42] it was just me earlier than that it was [35:44] three people so you you're actually not [35:46] so outnumbered as you think uh and you [35:48] have the power to speak with a human [35:49] voice which is uh incredibly liberating [35:52] you know at big companies you're often [35:53] not allowed to say you'll fix a bug or [35:55] even admit that you have one the power [35:57] to just talk as a normal human being uh [35:59] when people kind of are conditioned to [36:01] think that everybody's a company that [36:02] works in an office Park and they [36:04] actually get to talk to the one person [36:05] who can fix their problem and runs the [36:07] whole shebang it's wonderful and [36:09] furthermore this idea that U by charging [36:13] people money you [36:14] actually you actually have a huge [36:17] marketing win because people are not [36:18] stupid and they understand that if you [36:21] have uh you know a business that you're [36:23] trying to run and you ask them for money [36:25] and they give it to you then maybe you [36:26] have a chance of continuing to do it [36:28] indefinitely versus just giving them [36:30] lots of cool stuff and saying we'll [36:31] figure it out later people want you to [36:34] succeed if they like your product so [36:36] they're actually happy to pay you and [36:37] people started coming to pinboard [36:39] specifically because I was charging [36:40] money which blew my mind um so the post [36:43] startup world uh what will it look like [36:46] well you know I think it won't be bad at [36:48] all you just have to look at publishing [36:50] um publishing is kind of falling apart [36:52] but it's still exists and it's going to [36:54] continue to exist what's Rising is this [36:56] additional Universe of cool books that [36:58] wouldn't otherwise have been printed [37:00] before you needed to be someone rich [37:01] like Steven Wolfram uh to you know build [37:03] a printing press that could that could [37:05] publish your magnum opus and distribute [37:06] it nationally but now you have books [37:08] that are all over Amazon and all over [37:10] the Internet this is one of my favorites [37:12] Reflections un relativity it's this [37:14] historical physicist uh musing that's [37:17] beautifully produced I have no idea who [37:19] this guy is but he's just had it up [37:20] online forever and he finally published [37:22] it as a physical token U but even better [37:25] than that like I was recently reading [37:26] these things we were dogs these are just [37:28] old men who used to be in the Air Force [37:30] in the' 70s and they tell their favorite [37:32] War Stories and one of them assembles it [37:33] into books and in between you know these [37:35] rants about Obamacare and socialism they [37:37] talk about like all their favorite [37:39] stories about drinking beer in the belly [37:40] of the B-52 over Russia and stuff this [37:42] fascinating reading it costs two bucks [37:44] each and it's an outlet for you know [37:46] people to tell these things that they [37:47] otherwise no one would ever hear about I [37:49] can give them to their grandchildren um [37:51] and of course there's a whole wide world [37:53] of fanfic um this penumbra of Shadow [37:56] publishing so [37:58] which is also wonderful an extremely [37:59] generative of culture and a really fun [38:01] group of people as I've talked about [38:02] elsewhere so oops um that's my own [38:06] personal cat with a laser pointer gift [38:08] so I think I get through this there we [38:10] go this is the the part where we soar up [38:12] to the inspirational finish all right U [38:15] this is the Yos Valley uh in California [38:18] and it was discovered by U the 49ers you [38:22] know people in pursuit of gold the one [38:25] thing Australia and California have in [38:26] common is this history of some of the [38:28] land being opened up and then basically [38:31] destroyed by by gold Seekers uh so the [38:33] gold gold Hunters went right through [38:35] this Valley didn't even blink uh in [38:37] pursuit of what they were after but of [38:40] course you know the people who came [38:42] immediately after them saw that it was a [38:43] National Treasure this is the first [38:45] place in America that was actually [38:46] federally protected as a park because it [38:48] was just so obviously [38:50] beautiful and I want to say that the [38:52] internet you know it's going to be [38:53] around for a long time we're going to be [38:55] on it for the rest of our lives it's [38:57] going to our home and I think we should [38:59] start treating it as our home and you [39:00] know the fact that we're going to live [39:02] there make it a nice place and make it a [39:04] nice culture and and a a fun group of [39:06] people to work with so thank you so very [39:08] much and I hope you'll talk to me later [39:10] when we have beer [39:11] [Applause] [39:14] [Music] [39:21] together