Pointing The Finger At Everyone Else

Posted on by

The scandal du jour in the tech space is Path uploading address book data to the servers to hopefully make finding your friends easier. I usually don’t comment on these things because, well, they drive me a little crazy. Scandals — technical, political or in entertainment — just don’t interest me that much. At least the way I see it, they distract from the bigger issues confronting us as nations and human beings [1].

Let me sum this thing up for you:

  1. Path immediately apologized and changed their app to ask first
  2. Some people weighed in saying its Apple’s fault for not asking
  3. Another group said lots of apps upload data while others said that isn’t true
  4. Other people said Path’s apology wasn’t good enough
  5. Still other people said companies in a hurry make mistakes

You’d think there was nothing left to say but here I am weighing in anyway. I have two comments:

First, at what point as developers do we abdicate responsibility for the actions of our own apps? If my app steals your personal data, that is my responsibility. When my app crashes it is my fault. When my app doesn’t perform correctly it is my fault. I’m tired of all the finger pointing at everyone else. The guys at path knew it was wrong. The guys at Instagram knew it was wrong. I don’t care whether you are only using that data for good. The fact that you do it is evil. And you know it.

Second, why is it that any time there is a hint of a scandal that even tangentially involves Apple, the scandal gets blown out of proportion? Man, it is tough to be a lightening rod.

—

[1] And I believe that is often by design.

A Billion Dollars … One Dollar At A Time

Posted on by

What’s In a Number?

Good article from Bryce Roberts:

This notion of a billion dollar company is steeped in silicon valley lore. … Quite often, the companies that state it as an early goal fail while those that end up being the wildest of successes, start out with a very different objective.

He goes on to show a number of good examples of companies that started with much smaller ambitions. I think he overstates it a bit as many companies that do end up with billion dollar valuations set out to do that. The key to his post, though, is that it takes time to get there. It is easy to daydream about the big goal rather than executing today.

Bottom line: a good idea is a good idea, no matter what size I think it will be.

Solving Hollywood’s Problems (While Giving Me What I Want)

Posted on by

I’ve been very critical of the entertainment industry over the past few months. (See here and here and here and here and here.) But it strikes me that being critical isn’t the same thing as being constructive. So instead I am going to focus on being constructive.

Let’s start with the expectation: I expect to watch all television programs, movies and documentaries when I want to and where I want to.

From my perspective Hollywood has two problems: they are not taking care of their customers by giving them what they expect and, mostly because of this, their movies, TV shows and documentaries are being pirated.

So let’s start by taking a look at the current model. The current model of revenue generation is time-based. Let’s take movies, for example. First run movies appear in the theater, a few months later they go to DVD for purchase, then they go to Netflix for rental. The money falls off for each tier, too. A first run movie is $11-14 per person per view, a DVD starts at $20 for all viewers who can watch it as many times as they’d like, that eventually drops to $5 or $10, and then Netflix costs $8/month for all the movies you can swallow.

Let’s also say that a family of four might, on average, see five movies in the theater per year. That means 20 movies for a family of four in some combination, which would gross the movie makers about $350 per year. Let’s also assume that the average family buys five movies per year at $20 per and another five movies per year at $10 per. That’s an additional $150 per year per family. And we already know what the rental model is worth: about $15/month per Netflix subscription (DVD by-mail and streaming) or roughly $200 per year [1].

Now it seems to me, sticking with our movie situation, that we can easily figure out our price and value tiers:

  1. All movies the day they are launched: $700/ year or $65/month
  2. All movies three months after launch: $350/year or $35/month
  3. All movies six months after launch: $200/year or $20/month

Apparently the movie industry grossed $10 billion last year. That’s only 14 million customers at the $65/month tier. As a comparison, there are 104 million cable subscribers. Given the price range for cable — $30 to $90 per month — it would seem that a $20 to $65 price range to get access to all movies on demand, where I want them and when I want them, would fit right in. I know I’d consider one of the higher tiers. And at a minimum, I now have a few choices to do what I want legally and it still doesn’t preclude me from opting for a lower tier, going to see a movie every once in a while or buying a disc.

Obviously, we add in television shows and documentaries and the price per month goes up. But that’s fine. The point is I get the choice and various ways to see the content I want, when I want it, where I want it.

Hollywood, that’s all I’m asking.

—

[1] My numbers could be off. That’s not the point. The point is to have a basis for discussion and I believe these numbers get us close.

[2] For the record, I worked this up before I saw Albert Wenger’s post from yesterday. It, too, is worth a read.

Goodbye, FU Bob

Posted on by

In the middle of the Super Bowl on Sunday, a story from old friends from my home town hit Facebook: Robert Wood has died.

I grew up in Kent, Ohio. For those of a certain age Kent is famous, the place of Kent State University and the place where state troopers killed protesting students during the Vietnam War. That year was 1970. I was born in 1973 and the town was still mourning that moment when I moved away in 1988.

Because of its history, Kent attracted a very eclectic group of people. And one of those people was Bob Wood.

Bob Wood, known as FU Bob because he would stand on street corners in downtown Kent and flick off passing cars, was a local artist who was considered brilliant and crazy all at the same time.

Of course we were just kids. Bob’s middle finger and fowl mouth (he was also known for dropping the f-bomb without warning) were much more interesting than his art. The fact that he would stand on a street corner and step off the curb, on the curb, off the curb, on the curb, over and over again was the stuff of ridicule.

But I had a personal connection, of sorts, with Bob, too. My stepdad, the good Catholic soul that he was, would buy Bob a beer at a local bar or have him come to the house to take a shower. His mother used to call the house looking for him. I don’t really remember talking to him, though. I was scared to death of the man with the scraggly beard and odd personality.

It is funny how hearing of his death takes me back to a different time and place. He was not a central feature of my life but for whatever reason Bob was part of the fabric of that time.

If for some unknown reason you are interested, here’s a tribute to Bob Wood from his social worker and a link to some of his art work.

Choose: Win the Battle or Win the War

Posted on by

Yesterday a friend sent me a disturbing post from a California investor. His post talked about the kinds of people he likes to invest in. His example was a CTO of one of his companies, a guy who “works 20 hours a day as CTO, and rides motorcycles, mountain bikes, and numerous other high speed vehicles on weekends.” The investor sees his actions — including after a horrific accident making calls from the ICU and working non-stop from his bed even though he couldn’t move one arm — as signs of “a great leader” who “puts his heart and soul” into his company and “would do anything not to let his team down.”

I have no doubt he is right. I only doubt the misplaced priorities.

Let’s juxtapose this post with two others: one from Fred Wilson, also a venture capitalist, and another from Jeff Atwood, an entrepreneur. Fred today talks about how important it is to build an ecosystem not just in the product but also in the community:

We want to build a world where entrepreneurship is available everywhere. But we also want to do everything we can to grow and nurture the entrepreneurial community in New York City. And we believe that the things we support in NYC can and will be copied throughout the world so that our local ecosystem efforts support our global ecosystem efforts.

And then there is Jeff Atwood who quit Stack Exchange, hugely influential in the development community, to spend more time with his growing family. “We just welcomed two new family members into our family, and running as fast as you can isn’t sustainable for parents of multiple small children.” Jeff, it isn’t sustainable for anyone.

And here’s what’s frustrating to me. The first guy is, in my mind, advocating short-term gains and to hell with any long-term success. He is, for all intents and purposes, celebrating a guy who leads a wholly unsustainable and unhealthy lifestyle, insomuch as it practically killed him. (How, by the way, is that good for the start-up?)

And then there are Fred and Jeff, both of whom point out indirectly that this is about long-term success, this is about sustainability, this is about success-begetting-success. This isn’t just about this generation but about the next one and the one after that.

We can all kill ourselves, literally and figuratively, for our businesses. But winning is an act of attrition as much as it is an act of dominance. The first VC equated starting a company to waging a war. I don’t disagree. But the battle is won in a year. The war is won in a lifetime.