Ask YC: Why are startups secretive?
14 comments
I can give you two good reasons for being secretive that you may not have considered:
* If you're entering a competitive space --- and particularly if you have a direct sales model with medium-long sales cycle (ie, you sell to companies) --- your competitors can neutralize you without copying your features. All a company with a shipping product has to do is "roadmap" your features for you to lose competitive advantage.
* There's what Joel calls "The Marimba Effect". As long as you keep quiet about what you're doing, your failures and missteps don't count against you. Once you launch, prospects can start to form an opinion that's hard to shake off.
I can't say that these are dealbreakers if you're starting some social calendaring service for pets, or (like most YC'ers) considering some kind of social network code autoindentation product for MzSchemers. But we are not awash in examples of companies that opened up early, launched small, and went on to huge success.
* If you're entering a competitive space --- and particularly if you have a direct sales model with medium-long sales cycle (ie, you sell to companies) --- your competitors can neutralize you without copying your features. All a company with a shipping product has to do is "roadmap" your features for you to lose competitive advantage.
* There's what Joel calls "The Marimba Effect". As long as you keep quiet about what you're doing, your failures and missteps don't count against you. Once you launch, prospects can start to form an opinion that's hard to shake off.
I can't say that these are dealbreakers if you're starting some social calendaring service for pets, or (like most YC'ers) considering some kind of social network code autoindentation product for MzSchemers. But we are not awash in examples of companies that opened up early, launched small, and went on to huge success.
I think the Marimba Effect is the key point. You've highlighted a problem with the original submitter's question: It focuses too much on how the competitors will react when you announce an idea before shipping a product, whereas the primary concern should be how the customers will react.
I just watched a talk by Mac developer Wil Shipley, whose advice is "Don't announce until it can be downloaded. Don't let it be downloaded until it can be bought." Otherwise you spoil a lot of perfectly good hype.
There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule in the webapp world -- for example, if you're starting Ptacek's social calendar for pets, you can't even build the product without having customers, since social networks without members are completely useless. So you're forced to bootstrap.
I just watched a talk by Mac developer Wil Shipley, whose advice is "Don't announce until it can be downloaded. Don't let it be downloaded until it can be bought." Otherwise you spoil a lot of perfectly good hype.
There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule in the webapp world -- for example, if you're starting Ptacek's social calendar for pets, you can't even build the product without having customers, since social networks without members are completely useless. So you're forced to bootstrap.
If your startup is hovering near another more established one, outing the idea could lead competition quickly. I find this to be particularly true for facebook applications. There are several powerful companies that have the reach and the expertise to quickly clone your idea and beat you to it.
Though inexperienced founders usually err too much in the direction of secrecy, it does have its uses. For example, because they didn't talk too much about what they were doing, Justin.TV was able to catch Ustream napping when they launched. Ustream had to frantically launch the next day with something that was way behind JTV's technology.
Interesting commentary but not factually accurate, Ustream actually was ahead of JTV in its launch. JTV has found a comfortableniche in lifecasting which was never Ustream's business model. Virtually every feature found on live video sites was a response to Ustreams features. You only assume the founder were inexperienced because you havent really delved into their history, try again..
I think there is a catch 22 when revealing your start up idea. Imagine if you posted it on this site. You'd end up with two scenarios:
- Nobody liked it. Your idea is probably unspectacular.
- People responded well to it. Your idea, which just got validated, is now also available for public consumption. This is troubling because the idea also has a stream of positive comments, making it that much more attractive.
Neither of these outcomes are good, which is probably why start-ups are secretive.
- Nobody liked it. Your idea is probably unspectacular.
- People responded well to it. Your idea, which just got validated, is now also available for public consumption. This is troubling because the idea also has a stream of positive comments, making it that much more attractive.
Neither of these outcomes are good, which is probably why start-ups are secretive.
"- People responded well to it. Your idea, which just got validated, is now also available for public consumption. This is troubling because the idea also has a stream of positive comments, making it that much more attractive."
You should add to that what REALLY happens when people respond to it. They start talking about it. They bury you in great ideas that never occurred to you. They sign up to be notified about your private beta. You are incredibly energized and motivated all of a sudden. You are no longer fearful that your idea will totally fall flat. Recruiting gets easier. Good developers who are interested in your problem/space seek you out. Investors (who know all of this) don't think you are a total noobcake. You don't have to invest time or money in stuff like NDAs or other secretive measures.
Stealth mode is 95% of the time totally ridiculous, with the risk of being out there totally eclipsed by the reward. There is the 5% case, I suppose, where you've truly invented something unique rather than just making something suck less.
I'm also absolutely FLOORED by your statement that the "...Nobody liked it. Your idea is probably unspectacular." scenario is not a good outcome. That's a spectacular outcome compared to pissing away months or years building something that you later realize nobody wants.
(IMO)
You should add to that what REALLY happens when people respond to it. They start talking about it. They bury you in great ideas that never occurred to you. They sign up to be notified about your private beta. You are incredibly energized and motivated all of a sudden. You are no longer fearful that your idea will totally fall flat. Recruiting gets easier. Good developers who are interested in your problem/space seek you out. Investors (who know all of this) don't think you are a total noobcake. You don't have to invest time or money in stuff like NDAs or other secretive measures.
Stealth mode is 95% of the time totally ridiculous, with the risk of being out there totally eclipsed by the reward. There is the 5% case, I suppose, where you've truly invented something unique rather than just making something suck less.
I'm also absolutely FLOORED by your statement that the "...Nobody liked it. Your idea is probably unspectacular." scenario is not a good outcome. That's a spectacular outcome compared to pissing away months or years building something that you later realize nobody wants.
(IMO)
Awareness is only really valuable if you're in a position to capitalize on it. Has it been super valuable to RescueTime? You're still 3 "owner-operators", plus "the occasional contractor". It obviously hasn't solved your recruiting problems. From what I can tell, you've "closed" a "round" of YC funding. Got a real term sheet yet? Did awareness do it for you?
I'm not trying to be petulant.
For you guys, awareness may convert directly into users, and users to a shot at VC funding (though, if you're up and running already, god I hope not).
And on the flip side, in my field (security), there's an obvious need for secrecy; we're a bunch of cutthroat motherfuckers over here. So my experience doesn't translate to yours directly.
Just saying, the answers to questions like these aren't always straightforward.
I'm not trying to be petulant.
For you guys, awareness may convert directly into users, and users to a shot at VC funding (though, if you're up and running already, god I hope not).
And on the flip side, in my field (security), there's an obvious need for secrecy; we're a bunch of cutthroat motherfuckers over here. So my experience doesn't translate to yours directly.
Just saying, the answers to questions like these aren't always straightforward.
All good questions. The big wins for us at RescueTime (I imagine this would vary by situation) were:
1) We got crazy excited and worked our asses off and ultimately set aside great jobs to work on this full-time. I don't know if we could've sustained the energy if we didn't have our users (and potential users) dragging us along. 2) We applied to YC. I honestly don't know if we would've done this if we didn't have such a great response to our "this is what we're building... coming soon!" page.
3) We got accepted to YC. I dunno if it mattered, but it certainly is easier to say "we're building something people want" when we've got a line of thousands of people who have signed up for the beta, contributed ideas, blogged about us, etc. Showing "love letters" from users was huge, IMO. 4) the product is HUGELY better than the original vision IMO, because we've been buried in several thousand emails from people who want certain things that never occurred to us or didn't want things that we thought were important.
For VCs and for internal morale/energy, traction wins. There is simply no substitute for being able to say, "people LOVE us" and being able to prove it. There is nothing that keeps you working harder than users applauding your featureset and clamoring for enhancements. At least for me.
Regarding funding beyond YC, we currently aren't looking for investment but we might be eventually. We have been approached by several investors. Ask me in a few months. :-) Either way, I think being out-there helps on this front, and stealth would hurt us.
1) We got crazy excited and worked our asses off and ultimately set aside great jobs to work on this full-time. I don't know if we could've sustained the energy if we didn't have our users (and potential users) dragging us along. 2) We applied to YC. I honestly don't know if we would've done this if we didn't have such a great response to our "this is what we're building... coming soon!" page.
3) We got accepted to YC. I dunno if it mattered, but it certainly is easier to say "we're building something people want" when we've got a line of thousands of people who have signed up for the beta, contributed ideas, blogged about us, etc. Showing "love letters" from users was huge, IMO. 4) the product is HUGELY better than the original vision IMO, because we've been buried in several thousand emails from people who want certain things that never occurred to us or didn't want things that we thought were important.
For VCs and for internal morale/energy, traction wins. There is simply no substitute for being able to say, "people LOVE us" and being able to prove it. There is nothing that keeps you working harder than users applauding your featureset and clamoring for enhancements. At least for me.
Regarding funding beyond YC, we currently aren't looking for investment but we might be eventually. We have been approached by several investors. Ask me in a few months. :-) Either way, I think being out-there helps on this front, and stealth would hurt us.
hey, i was wondering if you might be able to show me your old 'this is what were building... coming soon' page?
ty in advance if can/do.
ty in advance if can/do.
Funny you ask. We just added a new one today for some new features we're planning for businesses. http://www.rescuetime.com/forbiz Very similar in style to our original one which was basically the site as it is, with the product tour (prototypes at the time), but without the sign up form.
You can see it sans CSS and images at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070509002443/http://www.rescuet...
You can look at the live site and get the jist of how the images/css would look like (it's not much different).
We detailed the process here:
http://blog.rescuetime.com/2007/07/05/web-biz-how-to-have-40... (4,000 turned out to be a much lower number than what we eventually launched with)
http://web.archive.org/web/20070509002443/http://www.rescuet...
You can look at the live site and get the jist of how the images/css would look like (it's not much different).
We detailed the process here:
http://blog.rescuetime.com/2007/07/05/web-biz-how-to-have-40... (4,000 turned out to be a much lower number than what we eventually launched with)
Hey I shot you an email.
Thanks!
[deleted]
"You should add to that what REALLY happens when people respond to it. "
On what do you base this claim? Can you, for example, point to several threads here where someone declared the plans of their startup and there was a strong, valuable response leading to favorable business results?
The "Don't bother with secrets" meme is something of a permathread, but there seems to be scant tangible evidence for what many people claim (either for or against keeping mum).
On what do you base this claim? Can you, for example, point to several threads here where someone declared the plans of their startup and there was a strong, valuable response leading to favorable business results?
The "Don't bother with secrets" meme is something of a permathread, but there seems to be scant tangible evidence for what many people claim (either for or against keeping mum).
I think I can see the value of openness in my own personal experience (a couple of moderately successful startups). Of course, who knows how wildly successful I would've been had I been more paranoid? :-)
Google is another fine example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google
Reading "Founders at Work" is a good exercise... Not a lot of stealth mode mentioned there.
Doesn't seem scant to me, though I'll concede it isn't particularly scientific.
Google is another fine example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google
Reading "Founders at Work" is a good exercise... Not a lot of stealth mode mentioned there.
Doesn't seem scant to me, though I'll concede it isn't particularly scientific.
Thanks for the reply. I tend to think you are largely correct for certain groups and practices, though that's just gut feeling.
I read most of Founders at Work; I don't recall much indiscriminate broadcasting of ideas and intent, but it's been a while.
For myself I find it useful to kick around ideas with a small local group of developers and business owners. The collective Bozometer is very handy, and indeed people are good about suggesting things I would not have thought of.
I'm not so sure that scales well to the general Internet and infinite strangers, but I've nothing concrete to back that up. Just more gut feeling.
I read most of Founders at Work; I don't recall much indiscriminate broadcasting of ideas and intent, but it's been a while.
For myself I find it useful to kick around ideas with a small local group of developers and business owners. The collective Bozometer is very handy, and indeed people are good about suggesting things I would not have thought of.
I'm not so sure that scales well to the general Internet and infinite strangers, but I've nothing concrete to back that up. Just more gut feeling.
I agree with all of your (webwright's) points. However, I was trying to explain people's behavior rather than highlight what logically makes the most sense.
Most are not. I've been amazed at how much various startup founders have been willing to share.
Most, however, are selective as to who, what, and how they reveal. If you've met a few times with a startup founder and gotten to know them, they'll tell you a lot about their future plans. It's great to get feedback, after all. You're expected not to blab that info about, but that's why they bothered to get to know you before telling you stuff.
There's no point to indiscriminately spewing your vaporware all over the Internet. If you don't have a demo or UI for people to react to, you probably won't even get good feedback, and it'll lessen the impact when you actually do launch (case in point: Arc). But if you do have something for people to react to, or you have people in a similar space that know your target market, you can gain quite a bit from sharing your idea.
Most, however, are selective as to who, what, and how they reveal. If you've met a few times with a startup founder and gotten to know them, they'll tell you a lot about their future plans. It's great to get feedback, after all. You're expected not to blab that info about, but that's why they bothered to get to know you before telling you stuff.
There's no point to indiscriminately spewing your vaporware all over the Internet. If you don't have a demo or UI for people to react to, you probably won't even get good feedback, and it'll lessen the impact when you actually do launch (case in point: Arc). But if you do have something for people to react to, or you have people in a similar space that know your target market, you can gain quite a bit from sharing your idea.
As Howard Aiken said: "Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."
That being said, previous commenters have pointed out that getting ideas stolen isn't exactly the point.
Yeah, okay, so this comment is basically an excuse for me to spout a favored quote, but really, it's one that's definitely helped me get over secrecy paranoia in developing my own ideas.
That being said, previous commenters have pointed out that getting ideas stolen isn't exactly the point.
Yeah, okay, so this comment is basically an excuse for me to spout a favored quote, but really, it's one that's definitely helped me get over secrecy paranoia in developing my own ideas.
Mostly out of unthinking reflex and herd mentality. Startups are secretive because past startups were secretive.
There certainly are benefits to it in some cases, but in most it's probably best to just open your doors ASAP.
There certainly are benefits to it in some cases, but in most it's probably best to just open your doors ASAP.
As someone who's been working in a "stealth mode" startup for the last few months, I can relate. It wasn't my idea to work this way, but my partner insisted. The reasoning is that there's two parts to the business and the other part, the non-technical one, won't be ready for public consumption for a while yet. Disclosing it now, when we won't be ready to fully launch for a relatively long time, could be disasterous. As mechanical_fish said, we'd lose a lot of perfectly good hype.
Mind you, I'd love nothing more to be able to answer people openly when they ask, "so what are you working on anyways?"
Mind you, I'd love nothing more to be able to answer people openly when they ask, "so what are you working on anyways?"
There is HUGE difference between talking to people you meet and posting your idea(s) on the internet.
However most entrepreneurs seek a one solution fits all and try to follow the foot steps of others success. When in reality every idea/start up is different and what might work for one startup will kill the other.
However most entrepreneurs seek a one solution fits all and try to follow the foot steps of others success. When in reality every idea/start up is different and what might work for one startup will kill the other.
Here is my personal opinion:
I've been working on a project now for almost 5 months. I've been more free to discuss my project lately because I think to myself that most are not going to be as motivated as I've been nor are they going to sacrifice the long hours and weekends I've poured into it.
I commend the creator of Pageflakes...if you read this guy's blog or articles the guy practically hands it to you on a plate...yet I haven't seen many take advantage of it. Except maybe Yahoo :).
I also believe that if your passionate about your idea you don't want it contaminated with others ideas and views. Now, this definitely plays a role in the future phases, but in the beginning you want to create your own idea...not someone elses. We all want the credit, so we keep it under wraps until the time is right.
I've been working on a project now for almost 5 months. I've been more free to discuss my project lately because I think to myself that most are not going to be as motivated as I've been nor are they going to sacrifice the long hours and weekends I've poured into it.
I commend the creator of Pageflakes...if you read this guy's blog or articles the guy practically hands it to you on a plate...yet I haven't seen many take advantage of it. Except maybe Yahoo :).
I also believe that if your passionate about your idea you don't want it contaminated with others ideas and views. Now, this definitely plays a role in the future phases, but in the beginning you want to create your own idea...not someone elses. We all want the credit, so we keep it under wraps until the time is right.
I've been doing the same thing for the past 6 months. I agree. I guess the details of an idea is what I would care most about before the release. I wouldn't mind sharing my overall idea with a few people just to see what details they have in mind. If it's good, I'd ask them to be my partner. And if they take the idea and develop it into something better then me, then so be it. they deserve it more.
For the same reason that open source projects are started by one guy with running code and not by committees talking about what to do. Everyone with an opinion isn't necessarily your customer - they are just guys with opinions.
You could be non-secretive without being interactive or not taking opinions. But that seems like burning PR early for a product you will be releasing soon anyway.
Do talk with people who's opinions you already value. But you aren't Microsoft so pre-announcing a product won't intimidate others into not competing with you and it won't whet potential customer's appetite. Make something you know you would use and then see how others like you respond.
You could be non-secretive without being interactive or not taking opinions. But that seems like burning PR early for a product you will be releasing soon anyway.
Do talk with people who's opinions you already value. But you aren't Microsoft so pre-announcing a product won't intimidate others into not competing with you and it won't whet potential customer's appetite. Make something you know you would use and then see how others like you respond.
In this day and age its fairly easy to take a concept and build it out for little outlay.
I don't think it is, or probably ever will be. There are always 1000 details you have to get right.
I'm suspicious of projects described by appending that word "out" after "build." It implies the speaker is underestimating the importance of execution. In the best projects, execution is not merely important, but even flows back into design.
I'm suspicious of projects described by appending that word "out" after "build." It implies the speaker is underestimating the importance of execution. In the best projects, execution is not merely important, but even flows back into design.
If the idea is extremely simple and your team has talent then you could do a better job with someones idea than they could.
I think build out is perfectly valid way to explain building more functionality on a idea.
google didn't build ad functionality into from the start their search engine it was built out afterwards. I come from a family of builders so this makes sense to me.
I also don't agree with being secretive, ideas are a dime a dozen so no need not to share.
I think build out is perfectly valid way to explain building more functionality on a idea.
google didn't build ad functionality into from the start their search engine it was built out afterwards. I come from a family of builders so this makes sense to me.
I also don't agree with being secretive, ideas are a dime a dozen so no need not to share.
You're reading "build out" as "build an addition" while others read it as "finish the job within a defined space."
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Abuildout
http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Abuildout
thanks, yes that explains it. make sense now :p
Does that explain all of the posts on this site saying "we're looking for a hacker!!"?
And lack of any saying "We're looking for a business idea guy!"?
And lack of any saying "We're looking for a business idea guy!"?
Are there really lots of great ideas floating around, more than we can all use? If so, please tell me two or three!
Just pay attention to what you are reading. The problem of micro-payments has been voiced many times on YC news, PG himself mentioned it in one of his writings. Yet it took forever for TipJoy to materialize.
Why? Because of all the details. When I first saw this obvious micro-payments problem I thought about it for about 30 seconds but did not come up with anything significantly different than PayPal. I moved on, but someone decided to spend more than 30 seconds on it.
Why? Because of all the details. When I first saw this obvious micro-payments problem I thought about it for about 30 seconds but did not come up with anything significantly different than PayPal. I moved on, but someone decided to spend more than 30 seconds on it.
I have too many ideas and not much time to develop them all. If you narrow down what area you are more interested in and what your skills are I'll give you some of my ideas
People are secretive so they can avoid the likes of a Marc Andreeson or a Mark Zuckerburg. As you can plainly see, despite all the talk of "honor" and "our reputation is the basis for our business" and not dealing with companies that are being sued under suspicious circumstances, etc., even "top-tier" VC firms will put their stated ethics aside and jump into bed with the money makers, regardless of how they came to be that way. Who the heck wants to go around for the rest of their life wondering "what could have been" if they kept their mouths shut. And here's a little clue - just because VCs tell you they think you're a noob for using NDAs, doesn't mean they respect you for mindlessly taking their advice. Learn to think for yourself. What would you rather invest in, as a VC - a guy who's taken measures to ensure that everyone who knows about the idea is either part of it or prevented from copying it, or a guy who spoke about the idea with 100 programmers who may very well be trying to secretly implement it behind his back even though they pretended not to be intested? It's called control, and when you're starting up, it's one of the few things that are actually "in your control".
I know what Zuckerberg is supposed to have done, but what did Pmarca do that was iffy?
Well, he was a student, one of quite a few, working on the base code of what became Netscape Navigator. One weekend when nobody was around he decided he wanted more out of the project than research credit, so he let himself into the research lab when nobody was around, copied everyone else's code and took off to get VC funding. Later he would dismiss the whole thing in typicall dirtbag fashion, ie, "Well, you know, it's hard to recall who wrote what code, and what counts was I got it out to market first, etc." So basically he stole somebody else's work, took credit for it, and then hid behind the legitimacy that financial success brings in this country.
This sounds fishy to me. If he was collaborating with other people on Mozilla he wouldn't have needed to "let himself into" (= "walk into" + furtive spin) any physical place to get code. Surely he would have had access via a network. And since Mozilla was open source, wasn't he within his rights to use this code in a product?
Edit: I meant Mosaic, not Mozilla.
Edit: I meant Mosaic, not Mozilla.
I don't recall all the details since this was about a decade ago, but as far as I can recall, Netscape got sued by the U. of Illinois & they wound up settling out of court for millions. In addition, as for the open-source thing, I believe it wasn't totally open-source originally which is what caused the lawsuit when Netscape distributed the browser for free.
Anyway these points are off-track; in conclusion startups are secretive because while execution may be crucial, so is being realistic enough to realize you're not in the best position to execute properly and that it's best to keep your mouth shut until you are, lest someone who is in a better position to execute than you are run off with "your thing." And there are plenty of people who can/would run off with your thing, take the credit for it and not think twice about what happens to you as a result of their behavior.
Anyway these points are off-track; in conclusion startups are secretive because while execution may be crucial, so is being realistic enough to realize you're not in the best position to execute properly and that it's best to keep your mouth shut until you are, lest someone who is in a better position to execute than you are run off with "your thing." And there are plenty of people who can/would run off with your thing, take the credit for it and not think twice about what happens to you as a result of their behavior.
Marc deserves credit for proposing IMG.
http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.ht...
"I'd like to propose a new, optional HTML tag:
IMG
Required argument is SRC="url".
This names a bitmap or pixmap file for the browser to attempt to pull over the network and interpret as an image, to be embedded in the text at the point of the tag's occurrence."
http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0182.ht...
"I'd like to propose a new, optional HTML tag:
IMG
Required argument is SRC="url".
This names a bitmap or pixmap file for the browser to attempt to pull over the network and interpret as an image, to be embedded in the text at the point of the tag's occurrence."
When you make accusations you should not go on recollection.
Mosaic was open source from its earliest days. Marc was not just one of many students working on it, he was the most prominent developer on the project. That's my recollection, but it's also what I find when I look for sources to cite:
http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0262.ht...
Mosaic was open source from its earliest days. Marc was not just one of many students working on it, he was the most prominent developer on the project. That's my recollection, but it's also what I find when I look for sources to cite:
http://1997.webhistory.org/www.lists/www-talk.1993q1/0262.ht...
Actually your "source" doesn't cite anything other than that he worked on the project; I never debated that. As to whether or not he was the "most prominent developer" on the project, well, according to history as written by rich successful people, Bill Gates was the most "prominent developer" of the PC, Larry Ellison was the most "prominent developer" of the database, and Larry Wynn was the most "prominent developer" of casinos which have nothing to do with mob connections, and Donald Trump is the most "prominent developer" of mega-luxury buildings he had no hand in developing other than lending his name to.
Seriously have you never been in a work situation where your boss took credit for your work and claimed he was the most "prominent developer" of something YOU did? I can't be the only one who appreciates Dilbert ...
Seriously have you never been in a work situation where your boss took credit for your work and claimed he was the most "prominent developer" of something YOU did? I can't be the only one who appreciates Dilbert ...
First, a little context. You're the one challenging the general consensus of Marc's involvement with Mosaic, so the burden of proof is on you to show that he was merely one of many students involved with the project. I'm merely casting doubt on your assertion.
Second, the email I cited was written in 1993, before the WWW was anything big. If, as you claim, Marc was one of many students, then he was improperly crediting the work as that of himself and one other. Someone else from NCSA would have spoken up on the www-talk list to set things straight.
If you want to change your story from him being one of many students to him being the boss who took credit for his underlings' work, please be explicit about it. Also, please cite a source.
Second, the email I cited was written in 1993, before the WWW was anything big. If, as you claim, Marc was one of many students, then he was improperly crediting the work as that of himself and one other. Someone else from NCSA would have spoken up on the www-talk list to set things straight.
If you want to change your story from him being one of many students to him being the boss who took credit for his underlings' work, please be explicit about it. Also, please cite a source.
Seriously, what the hell are you talking about? You're putting words in my mouth to create straw man arguements. I never challenged the "general consensus" of Marks involvement with Mosaic - I even explicitly stated this in a prior post if you bothered to read.
Second, one email signed by two students doesn't mean anything. He never says anything in the email you cited other than he and another person are looking for feedback. For all you know his professor could have given him and that other guy that task as an asignment. Nowhere in the email does it say anything to the effect of, "Oh and BTW, I'm the guy who wrote all the code for this."
Third, for all you know there could have been plenty of responses to the effect that you said. One out of context email doesn't "prove" anything, especially if it was written by the guy in question. Not to mention if he had the balls to run off with his professor's work, I'm sure he was smart enough to leave a paper trail, or in this case, an email trail. Give me your personal email - I'll send you a pre-dated email "proving" that I invented YouTube.. There you go - I just sent you an email, nobody on the internet is contesting my email, so according to your logic, this is "proof" that I invented YouTube.
Third of all, I'm not "changing my story" - since I doubt you've ever been in an academic environment where somebody took your stuff and ran with it, I was trying to cite something that was more likely in terms of people taking credit for other people's work - something I thought you could better relate to.
"Also, please cite a source" - if you bothered to check my other posting I cited 2, and if you google "Lawsuit", "Netscape", "University of Illinoise" you can find plenty of evidence to this effect. I just did and plenty of stuff comes up relating to this. If you're too lazy to find any info on this yourself, well I'm not going to sit here and argue with you.
They got sued, the lawsuit involved theft of intellectual property, copywrite infringement and license violations, which would suggest that it was not 100% open-source - it was available conditional to the license, which Netscape clearly violated when they decided to release it for free over the net without compensating U. of Ill. with royalties. They settled out of court for millions, which is similar to saying, "We're wrong, we just don't want any legal judgements against use for being wrong, so here's a bunch of money to go away."
Second, one email signed by two students doesn't mean anything. He never says anything in the email you cited other than he and another person are looking for feedback. For all you know his professor could have given him and that other guy that task as an asignment. Nowhere in the email does it say anything to the effect of, "Oh and BTW, I'm the guy who wrote all the code for this."
Third, for all you know there could have been plenty of responses to the effect that you said. One out of context email doesn't "prove" anything, especially if it was written by the guy in question. Not to mention if he had the balls to run off with his professor's work, I'm sure he was smart enough to leave a paper trail, or in this case, an email trail. Give me your personal email - I'll send you a pre-dated email "proving" that I invented YouTube.. There you go - I just sent you an email, nobody on the internet is contesting my email, so according to your logic, this is "proof" that I invented YouTube.
Third of all, I'm not "changing my story" - since I doubt you've ever been in an academic environment where somebody took your stuff and ran with it, I was trying to cite something that was more likely in terms of people taking credit for other people's work - something I thought you could better relate to.
"Also, please cite a source" - if you bothered to check my other posting I cited 2, and if you google "Lawsuit", "Netscape", "University of Illinoise" you can find plenty of evidence to this effect. I just did and plenty of stuff comes up relating to this. If you're too lazy to find any info on this yourself, well I'm not going to sit here and argue with you.
They got sued, the lawsuit involved theft of intellectual property, copywrite infringement and license violations, which would suggest that it was not 100% open-source - it was available conditional to the license, which Netscape clearly violated when they decided to release it for free over the net without compensating U. of Ill. with royalties. They settled out of court for millions, which is similar to saying, "We're wrong, we just don't want any legal judgements against use for being wrong, so here's a bunch of money to go away."
>> If, as you claim, Marc was one of many students, then >> he was improperly crediting the work as that of himself >> and one other.
I don't know what email you're reading but the one I'm reading just has him and one other guy signing off indicating they're members of a group; nowhere does it say they're the only members, or the most important members, or the members who did most of the work, or anything other than 2 people looking for feed back.
Let's say you got an email from "Sue" from Apple requesting feedback on your recent iPhone purchase. Does that imply that since sue works for Apple and she signed off on the email, Sue is the most important person at Apple, responsible for most the important parts of their more successful projects?
No, of course not.
I don't know what email you're reading but the one I'm reading just has him and one other guy signing off indicating they're members of a group; nowhere does it say they're the only members, or the most important members, or the members who did most of the work, or anything other than 2 people looking for feed back.
Let's say you got an email from "Sue" from Apple requesting feedback on your recent iPhone purchase. Does that imply that since sue works for Apple and she signed off on the email, Sue is the most important person at Apple, responsible for most the important parts of their more successful projects?
No, of course not.
> nowhere does it say they're the only members, or the most important members, or the members who did most of the work
You could also try reading Tim Berners-Lee's Weaving the Web, where he gives them credit for Mosaic. They're probably not the only members (few projects have no outside involvement), but it's pretty clear from Berners-Lee's account that they're the ones pushing things forward and implementing stuff.
You could also try reading Tim Berners-Lee's Weaving the Web, where he gives them credit for Mosaic. They're probably not the only members (few projects have no outside involvement), but it's pretty clear from Berners-Lee's account that they're the ones pushing things forward and implementing stuff.
Netscape was sued for trademark infringement, not any copyright/patent violations. The original company name was "Mosaic Communications Corp", and NCSA had trademarked "Mosaic". They changed their name as part of the settlement. The original Netscape used some Mosaic code with permission (as did Spyglass/IE), but Mosaic was open-source, so this was not a problem.
Not true; I don't know what search results you guys are getting but if you cared to look it up, here's an example:
"Netscape has buzz but also faces perils. The University of Illinois is alleging that Clark and Andreessen have stolen the intellectual property for the browser and the Mosaic name, and is threatening to sue."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/...
and
Copyrighted by the University of Illinois, Mosaic could be downloaded for free by individuals and by companies wishing to use the Internet for internal communications.
However, the NCSA did not want to become a help desk for commercial applications, so in August 1994, the University of Illinois assigned future commercial rights for licensing NCSA Mosaic to Spyglass, Inc., a local company created by NCSA alumni to commercialize NCSA technology. The goal was for university researchers to continue developing longer-term technology and standards to be incorporated into browsers, while Spyglass would help license the technology to companies addressing immediate customer needs such as support, speed, and security. Spyglass began widely licensing Mosaic to computer companies including IBM, DEC, AT&T, NEC, and Firefox Inc., who was working to integrate Mosaic standards into Novell networking software for the personal computer.[8]
Watching Mosaic from the Bay Area, Silicon Graphics CEO Jim Clark, a veteran of the UNIX standards wars, understood how much money could be won if a company could take control of the standards of this new Internet tool. So Clark left his company and set out to destroy Mosaic and replace its government-backed standards. He met with Marc Andreesen, a member of the Mosaic team who had been hired at a Bay Area Internet security firm called Enterprise Integration Technologies. Out of that meeting in April 1994 was born Mosaic Communications Corporation (later to be called Netscape). With Clark putting up the capital, Andreesen recruited five other Mosaic team members from NCSA to design what they called in-house Mozilla, the Mosaic-Killer. In six months, Clark's team had created a powerful browser, which the team called Netscape. It had easy-to-navigate features and loaded graphic images faster than NCSA's Mosaic. But Netscape did something else--it included the ability to display text formatting that did not even exist in the HTML standards embedded in the NCSA Mosaic browser. This meant that Web pages designed to work with Netscape would not be readable by all the other Mosaic-based browsers. This would encourage people to use Netscape browsers and, as Netscape developed them, would encourage Web designers to pay Netscape for the server software that developed Web pages using their modified standards. It was in this later market of selling Web design tools costing from $1,500 to $50,000 where Netscape intended to make their money.[9]
And then Clark and Andreesen compounded their fracturing of the NCSA standard by giving their version away over the Internet. The University of Illinois had demanded that Clark's company pay for a license before selling their version. Clark later said that he refused because the university was demanding an ongoing per-copy royalty: "I didn't tell them, but we had intended to allow people to download it, and they were going to charge me. The amount varied, but nothing is innocuous when you're talking tens of millions of people."[10] The point of the licenses by Illinois had been, along with collecting a little revenue, to control the standards and make sure that the only free version available was the official NCSA standard.
http://www.netaction.org/opensrc/future/breakdown.html
Oh and btw, it's not an "accusation" if it's been well documented through legal channels. Tell me, are you one of those people who believe that Bill Gates is a super-mega genius just because his company spend who knows how many millions in PR trying to convince you of this notion?
Anyway, I'm not getting paid to win this debate and since I could care less whether or not I can convince anybody on this board of a historical, well-documented event, feel free to post as many post-comments as you'd like. Far as I'm concerned this is done.
"Netscape has buzz but also faces perils. The University of Illinois is alleging that Clark and Andreessen have stolen the intellectual property for the browser and the Mosaic name, and is threatening to sue."
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2005/...
and
Copyrighted by the University of Illinois, Mosaic could be downloaded for free by individuals and by companies wishing to use the Internet for internal communications.
However, the NCSA did not want to become a help desk for commercial applications, so in August 1994, the University of Illinois assigned future commercial rights for licensing NCSA Mosaic to Spyglass, Inc., a local company created by NCSA alumni to commercialize NCSA technology. The goal was for university researchers to continue developing longer-term technology and standards to be incorporated into browsers, while Spyglass would help license the technology to companies addressing immediate customer needs such as support, speed, and security. Spyglass began widely licensing Mosaic to computer companies including IBM, DEC, AT&T, NEC, and Firefox Inc., who was working to integrate Mosaic standards into Novell networking software for the personal computer.[8]
Watching Mosaic from the Bay Area, Silicon Graphics CEO Jim Clark, a veteran of the UNIX standards wars, understood how much money could be won if a company could take control of the standards of this new Internet tool. So Clark left his company and set out to destroy Mosaic and replace its government-backed standards. He met with Marc Andreesen, a member of the Mosaic team who had been hired at a Bay Area Internet security firm called Enterprise Integration Technologies. Out of that meeting in April 1994 was born Mosaic Communications Corporation (later to be called Netscape). With Clark putting up the capital, Andreesen recruited five other Mosaic team members from NCSA to design what they called in-house Mozilla, the Mosaic-Killer. In six months, Clark's team had created a powerful browser, which the team called Netscape. It had easy-to-navigate features and loaded graphic images faster than NCSA's Mosaic. But Netscape did something else--it included the ability to display text formatting that did not even exist in the HTML standards embedded in the NCSA Mosaic browser. This meant that Web pages designed to work with Netscape would not be readable by all the other Mosaic-based browsers. This would encourage people to use Netscape browsers and, as Netscape developed them, would encourage Web designers to pay Netscape for the server software that developed Web pages using their modified standards. It was in this later market of selling Web design tools costing from $1,500 to $50,000 where Netscape intended to make their money.[9]
And then Clark and Andreesen compounded their fracturing of the NCSA standard by giving their version away over the Internet. The University of Illinois had demanded that Clark's company pay for a license before selling their version. Clark later said that he refused because the university was demanding an ongoing per-copy royalty: "I didn't tell them, but we had intended to allow people to download it, and they were going to charge me. The amount varied, but nothing is innocuous when you're talking tens of millions of people."[10] The point of the licenses by Illinois had been, along with collecting a little revenue, to control the standards and make sure that the only free version available was the official NCSA standard.
http://www.netaction.org/opensrc/future/breakdown.html
Oh and btw, it's not an "accusation" if it's been well documented through legal channels. Tell me, are you one of those people who believe that Bill Gates is a super-mega genius just because his company spend who knows how many millions in PR trying to convince you of this notion?
Anyway, I'm not getting paid to win this debate and since I could care less whether or not I can convince anybody on this board of a historical, well-documented event, feel free to post as many post-comments as you'd like. Far as I'm concerned this is done.
In summary: UI gave an exclusive license to a co started by some UI employees. They sued Netscape for screwing up this cozy deal by giving away a free browser. It doesn't even sound from this as if Mozilla included any Mosaic code.
We're now pretty far removed from Pmarca "letting himself into" a lab while no one else was around and stealing the source of Mosaic, aren't we? Really, you should be more careful before trashing people's reputations.
We're now pretty far removed from Pmarca "letting himself into" a lab while no one else was around and stealing the source of Mosaic, aren't we? Really, you should be more careful before trashing people's reputations.
Something tells me you'd probably have a very different opinion if one of the cofounders from a venture YCombinator started disappeared only to resurface later with VC-backing and a "I don't owe anybody anything, I didn't sign any contracts, it was just as much my idea as it was theirs" type of attitude -- especially if that guy went on to use his capital to start what would go on to become a very successful company while the one you founded floundered into eventual obscurity.
I mean this in all honesty when I say I hope it never happens to you guys like that, but something tells me if it did you'd be writing an article proclaiming something to the effect of, "That's Bulls@#$!!! People should respect other people's hard work!"
In conclusion all I'm really saying is "proceed, but with caution" since in the end there are a lot of VCs who'll more than readily copy your idea and give it to a friend or two they'll fund to "execute" your startup on their terms and not care twice about the bad reputations they develop as long as they make enough $$$.
And apparently by one of the most recent postings on this board, ie, "An Engineers View of VCs" or something to that effect, I'm not alone in this impression:
http://www.flownet.com/gat/eng-vc.html
I mean this in all honesty when I say I hope it never happens to you guys like that, but something tells me if it did you'd be writing an article proclaiming something to the effect of, "That's Bulls@#$!!! People should respect other people's hard work!"
In conclusion all I'm really saying is "proceed, but with caution" since in the end there are a lot of VCs who'll more than readily copy your idea and give it to a friend or two they'll fund to "execute" your startup on their terms and not care twice about the bad reputations they develop as long as they make enough $$$.
And apparently by one of the most recent postings on this board, ie, "An Engineers View of VCs" or something to that effect, I'm not alone in this impression:
http://www.flownet.com/gat/eng-vc.html
Your CNN quote is an offhand comment by an aide to Steve Ballmer. That is not a legal channel.
Your second quote is from a web page that clearly has an axe to grind, but subsequently admits that the only thing NCSA could enforce was trademark rights. Had there been a copyright violation, NCSA could have enforced it. It isn't even clear from that page that there was even a copyright accusation. It only says vague things about "standards".
Your second quote is from a web page that clearly has an axe to grind, but subsequently admits that the only thing NCSA could enforce was trademark rights. Had there been a copyright violation, NCSA could have enforced it. It isn't even clear from that page that there was even a copyright accusation. It only says vague things about "standards".
A.) Whatever the shortcomings of my citations, they're still better than yours, which is just an email by Marc looking for feedback, proving nothing other than he once worked on the project.
B.) I have OCD so I tend to get baited on flame wars; you on the other hand seem to just have waaaaay to much time on your hands.
Here - I know how to satisfy you: You're 100% right, I'm 100% wrong, you're the greatest, enjoy the free Ferrari that comes with being right on the internet over things that don't really matter too much to me but obviously are life and death issues to you.
B.) I have OCD so I tend to get baited on flame wars; you on the other hand seem to just have waaaaay to much time on your hands.
Here - I know how to satisfy you: You're 100% right, I'm 100% wrong, you're the greatest, enjoy the free Ferrari that comes with being right on the internet over things that don't really matter too much to me but obviously are life and death issues to you.
[deleted]
I wonder why that is. There are definitely more ideas floating around than capable entrepreneurs, which suggests that spilling the beans on your idea isn't a big risk. Being secretive about your statistics is even more confusing to me. Is there some sort of upside to valuation that I'm missing?