I'm not sure about your last point. It seems there are some extremely important implications from the determination that "black swan" events are often of incalculable risk. I already posted the link farther down the thread, so I won't repost it, but I highly recommend reading the article - it is written by Taleb and reframes this concept in terms of the current crisis. It really is one of the most interesting high level overviews of the problem I have come across.
Really helpful, thank you. I am in a similar situation and have felt pretty uncomfortable assigning different weights to each of the founders, but I can relate to your situation where different members are contributing different amounts of time. One thing I was a little unclear about - what is the "total vanilla" line about? Thanks!
Horizontal drop down for primary navigation elements seems most intuitive to users in my experience. I think the most important thing is to keep common elements together and enduring - primary navigation elements (home, news, etc) and account option (sign in/out, edit, etc) should be separated and distinct, but they should always be visible and in the same place.
Distinguishing between concept and execution failures would be a huge start, actually. Don't you think that makes a big difference in your final evaluation of the company - particularly from a startup perspective? Absolutely fair point that it may be difficult to determine where the failure was - but you could start by interviewing the management and go from there. Isn't journalism about investigating things that aren't immediately obvious? Anyone can lampoon a company for failure.
If you think the investigation isn't worth it, either because it is thankless task or because the cause can't be determined (the founders won't admit to their mistakes, etc), then why write a story at all? It is just sensationalism. Publish a report every week with a list of startup failures. Other startups will get the idea - lots of startups fail - and they will have learned just as much as if they had read the types of stories that are being published now.
I agree completely - the concept is powerful. If the task before you is large enough, at some point you let go of self doubt and perfectionism and start generating content. I really enjoy NaNoWriMo and I am looking forward to this years run.
The failure of startup companies is real news, but I wish there were more focus on the reasons behind the failure. Most coverage I read comes across as mockery, as to suggest that the concept or group could never have succeeded in the first place. Perhaps that is often the case, but it teaches others little. Real investigation into the failure would be both entertaining and edifying.
Yeah, very good point about transparency. I remember reading some entrepreneur's story who stressed fostering this kind of environment. It is a somewhat different but related point: he insisted that everyone in the company spend time doing customer service, so everyone had a sense of what the customer's needs were and how the product was progressing. I thought this was very clever.
I also think you're right - there doesn't seem to be enough innovation in regard to compensation. Even bonuses don't necessarily create the right incentives - often these seem more related to the overall health of the economy rather than work or contributions. While it is a good idea to share success with employees, regardless of the cause, it does little to encourage employees in their individual actions. While you say this sort of salary structure is in reaction to a company's growth, it seems like they are even less useful as a company grows and each individual's contribution has an ever smaller affect on how well a company ultimately does.
Why are they mutually exclusive? Seems like they each work best when supported by everything else. The defining characteristic of 2008 is not twitter, as it was blogging in 2004, but rather the growing interconnectivity of all web services.
Very interesting and thorough article. I think these questions are particularly interesting to consider from the perspective of a startup. While smaller startups may not face these challenges yet, since them teams are still relatively small, it is a good idea to begin considering them. It makes me wonder if there is something an organization can do ahead of time to mitigate these conflicts down the road. Any thoughts?
There probably is a better solution - likely one involving some minimal human moderation paired with machine flagging, but the technical challenges don't make obscenity filters a bad idea. A young startup could face a make or break moment when its site starts attracting obscenity and thus repelling all its early users. This is clearly worse than having some odd misspellings. Consider the worst case scenario of implementing an obscenity filter and not doing so - the decision becomes quite clear, it would seem.
How much flexibility do funders have to renegotiate terms on the fly? In general, I think we should remember that startups should be as interested in the profitability of VC funds as much as anyone, but some of this seems a little extreme. Very thorough article, though.