Ron Conway Explained(bhorowitz.com)
bhorowitz.com
Ron Conway Explained
http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/
41 comments
Does anyone here have experience working with Ron? anything else to add?
I really enjoyed reading through this article.
I really enjoyed reading through this article.
If anyone has read The Tipping Point, Ron Conway is an amazing example of a 'connector'.
In this example, he made a single connection that Tipped Tellme towards success.
Would be interesting to put together a list of angel investors that similarly stand out as connectors.
In this example, he made a single connection that Tipped Tellme towards success.
Would be interesting to put together a list of angel investors that similarly stand out as connectors.
Ron isn't so much a connector as he is THE connector.
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This link works for me: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/
Could sharpn/a moderator replace it, please?
Could sharpn/a moderator replace it, please?
Thanks for the updated link (no idea why it was moved). I tried to edit, but couldn't - I guess it times out.
I love this quote from the post: "If Ron’s awake, he’s working. He can be at a party, in his pajamas, or at the Super Bowl. Ron is always on the job and the network is always on." That's the world I come from. You have to work your balls off to succeed (as I discuss in tip #6 here: http://bit.ly/5Gccio). Fuck this part-time shit that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (at 37signals) are pitching. Ask Larry Bird or Michael Jordan if they worked part-time on their basketball skills?
You know, there's probably a whole class of professional athletes that have a hard time supporting themselves. I don't have the numbers, but I'd expect that most minor-league players don't make remarkable salaries, but they continue for a chance to make it to the major leagues.
Maybe they're not working hard enough. Larry Bird and Michael Jordan both said they were the first to the gym and the last to leave. My point here is simple: there are no shortcuts to success (other than rare exceptions).
And for a contrasting view, from Allen Iverson:
"We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, but we're talking about practice, man! How silly is that?"
"We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, but we're talking about practice, man! How silly is that?"
Thanks, now I have this stuck in my head again... :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I
I'm not sure why SWalker is being downvoted (unless it's just for his tone). We really need to clarify criteria/comparisons here. Iverson should not be compared to MJ or Bird (IMO), as 37signals should not be compared to Google.
Jerry Rice is probably the best counterexample to Iverson types. He's known for working harder than anyone. No one could keep up with him, and he was the best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jer...
If you want to be the next MJ, Bird, Rice, or Google, you better be working hard... I don't understand why it's trendy to believe otherwise (assuming SWalker is being downvoted in disagreement).
I'm not sure why SWalker is being downvoted (unless it's just for his tone). We really need to clarify criteria/comparisons here. Iverson should not be compared to MJ or Bird (IMO), as 37signals should not be compared to Google.
Jerry Rice is probably the best counterexample to Iverson types. He's known for working harder than anyone. No one could keep up with him, and he was the best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jer...
If you want to be the next MJ, Bird, Rice, or Google, you better be working hard... I don't understand why it's trendy to believe otherwise (assuming SWalker is being downvoted in disagreement).
But working hard isn't ever enough to reach the pinnacle of achievement. I could have worked my ass off at basketball, from age 3, and I would have never been an NBA player. Someone with more natural gifts than me, but fewer than Michael Jordan, might work hard his whole life and only brush the minor league/NBA border.
Probably, but you'd be surprised. I don't know if I would say Charles Barkley was "naturally talented" at basketball--his body type was all wrong, especially since he played in the era before everyone bulked up--but he worked his ass off and became one of the greats.
Same thing with Jim Courier in tennis. He became #1 in the world in tennis by working harder than anyone else. He didn't have half the talent or strokes of some of the other guys, but he just worked his balls off. It's the same story in just about every profession: the guys who work the hardest are the guys who climb to the top. Sure there are exceptions, but this is the general rule. Cheers, Scott
Sort of. The minor-league baseball player example is sort of an anomaly - there are certainly baseball skills that one can improve with hard work, but there's not much you can do that will allow you to see the ball out of the pitcher's hand any better. One of the main benefits Barry Bonds saw from the HGH usage was that his vision was markedly improved, and if you can tell which pitch is coming by how the seams are spinning from further away than everyone else, it gives you a very distinct advantage.
A counterpoint to your Michael Jordan example: Michael Jordan, the minor-league baseball player.
A counterpoint to your Michael Jordan example: Michael Jordan, the minor-league baseball player.
Crudely worded and some unnecessary finger pointing here, but your point is correct, to some extent.
As they say, it's 99% perspiration.
As far as DHH and JF pitching a part-time work ethic, I think you missed the point. DHH frequently talks about his building of Basecamp, and he said that you don't NEED to be working 90 hours a week to make a successful product. Since DHH only had 10 hours a week that he could use to work on Basecamp, he advocated for making every single minute count.
As they say, it's 99% perspiration.
As far as DHH and JF pitching a part-time work ethic, I think you missed the point. DHH frequently talks about his building of Basecamp, and he said that you don't NEED to be working 90 hours a week to make a successful product. Since DHH only had 10 hours a week that he could use to work on Basecamp, he advocated for making every single minute count.
Actually, I think both are right.
For a connections business like Ron's, he's got to be in more places at once, and as available as possible. This gives him a direct advantage.
For a creative business like DHH's, you simply can't work 90 hours a week sustained.
For a connections business like Ron's, he's got to be in more places at once, and as available as possible. This gives him a direct advantage.
For a creative business like DHH's, you simply can't work 90 hours a week sustained.
LOVED the last ditch email haha...."we may be going down":
"So sometime after 11pm, I wrote Ron and essentially said: “hello, you don’t know me, I’m an executive at a company you’re an investor in, and we need a meeting—in person—with the CEO himself of this Fortune 50 company—this week—and if you can’t make this happen, hey that’s ok, but we may be going down—sorry.” Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.”"
"So sometime after 11pm, I wrote Ron and essentially said: “hello, you don’t know me, I’m an executive at a company you’re an investor in, and we need a meeting—in person—with the CEO himself of this Fortune 50 company—this week—and if you can’t make this happen, hey that’s ok, but we may be going down—sorry.” Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.”"
Just to elaborate...I'm thinking back to some of the most memorable moments of my life, and they have come out of situations like this, where for some reason you need to accomplish the impossible in a very short amount of time. That's when you really do something drastic and operate on the edge of your ability, and amazing stuff happens.
I'm not sure exactly why, but something about this kind of sits badly. Somehow, I don't like the idea that a person has this infrastructure role.
it seems human networks are inevitably composed of humans
I sincerely hope I have the honor of working with Ron one day. The values described here are hard to come by and the same ones that I was taught to value growing up. The values of honor, loyalty, and timeliness transcend "money".
Am I the only one that loathes those link previews?
Yeah, I've been adding all these preview sites to adblock. So much better.
Huh? Not getting any link previews here.
On the article, if your mouse passes over a link (and you have JS enabled), it pops up a snapshot of what that page is, using http://www.snap.com/.
It appears to require you to have your mouse over the link for a little while (like a tenth of a second), so if you always move your mouse fast and never considered clicking a link, you wouldn't have seen it.
It's really annoying.
It appears to require you to have your mouse over the link for a little while (like a tenth of a second), so if you always move your mouse fast and never considered clicking a link, you wouldn't have seen it.
It's really annoying.
Maybe it's being blocked by AdBlock Plus -- I hovered for several seconds and nothing showed.
I've always had a high opinion about Ron despite never meeting the man. After reading this, it makes you want him as an investor that much more...
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That is the most readable site layout I have ever seen.
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I still used Readability on it. I appreciate that it's not gaudy or hard, but I couldn't resize the text to the size where I like it (which is a large size); after two Ctrl+Wheel-Up increments, the tab stops responding and has to be killed in Chromium on Linux. Just used Readability because it doesn't have the same problems.
Is chromium good? I just did ctrl+wheel up 10 times on that site in Firefox and had no problems.
Yeah, it's good. It's just the unbranded build of Google Chrome. I think it's just a bug with one of the features on that page; it seems to zoom to screen width and then crash when I try to go up more. Probably using a CSS shadow or something else uncommon and buggy.
I just went back, and zoomed in and out from max and min zoom levels back and forth several times, with a video streaming on my other monitor -- not a hitch. I really don't think there's anything wrong with the website.
The Game song, referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJZhKT7W6g
P.S. HipHopGoblin is now open source, a few of us from HN are working on bringing it back to life. We are implementing it now with DirectedEdge. Email me if interested.
P.S. HipHopGoblin is now open source, a few of us from HN are working on bringing it back to life. We are implementing it now with DirectedEdge. Email me if interested.
The really funny thing is that the timing worked out so that the dot com bubble exploded just before the book was finished. Rivlin therefore spends the entire book building Conway up as the world's biggest jerk. The book is a character assassination. Conway lets Rivlin into his life, and Rivlin is unmerciful. Conway is depicted as the personification of the excesses of that era. The book comes out after the market crashes and it had to hurt.
Then... Google hits. Conway was an early investor. He's back. His methods are validated, his fund returns profit, he starts new funds. They prosper. And now Conway is the king of the world again, and Rivlin is the douche.
Oh the ironing.