Joel Spolsky: Management, Doogie Howser and Y Combinator Kids(joelonsoftware.com)
joelonsoftware.com
Joel Spolsky: Management, Doogie Howser and Y Combinator Kids
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/29.html
5 comments
"has anyone seen anything written by Casnocha that's in any way remarkable? It it just the age thing?"
He is remarkably good at self-aggrandizement. Hm, wait, no... just remarkably persistent at self-aggrandizement.
He is remarkably good at self-aggrandizement. Hm, wait, no... just remarkably persistent at self-aggrandizement.
Ben Casnocha just says things that have no real value or meaning. I don't think it's just an age thing but I think the arrival of blogging has made a lot of younger entrepreneurs think they are a lot more important than they really are. Everyone has an opinion on VCs, consultants, lawyers, convertible debt, etc. Casnocha amazingly has an opinion on absolutely nothing except organic blueberries and Zen Buddhism. He's too caught up in the San Francisco world of trust fund babies like himself.
The real tragedy about Casnochas is that there are probably many people near his age who are great entrepreneurs -- but smart teenagers are bad at playing by stupid rules, so they end up not bragging because bragging could get them in serious trouble. I bet there's a 16-year-old with twice Casnochas' net worth and a much more insightful view of business -- who can't brag about it because his business is selling drugs.
Would that be of the street variety or pharmaceuticals? (con prescription)
This guy has done very well by himself and gets little press (he's 22-24 now or so): http://www.ryanallis.com/blog/
His companies do several mil a year and have profits to show for it. (my buddy's a cto there)
This guy has done very well by himself and gets little press (he's 22-24 now or so): http://www.ryanallis.com/blog/
His companies do several mil a year and have profits to show for it. (my buddy's a cto there)
And Google, Yahoo, etc., are only barely conglomerates. They've figured out what the conglomerates got right (if you give customers every kind of product they want, they'll have no reason to consider working with anyone else) without repeating the same mistakes (overpaying, buying utterly unrelated businesses). The Google/Yahoo/Microsoft model of conglomerates is great -- it predates the word 'conglomerate' (which, I think, was coined in a Fortune article in the late 50's), since it's what US Steel and GM did early in the last century. The conglomerates Townsend complains about were an artifact of the accounting rules and financial culture of the late 1950's through early 1970's, and there's no reason to consider them a useful analogy with any business trend before or since.
Edit: Also, has anyone seen anything written by Casnocha that's in any way remarkable? It it just the age thing?