It is not an entirely foregone conclusion that the losses Microsoft incurred to break into an infamously cutthroat industry were a good idea from a business standpoint. To say nothing of whether 2013 Microsoft can afford to invest the kinds of sums it would take to break Apple and Google's hold on the market.
It's a get rich quick hustle by another name. Don't be fooled. Making money is work, it's always been work, it will always be work. Anybody who tells you different is a con man. I have done this thing he talks about and it ain't no free ride. I'm not going to go into detail because I'm not trying to sell anybody anything. Yes, you can do it. No, it's not easy. Most people will try it and fail.
There wasn't as much "lean startup" in this article as I would have assumed via the title. I don't know that I necessarily agree with the final assertion that the "lean startup" is dead. I honestly see, rightly or wrongly, a lot of VC's, YC included, moving towards a more lean and mean, revenue-centric model as capital markets get more conservative. Which is strikingly similar to a lean startup. Then the question becomes, if you're profitable, can the acceleration provided by VC capital push you over the top? Lean B2B plays aren't necessarily the kind of internet land-grabs we've recently seen out of the valley.
Their platform is ok. It jittered a lot, and I'm really not a big fan of the social graph, but some stuff is good, some stuff is bad, it's on the balance ok.
The problem is that they're selling advertising access to their people. That's all they're selling, via direct ads or graph access and 'sharing'. Impressions. Period. So there's a very natural friction between people who are investing a bunch of dev time and expecting their impressions for free and facebook, who doesn't want you to piss off their users with a bunch of spammy ads without at least paying them for it. So facebook is locking it down, little by little, and all the devs who were used to getting something for nothing are seeing their marketing vector dwindle little by little (unless you pay).
The whole 'review process' I found extra annoying, though. I will tolerate that shit from Apple, but not from facebook.
I... don't know if that blog response is going to achieve the goal it was intended to. At the very least, the CEO might spend some more time considering how being the boss affects what is or is not a funny 'joke'.
A former acquaintance of mine (and noted scumbag) recently pulled this scam for a movie he made about (and with the backing of) a bunch of chiropractors. Raised over a quarter of a million dollars. He's since absconded with the funds to pay for his mansion/porsche, sent no dvds, and is now funding the sequel via Indiegogo.
I have always admired the man's ability to sniff out a good con, although the second film is having quite a bit of trouble getting a similar level of traction. I'm sure he'll be fine-- it's hard enough to get the government involved in regular fraud, let alone... whatever dubious legal standing funding a Kickstarter has.
I'm not old, per se, I'm probably at my peak marketability-- old enough that, if I were stupid, I would have washed out by now, young enough to be stereotypically perceived as vigorous. I can grow a nice lush beard and there's no gray in it yet.
The only real doomsday issue I ever ran into with older programmers was an increasing unwillingness (in some) to add onto their stack. The good news is that after the third or fourth new language you pile on, the next one gets a lot easier. If you know C, a lisp variant (although I prefer an ML variant), and a decent scripting language (I learned perl first, but I sort of hate it), you're not likely to get surprised by much. The programming hivemind really can't process new ideas all that quickly, so you rapidly gain exposure to the core ideologies that form the foundation of the fancy 'new' trends. And then you're just learning some syntax and getting comfy with a new API. Unless you get lazy, shit really does get a lot easier. But with tech, the next wave is inevitably coming, and you're either on it or under it.
I'm not gonna lie, I like using facebook, but I unplugged it from my phone a while ago and haven't regretted it. Social networking is a fun diversion but a terrible lifestyle.
Like I said, a small mechanical royalty for obscure songs where you don't know who owns what, or how to pay them. No copyright trolling.
And for big songs, call it gold-record hits and above, whatever Jay-Z (or equivalent) demands. If you want to sample a big band's big hit, you are arguably getting the better of the arrangement, and they ought to have the right to charge you whatever the market will bear. Or tell you to shove it if they don't like the song they're getting shoved into.
> That's not going to happen either, under the current system.
Well, the dynamics of who will get paid as a result of the legal recording arrangements are well beyond the scope of this conversation, and I don't believe the terms of somebody's recording deal, whatever they might be, negate wholesale expropriation of someone's artistic output. I find the whole "FAT CAT RECORD LABELS ARE PARASITES, STICK IT TO THE MAN!!!" argument to be kind of disingenuous.
> Here your own argument comes back to bite you. Really good sampling takes just as much blood, sweat, and tears invested as the other skill sets you cite.
This is.... categorically not true. I'm sorry. I have no small familiarity with electronic music and sampling, having transitioned over a while back after seeing the writing on the wall in terms of making music the old-school way, and while I would not hesitate to say that it requires skill and, above all, taste, there is little if any comparison to a singular analog musician, let alone an entire ensemble. I realize I'm going to be called old fashioned in this respect, but I've done both, and I can DJ a heck of a lot better than DJ's can sing, play guitar, bass, keys (live keys), and drums. Each instrument takes a lifetime to master, point blank.
You're right, I abused 'externality' a little. Not completely, but it's a little strained.
All I'll say here is what I said before-- for little songs, kick a small mechanical royalty to the rights holders so they can pay their bills. For big gold record songs, if you want to ride the coattails of AC/DC, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, or whoever, pay the toll that they dictate or write your own hook.
To take the 'sampling' debate into another realm, consider taking the likeness of a famous actor and CGIing it into some other, derivative work. This isn't so farfetched, really. Didn't 30 Rock do a bit a couple years back where they tried to CGI Jerry Seinfeld into NBC's flailing lineup?
And according to the ideas proposed in that article, wouldn't that be ANY derivative work, any time? Like some technicolor nightmare of a porno where James Dean bangs Elizabeth Taylor? Do they have a right to say 'no thank you'? Do they have a right to say 'yeah, but it'll cost you'? What about somebody like Tom Waits, who's consistently declined to make his work available in commercials? Can Girl Talk sample him and then put it in a Doritos ad? I think he'd be a little taken aback.
I think you gotta pay the original artist. As an old-school analog musician, I had to sweat for literally decades to be able to drop that perfect ten second fill effortlessly. The engineer had to invest thousands of dollars and a similar level of time to record it and make it sound amazing. And if some kid wants to use them, great, that should be allowed, but they gotta pay, because that music didn't just drop out of the sky. And if you want to sample a gigantic hit that everybody knows (which is going to make your derivative work much more marketable), then you're gonna have to pay a lot more, no? If I wanted, let's say, Jay-Z to come in and sing 99 problems on my song, what would that cost me? Probably a lot, and for good reason.
If it's really worth nothing, then all these DJ's could either produce it or record it themselves. But it's not, and they can't. This is a classic economic externality. Writing, performing, and recording really good music costs a lot of money, and sampling is virtually free. Pay obscure artists a reasonable mechanical residual and negotiate with samples of huge hits for huge money.
I don't really see the benefit of jumping from Google just to submit your privacy to the tender mercies of Facebook, Amazon, et. al, other than to say you did it.
And punting on GPS with a simple "Oh, I prefer paper maps" is a trifle disingenuous.
Hey buddy, the active.com guys have been suing anybody using couch to 5k into the ground for a minute now. You should change your name or expect a not so nice letter.
I understand the frustration, and there are a lot more unfair things waiting for you out in the business world. So opt out. Invent your own job and take no shit from anybody. Get a consultancy running and freelance. It's not complicated, just a lot of work to get started. Then transition off writing code for others into your own projects. You're young, it'll be fine. It won't be as sexy as doing yc and living the life in the valley, but you could probably move down and do it there if you were hungry enough. Fuck the student loans, if you can't eat and pay them it'll just fuck up your credit till you get square. Don't be more emotionally attached to your debt than the bank is to its own.
The upshot is, yeah, if you didn't go to an ivy, you're going to have a tougher road in some capacities. Some. And mostly if you're trying to convince somebody that you're going to do something cool someday. Do something and remove all doubt, or build something so that youre the guy deciding what's good enough or not.
The pace of innovation in software is both staggering and obvious to anyone who takes a serious look at what you can do with a computer 10, 20, or 30 years in the past. We've done quite a bit with the advances Moore's law has given us, if you ask me. And software is hard and complicated because the problems it's tackling are hard and complicated. A basic UI, or a basic web page, is easier to make now than it's ever been. But the thing that keeps me comfortably in business is that no matter how much I produce, everybody still wants more stuff, faster and cheaper.
It's always a treat to hear Alan Kay go on about how smart Alan Kay is. Those were the days, I guess? Sorry about this whole PC-internet revolution thing.