Excellent deconstruction of a Whole Foods presentation. I'm a bit shocked that a CEO would come to Berkeley with PPT slides containing ugly Excel charts that are impossible to understand unless you were sitting in front of the monitor.
That's what I thought as well. It reminded me of the Joel Spolsky article, or was it his interview on Venture Voice -- anyway, he talked about Quattro Pro coming out with a much cheaper price than Excel. Spolsky worried about what that would do to Excel. The business guy said not to worry; we just beat them.
If your competitor is paying for customers in this era of free, than I wonder if this scenario is the equivalent. I wonder how the Live dev team is feeling about this. Do they now know what it feels like to be on the Quattro Pro team before their product shrank to single-digit market share?
"I learned a very important lesson here, one that my friend Jason Calacanis said at the OPML Road Show in NYC in 2005. If a deal is worth doing, it's worth documenting with a good agreement."
She's a superb interviewer. This isn't your 60 Minutes style of interviewer where she's the star and the subject is simply the vehicle to make her look smart, etc. Also, Paul Graham's forward is one of the best essays I've read in a long time. And, perhaps, the best opening paragraph. Damn, the man should be hired just to do that. The sprinter metaphor: genius.
I can't look at these lists without hearing John C. Dvorak (dvorark.org/blog) in my head saying, It's all a bunch of crap. It's a bunch of editors and writers getting together and throwing out names.
The guy should read the Orwell essay posted buy Guy Kawasaki earlier this week. What was there, 35% buzz words? He may have made good points; I can't parse his language.
Seems like having fun at work is the whole point. We all are experiencing the blurring of work and home life. The Skinny guys have figured out that you build projects out of a personal need and enjoyment. Some stick; some don't. Apparently, t-shirts designed by their community sticks.
The video of their talk is decent enough quality. What they have to say about being part of their community is a nice take-away. I also liked how they treated those who try to game their system: They treat the gaming almost like a security audit. They learn from their community the system's weaknesses. Seems like an appropriate reaction rather than knee-jerking from one 'solution' to another; e.g., Digg.