The Kings of Rock: Solving The Dignity Equation
“We’ll reign on your brain and rock your knot; When it comes to rock, give it all we got.” – Run-DMC
Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending Startup School, which is a free, day long conference put on by Y Combinator. The speaker list was varied, relevant and synergistic, with each talk providing raw insight into the current volatile technology1 environment. The presentations transitioned well, containing either complimentary philosophy or respectful opposition.2
The attending crowd was pre-filtered due to the application process and provided a selective outlet of worldly geekery3 that I don’t typically find in my immediate social circle. The people I met were developing ventures and projects they actively cared about. It’s refreshing to see people’s faces light up when they explain to you what they are building.4
The Twitter story and commentary from Ev and Biz5 while being interviewed by Jessica Livingston was my personal highlight. I thought it had the most useful and memorable lesson learned:
The story began when Ev and Biz developed a podcasting platform called Odeo.6 Although Twitter was birthed from a two week hack session, the reasons they halted and dropped Odeo in the first place was as interesting.
Evan explained that after running into a few hurdles with Odeo, he wrote a strategy document for the team to bring the business into a fresh direction. After a weekend of thinking, Ev and Biz were feeling mutually hesitant about the new company vision. Monday morning came around, and the conversation went something like this:
Biz: “Do we really want to be the kings of podcasting?”
Ev: “Um, no. Not really.”
And, that was it. The shit they once gave ceased to exist because of their lack of passion for the podcasting market. They felt it was time to move on and sell. Ev and Biz could have been the kings of podcasting, perhaps, if they wanted the crown. The technology and marketing was viable, but their dignity, or lack there of, naturally jumped in the way.
The path to democratizing personal media, Twitter, became a new priority. And, Podcasting was “hotter” in 2007 than microblogging was. Instead of working on what was popular at the time, they decided to create a new wave of popularity.
If you are thinking big, it’s worth predicting if you’ll be dignified becoming the king of x. The easiest gut check for progress is dignity. And if you have to ask if it exists, the probable answer is in front of you.
Entrepreneurship is a coping mechanism for dealing with the bullshit that gets dragged along with business as usual. Identifying where the pride lies is a test for navigating in the right direction.
- Startups, venture capitalists, business strategy and how each is fluctuating in result to the swings in public and private markets. [↩]
- The most obvious opposition came between Jason Fried and Chris Anderson. Jason seemed to be flaunting the power of pushing price, nonchalantly taking a shot at Chris Anderson’s “free.” [↩]
- I use the word geekery in a positive light. In the most general sense, there are two types of geeks: Those that work on cool things, and those that don’t work on anything at all. The geeks at Startup School were interesting and engaging. It’s my personal assessment, at best. [↩]
- In technology, everyone is always “building” something, rather than “working” on something. This signifies constant progress, or, layers upon layers of work. [↩]
- My favorite speaker overall was Jason Fried of 37 Signals, mostly because he’s as cynical about the fallacies of the tech space as I am. [↩]
- It was acquired by Sonic Mountain in 2007. [↩]
Related Essays
- « Natalie Portman Says This Post Will Change Your Life
- » Cultural Constellations: The Hunt for Imperfection
blog comments powered by Disqus
Add a Comment