Stay Curious My Friends

I highly recommend an article on why Jobs aren’t coming back (by Noam Chomsky) over at Salon.com.

I don’t agree with some of his conclusions but I do like his point that when a lot of money is concentrated in the hands of fewer people they have a lot more political power. And that can lead to some very big problems. Watching the giant slush funds that the supreme court approved battle it out on issues that don’t really matter has been incredibly frustrating, plus the 30 second takes on complex issues that does a disservice to those issues. It will be interesting to see where this leads over the next decade.

I think he is crazy on some of his turn it over to the workers thought, it just doesn’t work well in practice and unions are a majority of why the American auto industry is such a mess. For example in Canada workers are heavily protected which is good, in France too, but from a business perspective the balance has gone a little too far. The USA is a good balance from my experiences so far.

But I do like that he is so gung ho from that side, it really keeps that line down the middle instead of slipping too pro business.

Brilliant move by Facebook!

If you want to get an idea of how valuable this is going to be just look at this article: How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did. This is the future of delivering targeted advertising to people.

Just bought a boat? You might get hauler ads for the next 60 days. Just bought a house? Might get home furnishing ads? Just got a house and you are in Manhattan? Even more targeted + interior design firms.

Brilliant!

Chile has a a great startup program that I’m a big fan of! Basically you move to Chile for 6 months, receive $44k equity free capital, and a 1 year visa. Plus you have some smaller requirements of giving back while you are there to Chile through a variety of programs.

Long term I think this program is going to really shine, just look at the comments at Hacker News! They are building a group of entrepreneurs whose network is based around that time in Chile and I think long term it is going to pay off for the government and economy. All you need are for a few startup founders to fall in love with Chile, stay, and establish their startups there. And locally it helps produce demand now for high level jobs that will stay in the loop even when the startups go home since the internet workforce can be global.

A fantastic post and this part really struck a nerve of an essential truth (and true even if you have a co-founder):

“Being a founder means that when things get shitty, things get really shitty — your startup is your baby, and being a founder is even harder when things are going badly. It is very easy to be discouraged when it looks like you’re going downhill, and discouragement is the worst possible thing to happen to a solo founder. Extremely important: make sure you have at least one seasoned entrepreneur friend that you can rely on to be your sounding board. Share elation at things going well, someone to listen when you have bad customers, a shoulder to lean on when mistakes are made, and most importantly, a calm voice to tell you that when you feel terrible and it seems like your company isn’t going anywhere, that things really aren’t as bad they seem. These are all things a cofounder would do for you, and it’s vital that that you have someone to fill that gap.”

This finished a few weeks ago and it’s going live on the Site5 homepage next week, trying to show prospective customers what we are about in 90 seconds. What do you all think?

I’ve been a huge fan of Escrow.com for a very long time and wanted to learn more (Plus I’ve used them for a lot of domain transactions among other things). I emailed my friend Andrew over at Mixergy a request to dig into it and I think 48 hours later he produces a fantastic interview. Now everyone can learn a ton about the escrow industry, how escrow.com got established and built, and some great management tips. I’m hoping to connect with Brandon Abbey the president of Escrow.com down the road as sounds like a very solid business that we want to join forces with when we are ready.

Watch or listen to the interview here!

The most valuable membership I’ve ever committed too is the Mixergy Premium Membership. If you are running a business, want too, or want to be in a startup buy this membership. The interviews and courses are pure gold, I have limited time but making time to listen to these has taught me more then 85% of the business books I have read. Put one on while on a run/treadmill and you will learn so much :)

Also huge thanks to Andrew for the very very kind words at the end of the awesome interview. Awesome guy!

This is a fantastic much watch video!

I love it and agree, read the rest of the article here and here!

Been busy but loving this quote:

Few traditional career tactics train us for an era where the most important skill is the ability to acquire new skills.

Read the rest of the article here. And this is a good one entitled the 4 year job.

Forbes posted a great article entitled “You Will Never Kill Piracy, and Piracy Will Never Kill You“. It does a really great job summarizing why piracy is not going away, and why the real problem is the lack of innovation from the music/movie industry.

Yes, it’s true that nothing will ever kill piracy. But it’s equally true that nothing will ever kill the movie, music or video game industries either. Projects with bloated budgets and massively overpaid talent might start to fade away, but that can only be a good thing creatively for all the industries. To threaten us with the idea that pop culture is going to disappear entirely because of piracy is just moronic.

I believe in paying money for products that earn it. I do not believe in a pricing and distribution model that still thinks it’s 1998. And I really don’t believe in censoring the internet so that studio and label executives can add a few more millions onto their already enormous money pile.

Treat your customers with respect , and they’ll do the same to you. And that is how you fight piracy.

Read the rest here…