Who Is C.P. Snow?

March 11, 2014 / / No Comments

C._P._SnowC.P. Snow was a British chemist, novelist, and government official who gave a famous lecture, “The Two Cultures“, in 1959. The traditional literary culture is behaving like a state whose power is rapidly declining, standing on its precarious dignity.

Whereas the scientific culture is expansive, not restrictive, confident at the roots, certain that history is on its side. Impatient, intolerant, creative rather than critical, good-natured and brash. Neither culture knows the virtues of the other; often it seems they deliberately do not want to know.

Resentment traditional culture feels for scientific shaded with fear; for reverse, resentment not shaded but brimming with irritation. When scientists are faced with an expression of the traditional culture, it tends to make their feet ache.

Snow then implores each culture to seek to understand and embrace the other to come together to improve the world. The same attitude is needed today. Read his entire essay here which is worth reading.

Source: Tweets 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Netscape Memories (Part 3)

March 4, 2014 / / No Comments

Jim Clark and I start planning the company that became Netscape. But first it is important to remember how universally scorned and dismissed the Internet’s prospects for business and consumer use were 20 years ago. The prevailing view at the time was the Internet was only for scientists and nerds. Consumers would get “interactive TV” and the “information superhighway“. This negative view of the Internet was widely shared within the tech industry, telecom industry, media industry, government, and press with a few exceptions.

So, not wanting to be stupid, Netscape business plan number one was: Consumer software for interactive television! Great idea, but then we looked at the market in the cold light of day: We decided it was hard to build a software company for a 60 unit install base.

Nintendo 64

Nintendo 64

On to plan number two: Create online multiplayer gaming service for revolutionary new Nintendo 64 console, powered by SGI 3D chip. Very exciting. Then we looked at the market in the cold light of day: We decided it was hard to build software for hardware that wouldn’t ship for two and a half years. After those two failed starts, we almost packed up and went home. We were frustrated and out of brilliant ideas. (To be continued.)

Notable responses from Andreesen’s followers:

Source: Tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Netscape Memories (Part 2)

March 3, 2014 / / No Comments

I had graduated from UIUC in December of 1993 and moved to SV in January of 1994. Immediately realized Palo Alto equaled heaven on earth. Mosaic/web grew crazy fast between January of 1993 to December of 1993 yet virtually nobody believed the web would be a consumer medium or business opportunity at the time. So in late 1993, I posted my resume to the Mosaic “About” screen, and got a dozen job offers split between East and West coasts.

My first (and only) job in SV was as a programmer at a wonderful small software/consulting company called EIT. Did early eCommerce work. Two months in, Jim Clark emails me:

I hear you did Mosaic and are in the Valley; let’s get together at 7AM on Sunday at Cafe Verona.

The email caused two immediate thoughts. First, oh my God, the number one entrepreneur in Silicon Valley wants to meet. You bet I’ll be there at 7AM on Sunday. Second, oh my god, I haven’t been up before noon on a Sunday for at least five years. I have to go buy extra alarm clocks! Somehow dragged my rear out of bed and ingested a large quantity of caffeine at 6AM on Sunday and made it to Cafe Verona just in time.

Jim Clark walks in, sits down, introduces himself and says:

I want to start a new company and I’m looking for cofounders.

To be continued…

Notable responses from Andreesen’s followers:

https://twitter.com/MasterMarquette/status/440540693363044353
https://twitter.com/dangillmor/status/440541507142316032

Source: Tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Exponential Decay Curve

March 3, 2014 / / No Comments

Dittoheads

photo credit: Jezlyn26 – cc

It is so interesting to tweet on the NSA/Snowden affair and disagree with Glenn Greenwald’s ideological positions even a little bit. If he picks it up and retweets it, there’s immediately this massive flying squirrel onslaught tweet attack by hundreds of his followers. Very few of whom have original thought but lots of curse words, ad hominem attacks, and spelling and grammar mistakes. Attack tweet volume follows perfect exponential decay curve, unless Glenn fires them up again, then starts over.

This does not happen for any public Twitter figure or any other topic that I have seen. It is specific to Glenn and his cult following. But it kept nagging at me, I’ve seen this before, and then I figured it out. Rush Limbaugh and his dittoheads! The inescapable conclusion is clear: Glenn Greenwald is Rush Limbaugh for our time. Strap in, it’s going to be quite a ride.

https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/440372746149584896
https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/440375624486502400 https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/440381144127647744

Source: Tweets – 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

High-Functioning Business Organizations Are Not Disneyland

February 25, 2014 / / No Comments

Disneyland

photo credit: Fotografik33 – cc

I’m torn over this story, Inside the Showdown Atop Pimco, the World’s Biggest Bond Firm. On the one hand, it’s clearly excellent reporting, from top-notch reporters and a world-class newspaper. On the other hand, story implication seems to be Bill Gross is an out of control egomaniac who is going to ruin his firm if left unchecked.

I should start by saying I don’t know Mr. Gross, I’ve never met him, I never deal with him in business, he’s in a totally different domain. But the behavior described is completely typical of any highly successful, high-functioning organization in any field I’ve ever seen.

https://twitter.com/withere/status/438297367075635200

High-functioning business organizations aren’t Disneyland. There’s always stress, conflict, argument, dissent. Emotion. Drama. This exact same behavior or pattern is often found in both the best-performing companies in any space and in the worst-performing.

I often see young people entering business think it’s all going to be patty cake happy land and if not, something must be wrong. So I read this story and I literally think to myself, boy, that sounds like Apple, Oracle, Intel, Cisco, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Moral of the story? Business is stressful. There’s constant conflict, emotion, even anger. Building a company is an intense experience, period. Harnessed properly, this is the crucible out of which high performance and great results emerges. Satisfaction of overcoming challenges.

To quote Jim Barksdale:

This isn’t a family and I ain’t your daddy. But together, we can build great things and make our grandkids proud.

Source: Andreessen’s tweets on High-Functioning Business Organizations Are Not Disneyland: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12