His last paragraph completely ruined the entire article for me. I was actually getting emotional as he wrote about stories with his childhood friend. I was hoping this article would have a point. In the end, he had no point and nothing changed, except he still remains another asshole on the internet (which was common knowledge in the first place). I want my 3 minutes back.
Great reminder on building and maintaining relationships. The only part I disagree with is 'not bothering with spell check.' Even your best and most familiar customers would like to see intelligent, competent emails from the vendor they spend the most money on (no matter how close you are to them).
It's true. Something more than lip service is also nice; I'm not sure if I'm one of Zappos' best customers, but I get free overnight shipping with them. That makes me happier than yet another piece of spam in my inbox.
Agreed - every time I get 'distracted' by giving up and getting a full time job, or getting sucked into something I thought I'd like but am not truly 100% passionate about, I end up feeling restless and re-exploring my entrepreneurial roots. If you have the entrepreneurial drive, it will always remain within you. It's just a matter of what you choose to do with it.
If work hours or company policies are not posted, couldn't you also say that expectations aren't made clear and communication is lacking? Aren't some sort of standards still needed? Otherwise everyone would cram everything into a 4 day workweek and be MIA on the 5th day.
It's not just your physical and mental energy that gets burned out through 12 hour days, it's also your passion. For all entrepreneurs there is a strong underlying passion burning inside and we push ourselves based on how brightly it burns, because we simply have nothing else to answer to. So if you're well-rested or highly caffeinated or adrenaline-filled with passion, you will be productive, because you're excited to. If you're pushing yourself to work 100 hours a week just because you think it's the right thing to do (this is the equivalent of face time in a corporate company) then you will be less productive, if not also resentful and discouraged. That's not to say deadlines aren't important, but work ethics should come from a desire within instead of from external pressure. I mean, we don't like the corporate world because of this external pressure, right? So why bring it with us to our startups?
I love the story and the writing style. He shows his passion in an honest tone; is proud of his successes and is honest about his (and the company's) mistakes. Very smart coder/hacker but also with a talent for writing (which people always think are mutually exclusive!). Props!
yes except facebook started out specializing as a way to connect with your friends which they've become very successful with. And now they are diverting from that goal which doesn't quite jive with the other companies specializing in those fields. Video gamers will still play EA games, photographers will still use flickr or whatever, movie buffs will still use netflix. I think facebook should stay within its social realm and OFFER specialty companies a way to use facebook to enhance those companies' services instead of trying to do everything.
The same way we want Microsoft to stick with making operating systems, Apple to stick with laptops and music, google to stick with email and search, netflix to stick with movies, etc. I think facebook movies may very well flop just like google buzz did in light of a company that specialized in it (twitter).
I was also going to say that I could see how microtransaction movies would be easier to manage than a netflix subscription. But I would argue that netflix is a one time payment with unlimited movies which is actually easier to manage than a lot of microtransactions.
Angry Birds also kept its addictive simplicity as the levels increased, which I don't think the OP mentioned. Plants vs Zombies is another addicting game which shows you as a human desperately planting plant shooters in your backyard to defend against invading zombies. The main difference I can feel is that while both games get more difficult as the levels progress, Angry Birds doesn't make it more overwhelming (you still shoot 1 bird at a time at a more complex building with pigs), but PvZ gets super overwhelming with too many plant types to choose from, too many types of zombies, too many factors to manage to the point where my old iTouch lags because there's too many things going on at once. This loses the user in the mess.
