Results tagged “michaelarrington”

Michael Arrington argues, over at TechCrunch, that the startup community should ignore the current administration's entreaties for feedback on tech policy, and instead shoo policy makers away and hope for this best. This advice is naive, misguided and short-sighted and if followed, will yield less opportunity and potential for startups in the future. If the tech industry's innovators ignore government policy, it will instead be decided entirely by those who are uninformed about policy, in cahoots with the monied forces of legacy technology and media companies. Insulting government and dismissing it won't make it go away, and ignores the potential it provides for supporting new opportunities.

The Ostrich Technique

Adobe ignored the fact that Apple could regulate the app store market, and ended up wasting tons of time creating a new release of Flash that would generate iOS apps that Apple would never approve. TweetUp ignored the fact that Twitter could regulate the Twitter application market, and ended up potentially wasting tons of time creating a service that might not be able to build an advertising product that Twitter would approve.

And today, Michael Arrington suggested that startups ignore the fact that the U.S. Government can regulate the entire technology market, putting them at risk of wasting tons of time creating products or services that might be unintentionally or intentionally impacted by policy changes. Worse, he's shortsightedly advocating that there not be a dialogue between startups and policy makers, which might lead to startups missing the potential for building billlion-dollar businesses on open government platforms. Startups from Garmin to Foursquare rely on government GPS data, the Weather Channel turned government weather data into a billion dollar business, and I'm pretty sure health data is next. But not if everybody in Silicon Valley puts their fingers in their ears and says "la la la la la I can't hear you!"

There is no "The Government"

Look, I get it. Tech geeks in San Francisco always want to play more-libertarian-than-thou, and it leads to silly things like saying "the government" as if it's a monolithic entity. That's the same as talking about "the technology industry" as if somebody stringing ethernet cables in Tulsa is the same as Steve Jobs. Michael's lead example of why the current administration shouldn't engage with the tech community? Chris Dodd's cluelessness about venture capital. You'd have be unaware of the distinction between the legislative and executive branch, convinced of the not-quite-proven concept that venture capital is an unmitigatedly positive force for innovation, and ignore the fact that the tech industry is successfully fighting against the legislation in order to make even the most tenuous case that this example has anything to do with the President's agenda.

People in D.C. don't look at the crappiness of the web browser on their Blackberries and make broad declarations that "the tech industry is clueless", they say "This one product has a flaw. Let's find a better one." People in San Francisco need to be at least that thoughtful when looking eastward.

What's my agenda? Well, obviously, I'm the director of Expert Labs, which has as its mission the goal of helping policy makers make better decisions by tapping in to the expertise of citizens, especially experts like the people who start new technology companies. But we are not part of the government — we're an independent, non-profit, non-partisan organization specifically because we think that we can get people engaged in improving policy without having to work for government. Surely even the most diehard libertarian must want to support the idea that as citizens, we don't have to work for government or be a lobbyist in order to positively influence policy.

Now, I don't know Victoria Espinel, the intellectual property enforcer that Michael had such issue with. But I do know folks like Todd Park, who is part of this administration, as CTO of Health & Human Services, and the startup he built is making hundreds of millions of dollars more revenue than, say, the last half-dozen web startups that TechCrunch has covered.

But, most importantly, not liking government doesn't mean it will go away. It just means that only big, slow, customer-hostile tech companies will be the ones influencing policy. In the 90s, Microsoft ignored the entire realm of policy, thinking their hyper-competitive market couldn't possibly be of interest to regulators. Facebook's making that same mistake about privacy right now, not realizing that their continuous missteps and shoddy communications are going to doom not just Facebook, but the entire social media industry, to onerous regulations if they don't get their act together quick enough. And our ostensible voices of leadership are advocating "close your eyes and hope they go away" as a plan of action? It's clearly time for leaders who are in tune with reality when it comes to regulation.

Inevitably, people will point to failures of government as "proof" that government can't do anything right. These same people never point to corporate abuses as proof that corporations can't do anything right. And they'll use the fact that over 90 percent of venture-backed startups fail as a credential. I think all these systems and economies run the way that they do for a reason, and while I won't claim to be the best educated person in the world about all of these topics, I am someone who's worked at a venture-backed startup, started a few businesses, been involved in public policy discussions, and helped lead an effort to involve thousands of people from all walks of life in substantive policy discussions with policy makers in the White House. Talking about policy makers from a position of authority when you've failed to engage with them is even more egregious than simply judging a book by its cover; It's judging all books by one shoddy book's cover.

Quitting Is Not A Strategy

If you care about startups, get involved. Do you think the AT&Ts and Verizons, let alone the Halliburtons and BPs of the world, are going to just let the government leave startups alone? If you have a cool new music startup, and the RIAA sends 100 lobbyists to DC to crush you, and the current administration asks "What can we do to help you innovate?" and your answer is "STOP PISSING ON OUR FLOWERS YOU SOCIALISTS!", how do you think it's gonna play out?

Here's a hint: It doesn't end up with you sitting happily in a rose garden. AT&T is, (as detailed in the video below) funneling millions of dollars into fighting network neutrality, and the inventors and founders who could articulate why that's a bad thing are in danger of forfeiting the game instead of even showing up and trying to play. Stop listening to the people who've already got millions of dollars in their pockets, who already have control over tons of startups, when they tell you not to talk to your government. And stop believing the myth that the innovation and opportunity of Silicon Valley happened because "government didn't intervene". Instead, what you had was a relatively smart set of regulations that formed a framework where some small number of people could get very rich. There's no reason that system can't be expanded and improved, unless the startup community decides that there's no room left for any innovations in policy in the future.

Still not convinced? Please watch Susan Crawford articulate the challenge we all face, in her presentation on rethinking broadband from this year's Personal Democracy Forum.

Michael Arrington. Dave Winer. Tim O'Reilly. Jason Calacanis. Add a few names of your own.

Within the navel-gazing little corner of the tech world that I inhabit, the mere mention of these names are among the most evocative things you can say. As much as any of the companies or tech executives they write about, the pundits who opine each day on the profound and mundane developments in the world of gadgets and the web are a surprisingly polarizing bunch. But it's hard to figure out exactly why that's the case.

Opinions are like...

Interestingly, the consensus on lots of these people (at least when they're not in the room) is pretty negative. For almost all of them, I've had someone say to me flat out "That guy's an asshole" when referring to them. Hearing it for years myself (especially when I didn't really know any of them except by reputation), I was inclined to agree. "Who does that guy think he is? What a hack." Prone to bluster, at times self-important, reflecting our entire industry's frequent lack of real-world perspective, I figured the conventional wisdom about these guys was actually correct. Even if I share all of those traits myself.

Recently, I took a look at my personal experience with most of these men, and the few other high-profile tech pundits with whom I have at least a casual acquaintance. And in nearly every case, they'd been pretty much positive. Sure, I've cringed when the work I've done (either personally or as part of Six Apart) has been criticized or, worse, ignored. But it's hard to find a time when a response to something I did was wildly unfair, or when any factual errors weren't quickly corrected. More importantly, they've consistently been generous and welcoming in encouraging me to speak up not just about the opinions I have about technology or tech companies, but about the way that our industry as a whole needs to evolve.

I've had a bit of time to reflect on it because lately, obviously, I've been engaging in a bit of armchair punditry myself lately. Hopefully I'm not quite so hyperbolic as the worst excesses of contemporary tech punditry, but I've unabashedly been trying to be provocative and ambitious in what I'm writing. And I realize the key difference between me and those who have been the harshest critics of the current reigning powers in tech punditry is that the critics have often put the pundits on a pedestal, and then attack them for being in a position of power, not for any particularly egregious problems with the content of what they're saying. I've said it before: We hate most in others that which we fail to see in ourselves.

Call it arrogance on my part, or naivete, but I have never seen any tech pundit on the web as more qualified to opine than I am, and have never ascribed more power to any blogger just because they have a bigger audience than my site, or because they happen to run a conference that people pay to attend. As a result, their shortcomings don't bother me, and it certainly helped me get over the feeling that I should have strong feelings (positive or negative) about a bunch of guys I barely know. When they're doing good, the tech pundits are just another bunch of good bloggers that I read, and when they're screwing up, that just means more room for me to do what I do.

A Little Perspective

Perhaps the biggest lesson has been from my conversations with those outside of the tech industry. I always ask who they get their tech news from, and what their opinion is of those pundits. Nearly every outsider has said they're very pleased with how the prominent tech pundits represent our industry. Those with a little bit of distance from the petty politics of the tech world are uniformly astonished at how much negativity and even contempt those within the tech industry have for our most prominent voices.

Now, I'm not saying there is nothing to criticize about the work of the major influencers in the world of web technology. You may have noticed that the example names above, along with a dozen others I could have added, will mostly fall into the category of American white male millionaires. That's a demographic with whom I have no quibble ("Some of my best friends are...!"), but that I feel we can safely acknowledge our outreach to this group can be considered a Mission Accomplished, and we can now move on to accommodating the voices of additional groups. But most of my criticisms of their work are, I have found, more criticisms of our industry in general. An emphasis on the novel instead of the meaningful, a tendency to overemphasize minor news and downplay bigger stories, a focus on the technical details of a new technology instead of its social impact — I think the blog posts and conferences that we all participate on demonstrate these flaws as a reflection of the faults of our culture overall. I can't judge any individual too harshly for failing to consistently rise above the culture that surrounds them.

I'll gladly call any of these pundits on the carpet for mistakes they make, or for shortcomings in the work they produce. Hopefully, my track record of arguing for inclusiveness will be a positive nuisance to encourage them to follow the better angels of their nature. And of course, I'll be accused of sucking up to them, even though I have no agenda in defending them except to note that the tactic of quietly insulting the tech pundits has not been particularly effective in diminishing their influence.

But as I've begun to (re-)dabble in punditry, I think it's telling that private conversations (and the occasional ranting blogger) direct so much vitriol at the people who lead much of the conversation in the world of technology. it would seem the more effective form of criticism is obvious, effective and relatively easy: Just do better yourself.