Just saw an interesting post from Evan Williams, cofounder of Twitter, about the best way to evaluate ideas:
-How difficult will it be to launch a worthwhile version 1.0?
-Is it clear why people should use it?
-How much value can you ultimately deliver?
-How many people may ultimately use it?
-How many people may ultimately use it?
-How will people learn about your product?
-How hard will it be to extract the money?
-Do you really want it to exist in the world?
Friday, February 29, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Optimus Maximus
J-D-I
Back in few years ago, when I was working in finance in NY, we had a phrase called JDI - "Just Do It" from the Nike ad. In fact it was usually delivered as JFDI. (I'm sure you can work it out)
This is the way on Wall St.. you get used to it. It sounds scary and I suppose it it.. However it toughens you up. When you can trust your colleagues to get things done and they on you, you'll be surprised on what can be achieved.
This hasn't been my experience since coming to the West Coast. Things are more 'fluffy' here. People takes other peoples 'feelings' into account. Maybe its because I'm an INTP and so makes me less patient.
Case in point, it's taken 2.5 months to get a machine sorted out. (That's install linux on it and configure it for our setup.. WTF!?). A piece of configuration (5 mins works) can take 3-4 weeks to get done (huh?) and nobody seems to say.. WTF RU DOING? JFDI!
I've rebuilt my VPS in about a day, with not much clue what I was doing. A trained, skilled admin should be able to do it in super-quick time. Maybe its all this VC money that people are bathing in...
This is when I start letting out a bit of NY. I try and not push people too much.. I try to be nice. Give people a chance.. but if your taking the piss, then you deserve everything that comes your way.
Hence the reason for this post.. :) I read this article and it made me think back.
It's labelled 'Do it Fucking Now.'.
Read it and take it to heart. You'll be surprised on how awesome you can be.
This is the way on Wall St.. you get used to it. It sounds scary and I suppose it it.. However it toughens you up. When you can trust your colleagues to get things done and they on you, you'll be surprised on what can be achieved.
This hasn't been my experience since coming to the West Coast. Things are more 'fluffy' here. People takes other peoples 'feelings' into account. Maybe its because I'm an INTP and so makes me less patient.
Case in point, it's taken 2.5 months to get a machine sorted out. (That's install linux on it and configure it for our setup.. WTF!?). A piece of configuration (5 mins works) can take 3-4 weeks to get done (huh?) and nobody seems to say.. WTF RU DOING? JFDI!
I've rebuilt my VPS in about a day, with not much clue what I was doing. A trained, skilled admin should be able to do it in super-quick time. Maybe its all this VC money that people are bathing in...
This is when I start letting out a bit of NY. I try and not push people too much.. I try to be nice. Give people a chance.. but if your taking the piss, then you deserve everything that comes your way.
Hence the reason for this post.. :) I read this article and it made me think back.
It's labelled 'Do it Fucking Now.'.
Read it and take it to heart. You'll be surprised on how awesome you can be.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Letter to America
Theres a great post funny floating called 'John Cleese’s “Letter to America”'.
I need to save this for July 4th. :-)
I need to save this for July 4th. :-)
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Database verses MapReduce
You might have noticed that there's been a discussion by some dbase guys about how MapReduce is a step backwards.
The article is a little shortsighted IMHO. It's quite well known that databases DO NOT SCALE. Trying running a distributed database on 10,000 machines. In order to get the scalability of facebook, google etc you have to take the data OUT of the database, and generally dump them in memcached.
In any case, here's a nice response to the above article by someone who works for (but not speaking for) google.
The article is a little shortsighted IMHO. It's quite well known that databases DO NOT SCALE. Trying running a distributed database on 10,000 machines. In order to get the scalability of facebook, google etc you have to take the data OUT of the database, and generally dump them in memcached.
In any case, here's a nice response to the above article by someone who works for (but not speaking for) google.
An award
Mywaves the startup I work at has just won Best Mobile Video Service award at Global Mobile Awards 2008. Here's the press release.
Woohoo!
Woohoo!
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