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Calacanis and Lindzon are little girls

November 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Dealing with people who improperly correspond with others in their business world is an issue that everyone must face. I recently had to deal with an associate of my mother’s who sent a decently nasty and pompous email to a good friend of mine. But on that note, I’ll say this – the email was not sent out widely and was not in plain view of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people.

Apparently this morning, Jason Calacanis tweeted about a new product from Howard Lidzon (stocktwits.com). Jason said “@howardlindzon nice job on stocktwits.com. just installed the firefox plugin and I’m shocked to find out you built a real product with value.”

To which the following conversation happened…

 

Jason also tweeted the following “… and the “Troll of the Month Award” goes to @HowardLindzon for his direct message to me “F–k you loser” – Well done Howard! keep hating!”

Let’s look at these two – Calacanis has over 41,000 followers on Twitter, started Weblogs, INC. which sold to AOL for millions, and is currently running Mahalo.com… quite the guy. Lindzon, according to his Twitter bio, is “Wallstrip Creator (www.wallstrip.com), Hedge Fund Manger, Venture Fund Manager (www.kbcpartners.com), [and] Now StockTwits.com.” Another impressive internet presence.

So what’s my point?

KEEP YOUR ARGUMENTS TO YOURSELVES! Right now I don’t see entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, I see two high school girls fighting about who’s pink pen is better! Calacanis – they’re not a troll if you ASK or INVITE for them to harass you, which you did. Don’t be an ass. Lindzon – don’t be an idiot. Enjoy what you’ve done and NEVER feel like someone is better than you. Have pride in your work, not just in yourself.

This applies to everyone. Want to maintain a great reputation as a brilliant, nice person who is interested in technology, the interner, or anything else you are passionate about? Don’t be stupid. Learn how to deal with trolls, learn how to not invite them in, and ESPECIALLY learn both of those things when you’re in a position of leadership. You’ve BOTH lost my respect, and I hope you can earn it back. That is all.

Filed Under: Social Networking

Kanye West is brilliant, and here’s why…

November 24, 2008 By 2 Comments

Well, let’s qualify that statement. Kanye and his producers/managers/record execs are brilliant. Kanye’s latest album, 808′s & Heartbreak, is a COMPLETE departure from his previous records. And when I say complete, I may be under-emphasizing the fact that moving from rapper-who-samples-from-everything to pop-singer-with-pitch-correction-effects-and-original-compositions is an incredibly drastic change.

Kanye has sold millions of albums; in fact, he’s sold millions of each of his albums. The College Dropout, Late Registration, and Graduation were stellar – 10 Grammys from 24 nominations, numerous other awards, and triple platinum certifications all around. However, these records were a trilogy. They had an overarching theme around education, and were all very similar in nature of style, technique, and musicality (some might argue for a lack thereof). They were awesome, sampled, explicit language-ridden rap albums through and through.

808′s & Heartbreak takes a different approach. It’s left the education motif, the rap, and the sampling techniques in the trash. iTunes, amazon.com MP3, and others classify it as a hip-hop or rap album; it is most definitely NOT. If anything, this is one of the better pop albums i’ve picked up in awhile. But this is not without quite a bit of controversy. MTV has a blog article titled “Kanye West Inspires the Question: Should Rappers Sing?.” When I tweeted that the album is great, quite a few of my followers disagreed whole-heartedly. So is this approach good? Is releasing a pop album with all singing, little if any “rapping,” no cursing, and no sampling a good thing for Kanye West?

Hells yeah.

This is why Kanye, his producers, his managers, and others on his team are brilliant. They just opened up a completely new segment – think of how many 8-14 year olds have parents that won’t let them buy explicit albums. Think about how many adults that enjoy popular music detest rap. Or young people in the same category. Kanye has proven he’s diverse in his musical ability, and it’s only going to help him out from a business perspective. Not only is 808′s going to sell like crazy, but his back-catalog is going to be reinvigorated from people who are just discovering Kanye is truly a popular artist.

I smell a (few) Grammy(s).

Filed Under: News

Why the Apple – IBM Papermaster Injunction is Stupid

November 10, 2008 By Leave a Comment

Last week, Mark Papermaster had his first day at Apple, replacing Tony Fadell as senior VP of Devices Hardware Engineering. Papermaster left IBM after 25 years, and was in charge of their blade server division. Today, a judge ruled that Papermaster must stop working for Apple immediately as it violates his contract with IBM saying he can not work for a competitor for 12 months after leaving.

This is stupid. Wanna know why? It’s stupid because both parties are being stupid.

If Apple wanted to explore the realms of creating their own primary microprocessor for their computer division, they’d simply go ask the old guys in the basement. Apple used PowerPC as their primary platform for YEARS; it’s guaranteed that if they wanted to reverse engineer it, they could. Besides, with how successful and powerful the Intel platforms are, it’d be a waste of time and money on Apple’s part. IBM clearly feels threatened, and reading the press articles makes it seem like this is simply corporate lawyers trying to scare senior executives.

Now Apple/Papermaster/Lawyers are being stupid on this side by attempting to argue that Apple is NOT a competitor to IBM. Hmm, two companies that both make laptops, desktops, and enterprise-grade servers sure seem like they might be competitors to me… Either way, I don’t see this strategy going anywhere, especially in reversing the court’s decision.

The fact that Apple is bringing in a guy who’s been working on powerhouse machines for 25 years to head an iPod devision makes one wonder – is the line between personal media player and personal notebook computer blurring? Are we going to see iPods and MacBooks merge in the near future? Time will tell, but first Apple and IBM are going to have to get over being little girls and go back to the playground.

Filed Under: Apple