I'm reading john heilemann's piece in new york magazine about 'diller's foxy strategy' and amazed that a journalist could in one article be so critical and dismissive of silicon valley's 'kacki clad vc's chasing prepubescent entrepreneurs' and so shamelessly, breathlessly admiring of barry diller who is 'the one' to figure out new media, with his 'fuck you bluntness' and unique ability to figure out these new competitive markets as he did with fox network which is 'an inescapable' analogy.
Pahlease! Cleearly this heilemann is doing a great job of ass kissing in hopes of working for 'scary barry' who can still be the 'charming anti visionary flopping on the couch'. (Is that a compliment now? [striking this comment as i went a bit too far. sorry to mr heilemann for any personal level i brought this to.]
He rags on the web 2.0 conference which is clearly a bubble in the making that is obsessed with google 'the new netscape' while praising barry for his brilliant curageous forsight in buying ask jeeves. Let's see, isn't it cnn and all media that's obsessed with goog for blowing away its quartertly numbers and sending its market cap to 100B?
Now I also admire diller and enjoy seeing his moves and agree he may show up against google, but don't see why this praise should be at the expense of a lot of other smart people, including jason calcanis who this reporter seems to hate, saying his 'web 1.0 flameout was a comforting sign there was some justice in the world'. Hey john, why don't you just admit you're jealous of jason's success and why don't you praise his fuck you attitude too?
John seems to forget that the media like him built a lot of the hype of bubble 1.0 and enjoyed publicizing the fall too. He fails to report on how much self consciousness silicon valley has about web 1.0 as if it should appologize for something.
The truth is I'm proud to be an active participant in an industry that has helped keep america a world leader, that has enabled millions of people to enhance their lives through the kind of self empowerment that pierre omidyar created at ebay and continues to invest his billions in.
I'm happy to see silicon valley getting back to its core mission, that of creating and testing lots of new ideas. I'm happy for google's success and the amount of investment that that will bring back to this very necessary american endeavor.
I'm sure this round will see its share of 'dumb' ideas (defined as those that were bold and failed), and I'm sure 'playas' like barry will be around to scoop up those 'smart' ideas that do turn into useful new services. I'm also sure that reporters like mr heilemann will be there to chronical barry's brilliance. I only hope he might find a bit more compassion, empathy and even admiration for the scores of hard working creative risk takers who have to make it without the luxury of barry's billions. Those who fail are just as important as those who make it.
Sent wirelessly via BlackBerry from T-Mobile.
Right on.
Diller struck me as the one guy who spoke who didn't get it. Of course, that's not his job, his people do, but they won't get the news to him until it's too late.
And I can't believe you wrote this on a blackberry.
Posted by: Ross Mayfield | October 21, 2005 at 07:47 PM