Mark Pincus Blog

Remembering Tom Cole, 3 birthdays later

its october 18th 2008.

i'm pretty sure it was tommy's bday last weekend. something compelled me to look up my old blog post and reread all the comments. guess it feels like a time capsule at this point.

i can still touch the day tom died. in fact i was 5 feet from this booth when i heard the news and slid to the floor in shock.

hard to believe that i (and so many others) were able to articulate our feelings in just 24 hrs. i remember telling myself then that i was at the beginning of a long new journey, one that would not include my old side kick tom. life was heading in a different direction and i had better align myself and do my best to get ahead of it.

today, i'm still at this booth where tom and i spent so many days. yet 2 years later the world is a different place. happy to say its better. i found my life partner, ali, an amazing girl (woman) i met just 5 months after tom left. cant believe they couldnt ever meet. i know they would have forged their own amazing bond (and would have ended up ganging up on me:).

tom was the minstrel in so many of our lives. tom helped keep my serious over achiever side in check.

2 years into this new journey, i cant say i've gained much more wisdom about life other than a greater muscle memory for the limits we all face.

"time has taken my tomorrows and turned them into yesterdays" ben harper

reposting from july 26th, 2006...

My best friend, tom cole, died last night

burning man 05
Originally uploaded by markpinc.

my best friend, tom cole, died yesterday of a heart attack. for those who knew tom, you can email me (markpinc-at-gmail.com) for more information on services which will be in cleveland and aspen.

i'm not sure why tom ,who was 43, died. i guess we'll never really know. those of you who ever met him know that he was an original. he lived by his own rules (unlike the rest of us). he never really worked, didnt have much money and was one of the happiest, most present people i've ever met.

i've always thought that tom lived life the way an immortal would. he spent a year teaching himself the guitar. he never had to be anywhere else.

i named my first company, freeloader, after tom as he was sometimes living on my couch at the time (it was a long running joke). but i was the real freeloader. i've been riding tom's coat tails for 15 years. if you go by what people bring to the table, nobody ever came close to tom. he had this ability to find humor in the seemingly mundane world around us. he could turn me onto some totally random tv show (like ultimate street fighter) or start a conversation with someone i would have never made eye contact with only to find out they were a total gem.

tom noticed and appreciated the world around him and i was often the fortunate benficiary. i used to tease tom about the wayward odd souls he often adopted as friends. i only just now have realized i was the most wayward of the bunch and probably his biggest project.

i dont know what life will be like without tom around. i guess i'll have to start bringing more to the table if i want the kind of life tom provided, but nobody can fill his shoes (or sarong).

Message to evil chris

dear chris,

i want you to know that i am reading and often responding to the comments on this blog from the tribe community. i will try to address some of your complaints here.

why i'm using my blog and not tribe. unfortunately, i'm working all the time and have to use my blackberry to read and respond to comments. also, i do not actively use tribe or any other social network becuase i dont have time.

regarding your view on broken promises to paying and other members. all we ever committed to do was do our best to sustain tribe which we are still doing. given that tribe has not been a viable business and is not supported by any non-profits, the best we could do was offer members a way to help fund it. this is not really different from npr which regularly asks for donations from its audience/members. if npr were to run out of sufficient funds, it would have to shut down or severely diminish its services. i dont believe that would constitute a broken promise.

tribe's biggest problems have been 1) lack of sufficient funds and 2) lack of an entrepeneurial team to reinvent it. we have been working these past few weeks to change that. i'm hopeful that we can announce something this week.

if you want to get to a positive outcome try to connect with our good intentions around sustaining tribe.

i still feel cheated.

ask yourself why anyone on tribe.net would possibly feel that way and then you will understand why you had such a strong reaction to my post.

mark, i have been a very strong supporter of yours. i guess you don't remember all the nice comments i've left here to encourage you.

this is not hate, i do not hate you. i am disillusioned. i believed in you when you said the gold star memberships would help tribe. i believed you for over a year, and they didn't help. tribe got worse, and is continuing to fail.

i'm sorry that you are feeling hated. i'm trying to express my frustration. since you can't be reached anywhere but here, please tell me how i should feel?

how would you feel if you were the end user?

you may be unwilling as a leader, yet that is what you are. we are under your dominion if we want to keep using tribe. you are the man in charge of tribe, yet i have to plod all the way over here to your blog which is not even on tribe to ask you wtf.

moderation problems on tribe? too bad, we have other things to do just to keep the site on. listings broken? too bad, we have other things to do... can't download a picture? too bad, because there is only one person doing the work so we can't actually fulfill the promises we made to improve this site's regular features- *******let alone add the new one's we said were coming.*********

every time tribe goes down there are 50k people wondering why mark pincus doesn't give a crap... even if in your heart you actually do.

my parents taught me that action means more than words. so far, all i have seen are words, and none of them are even on tribe.net, which makes me feel your disconnection from tribe even stronger.

i'm sorry that this hurts your feelings, mark. my intention is not to hurt you but to make you think about how you've made me feel. the end user. you couldn't even be bothered to look me up and notice that i'm a woman! again, your disconnection proves to be the only consistent behavior you have shown to the tribe membership.

i would like to think you can change, as much as anyone else can. you are a perfect stranger to me, and i would like to think the most positive of things for you, but what you have actually shown me is not congruent with positive emotion. you 'setting me straight' does absolutely nothing for the problem, which is stabilizing tribe and delivering the positive changes tribe needs to continue to thrive.

there are a plethora of people out there just waiting to kiss up to you, because you are in charge. i would hold you to your responsibilities and in fact hold you to your word because you are in charge. there is a difference. my loyalty is assured, all i ask is that you follow through with the positive changes you promised your 50k following.

my dissent is not helpful, i'm again sorry about that. but nothing seems to help! not money or encouragement, and so the end result is.... negative emotion.

Posted by: evil chris | Oct 14, 2008 9:31:49 AM

Tribe update 10/14

Site stability - darren has been installing new sun boxes and added more redundancy on backing up site data. He says this is way more capability than the site has ever seen.

Site development - we have been working with a team that wants to take over tribe, rewrite the code and turn it into a growing community and business. I'm hoping we can announce something this week.

Tribe needs a constuctive dialog

I'm reposting a comment from a tribe member. This is similar to many others posted here lately.

To those tribe members who have supported the service, buying premium memberships and putting up with recently low quality, I thank you and commit to do my best to fix it.

To those members like the guy below who believe they have been cheated I'd like to set you straight right now.

I can assure you all that the money people paid to support tribe and any ad revenue has all gone to paying to keep tribe running. Nobody, especially me, is walking off with your money.

I'm sorry that tribe has been down so much lately. Darren is working hard to fix that. we have ordered and begun turning on new sun boxes. ** If you care about maintaining your community, help us don't hate us. ** If you want to be part of the solution, give useful input. ** Let your helpful voices be heard. ** Don't let the angry cynical few speak for you.

Pls step back and ask yourself why i am bothering to fix tribe. Do you really believe that a site with 50k monthly members visiting, that barely generates enough revenue to cover its bandwidth costs is this vast profitable enterprise? Do you think I'm doing it to protect my reputation with people who regularly accuse me of stealing their money and running ponzi schemes?

What possible motivation could I have other than wanting to see something that so many have invested in for so long persist?

Without further adieu, here are the inspiring words a man self named 'evil'...

"...why did any of us pay for gold star membership with tribe? was it for the t-shirts no one got? no! it was for the equipment and services tribe lacked. so where did all that membership money go? Mark, you remind me of a politician who promises good changes we all want to believe in, but then takes our money and runs. i feel cheated by you. "

Fabrice explains who's really behind the financial meltdown...

I'm reposting this from my friend fabrice grinda who explains who is really responsible for this mess.

Its ridiculous to hear a people say that capitalism doesn't work or that this was a few greedy bankers. Capitalism is a machine and we are the operator. We don't blame our car when we crash it.

To: Fabrice Grinda

Subject: Whodunit?

http://www.fabricegrinda.com/?p=566

As a society and as individuals we are loth to take responsibility for our actions. We much prefer finding scapegoats or blaming circumstances. I was recently asked who was to blame for this crisis.

Like in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, we all did it!

The culprits include:

· The American Dream: Guilty of having changed from being the opportunity of becoming successful through arduous effort, perseverance and determination regardless of your starting circumstances to the pursuit of home ownership.

· Politicians: Guilty of pushing home ownership as an end in itself and of distorting the tax code accordingly thus encouraging individuals to pile on debt.

· Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Guilty of using the fact that no politician felt he could publicly oppose home ownership to lobby for and succeed in expanding the number of mortgages they cover. Doubly guilty for piling so much risk given its structure that “privatized the profits, but socialized the losses”.

· The Fed: Guilty of keeping interest rates too low for too long, inflating both the credit and real estate bubbles. Guilty of deciding that its role is not to deal with asset bubbles arguing it cannot tell whether there is a bubble even though many experts and most indicators were showing that real estate ownership and prices had increased unsustainably.

· Alan Greenspan: Guilty of publicly advocating variable rate mortgages even though rates where at an all time low – a suggestion made even worse by that fact that he then promptly increased rates.

· George Bush: Guilty of cutting taxes while massively increasing spending on frivolous projects like agricultural subsidies and similar pork-laden projects during a boom period leaving the US in a precarious financial position entering the downturn.

· Banks: Guilty of relaxing lending standards to expand origination profits.

· Investment Banks: Guilty of creating complex derivative products whose riskiness they did not understand.

· Investment Bank CEOs: Guilty of not looking at the riskiness of the derivative products their banks were creating because of the profits coming from those operations.

· Investors (all of us though our 401ks): Guilty of expecting 10% annual returns and ignoring risk in order to chase yield.

· Home Buyers: Guilty of buying homes they could not afford believing they had nothing to lose because house prices would always rise.

· Consumers: Guilty of spending everything we earn and more by borrowing through home equity loans and credit cards to buy things we don’t really need, instead of saving a reasonable percentage of what we earn.

The judgment is in: we are all guilty!

The penalty: Increased taxes and slower economic growth for many years as we return to a sustainable economic environment.

The Facts on McCain’s Plan to Reward Lenders at Taxpayer Expense

TO: Interested Parties

FR: Jason Furman, Obama-Biden Economic Policy Director

RE: The Facts on McCain’s Plan to Reward Lenders at Taxpayer Expense

DA: 10/9/08

In light of the McCain campaign’s latest erratic move on the economy, see below for details on Senator McCain’s plan to reward irresponsible mortgage lenders at taxpayer expense. In the course of twelve hours, McCain transformed a “new” mortgage plan which was simply restating a policy the government had already authorized into what is possibly the largest taxpayer funded handout to irresponsible lenders in U.S. history. In short, this plan guarantees taxpayers lose money, rewards bad behavior in the past and discourages responsible behavior in the future.

· Tuesday Night: McCain announces “plan” which restates current law. On Tuesday night, the McCain Campaign released a plan to “purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers, and replace them with manageable, fixed-rate mortgages that will keep families in their homes.” As Senator McCain said, “it's my proposal, it's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal.” But he was wrong: the Treasury Department and Federal Housing Administration already have the authority to purchase, restructure and guarantee mortgages for struggling families. McCain’s plan appeared to simply restate these authorities, which Barack Obama had previously fought for and supported when they were included in legislation.

o Importantly, the plan McCain released on Tuesday night required lenders to take a “haircut.” McCain’s plan on Tuesday night explained that in circumstances when loans were purchased and restructured by the government “[l]enders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.” This approach was not new – it reflected the shared responsibility approach embodied in the Dodd/Frank housing legislation which forced current lenders to sacrifice by backing mortgages for only 90% of current market value. Also, borrowers who benefit from the program share any upside in their house price with the government.

· Wednesday Morning: McCain announces a new plan – financial institutions no longer have to take any losses and the McCain Bailout guarantees that taxpayers lose money, rewarding the most irresponsible lenders. Overnight, the McCain campaign changed their plan and eliminated this reference to shared responsibility for lenders from the plan on their website, deleting from their plan the phrase “Lenders in these cases must recognize the loss that they’ve already suffered.” Top McCain advisor Douglas Holtz-Eakin explained that, rather than asking lenders to take a haircut, the McCain plan called on the government to purchase mortgages at their full face value. This approach would reward irresponsible banks with taxpayers’ money and would give no upside to the government. (Details on how McCain changed his plan are HERE .

o Rewarding Irresponsible Banks. If a homeowner has a mortgage of $200,000 on a house now worth $150,000, the McCain plan would pay off the original lender at the full $200,000 price. His plan would not insist on any sharing of sacrifice by the lender. Indeed, if the original lender engaged in fraud to inflate the size of the initial mortgage, they would be explicitly rewarded for it under the new McCain plan since they would be paid back the full, inflated value of the mortgage.

o Guaranteeing a Taxpayer Loss. The McCain plan will stick taxpayers with the full loss on houses and put them at risk of losing even more if home values don’t recover. It would do so without asking anything of the lenders themselves and without giving the taxpayers share in any future upside should house prices recover. It is a recipe for the worst kind of bailout abuse.

o Inhibiting Private Solutions to the Problem That Do Not Cost Taxpayers a Dime: Today some lenders, voluntarily or as part of settlements, are working on solutions to the mortgage mess that involve the financial institution modifying mortgages to help homeowners stay in their homes – without costing taxpayers a dime. But if the McCain plan were in place, this process would stop because lenders would know they could always sell their mortgages at full face value to taxpayers.

Help us fix tribe - 1 intensive week

Darren has been working hard to fix tribe's recent problems. AT and I are putting a call out to anyone with DB and networking juice to come in and help get tribe on solid ground. This will include replacing old servers and routers (maybe we can get cisco to donate:) and getting the colo sorted out.

Tribe update

I have appreciated hearing from so many tribe members, even those that have vented their anger over the site being down.

First, darren has been working to fix problems. Most recently at the colo where a circuit breaker blew.

Second, AT and I have continued to meet with parties interested in taking over tribe. One is close to a viable proposal that commits to upgrading the equipment and guaranteeing uptime. We are hopeful to report a resolution soon.

Peace (we all need some)

Bogus comments

I'm getting a number of comments from people with fake names and email addresses. Going forward I will be deleting any comment with a fake email address or web link. If you want to comment on this blog be man or woman enough to reveal your true identity or go some where else.

Going too far

The worst part of the recent financial meltdown and market crash is that it will fuel a new round of pundits claiming this as the proof that free markets don't work.

Rather than pointing to a better solution with facts and data they will simply say this is proof that we need govt regulation.

See this month's vanity fair story 'the economy' by joseph stilglitz. He states, "a unique combination of ideology, special interest pressure, poplulist politics...sheer incompetence has brought us to our present condition."

And that 'the new populist rhetoric of the right - persuading taxpayers that ordinary people know how to spend money better than the govt does'

And...'Economic theory - and historical experience - proved long ago the need for regulation of financial markets.'

Am I missing something? If 'economic theory' proved this, maybe mr stilglitz would be kind enough to clue us in with actual references. I was under the impression that economic theory proved that free markets were the long term solution with small doses of regulation to maintain a fair and level playing field for all participants.

He goes on to say that if we would just tax the rich more would 'would provide better incentives where they count and would provide more revenue and lower deficits'. Does he mean better incentives to earn less money?

so this guy basically believes that socialism is a better system. Let's see. The govt is better at spending our money. Financial markets should be regulated. And we should incent people to be equally poor.

And he says 'throwing the poor out their homes because they can't pay their mortgages is not only tragic; its pointless'. Now who is going for the populist brain dead rhetoric? So all our problems were create by a small number of greedy wall street execs. All those people buying homes with no money down or borrowing against their equity to buy new cars. They weren't robbing peter to pay paul? They were just poor innocent victims? They shouldn't have known better? Why is it the lender's fault for giving the money? Nobody forced these people to borrow up their eyeballs.

It always seem to be the ultra liberals, especially socialists who treat 'the people' like they are naïve children. We can't expect these poor souls to realize they can't afford to borrow money. The govt's job is to protect us from our poor selves. Don't let us drive too fast or smoke or borrow too much.

We all saw this coming for a few yrs. Why didn't the govt complain while this was going on? Why wait until it all blows up to say there should have been more regulation?