Matt Mazur

I make it a point not to quote Paul Graham too often, simply because there’s a lot of good quotes and it seems a bit artificial when done too often. That being said, I found today’s article on credentials to be particularly insightful:

Large organizations can’t [accurately measure performance]. But a bunch of small organizations in a market can come close. A market takes every organization and keeps just the good ones. As organizations get smaller, this approaches taking every person and keeping just the good ones. So all other things being equal, a society consisting of more, smaller organizations will care less about credentials.
…
In a world of small companies, performance is all anyone cares about. People hiring for a startup don’t care whether you’ve even graduated from college, let alone which one. All they care about is what you can do.

For those unfamiliar with his work, check out his online essays, which are extremely good. Or, if you prefer book format, try Hackers & Painters.

For many reasons I hope that my career path (for lack of a better word) leads me to a startup one day.

Time will tell.

Here’s a great video via HackerNews by Clay Shirky, a well known social technology guru, on the importance of passionate internet communities.

Some good quotes:

“They didn’t care that they’d seen it work in practice because they already knew it couldn’t work in theory.”

“The solidity was on the side of the thing that looked evanescent.”

“What has happened, what is happening in our generation is that we have a set of tools for aggregating things that people care about in ways that increase the scope and longevity in ways that were unpredictable even a decade ago.”

“You will make more accurate predictions about software and in this web driving world about services if you ask yourself not whats the business model but rather do the people who like it take care of each other. That turns out to be the better predictor of longevity.”

“…Asking for nothing but the chance to come together and do something interesting”

Somewhat coincidentally, while exploring prior submissions of other HackerNews users I came across Bruce Schneier’s review of Shirky’s recent book Here Comes Everybody:

[Shirky's] new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, explores a world where organizational costs are close to zero and where ad hoc, loosely connected groups of unpaid amateurs can create an encyclopedia larger than the Britannica and a computer operating system to challenge Microsoft’s.

I’m going to use this as an excuse to go pick up the book.

Rather than studying business, what about starting a company from scratch? If history is any guide, a significant number of people who are laid off over the coming year will do just that. Carl Schramm, the head of the Kauffman Foundation, a non-profit organisation that promotes entrepreneurial activity, points out that start-ups tend to flourish in the year that follows a sharp downturn. Rather than head back to another corporate bureaucracy, some of those made redundant will take a shot at being their own boss.

from The Economist

Taken from How To Spot a Breakthrough: Tips from Early Amazon Investor Nick Hanauer, which has a lot of good sound bytes:

The key elements of a breakthrough idea, Hanauer said, are value creation and social disruption.

As for social disruption, Hanauer gave a quick summary of what he meant:

—If everyone thinks it’s a great idea, it probably sucks.
—If people understand it, you’re too late.
—If people don’t like it and don’t understand it, it probably still sucks.

If you have a breakthrough idea, you don’t need a breakthrough way to get it to the market. “If you have transformational value, people will beat down your door…Focus on the product. If the product is good enough, marketing will take care of itself. If the product sucks, no amount of marketing will get you over the hump.” [see ALL IN Expert]

—”I’m not a technologist. From my point of view, technology is simply a thing that allows you to bring transformational things to customers…People get excited about a particular technology, and they forget the question: what does this do for people? It’s about what the customer gets compared to the alternatives.”

—”As an entrepreneur, I’ve never been concerned about competition. If you’re early, run like hell. It’s all about execution at the end of the day. It’s about having a great idea, executing like hell, and delivering value to customers.”

—As for walking a different path, “I was difficult for my parents, and for my teachers. I’m incredibly uncomfortable in crowds, I never go to sporting events…What that allows is for you to have an idea and be comfortable with people not liking it. Jeff Bezos calls me a high-functioning contrarian.”

Hmm, I think I just quoted about half the article.

and

I’m going to make an effort to watch a few of these a week, as they are some of the most insightful talks I’ve ever heard.

I didn’t hear of Malcolm Gladwell until very recently. He’s been mentioned a lot because of his new book, Outliers, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. For some reason I pictured an old gray guy but I couldn’t have been farther off. He’s 45, a British born Canadian journalist whose mother is a Jamaican psychotherapist and whose father is an English civil engineer.

I don’t know what it was about the tomato sauce speech, but I found it captivating.

And so, I bought Outliers, which should keep me occupied to and from work for the next two or three weeks.

Quick little lesson on using the URI parse method, using an example:

uri = URI.parse("http://www.mattmazur.com/2008/11/macs-productivity-made-easy/")

uri.host = "www.mattmazur.com"
uri.scheme = "http"
uri.port = 80
uri.path = "/2008/11/macs-productivity-made-easy/"

More details on URI including other methods here.

My wife and I have been corresponding with my great aunt and uncle over the last several weeks.  Earlier this week my uncle wrote us the following email. The bulk of it is an excerpt from a book called the Art of Living Consciously by Nathaniel Branden, which is available on Amazon for as low as $10.

It was good talking to both of you yesterday. As time goes by you both will gain the wisdom to separate the trivial from the important. Unfortunately world conditions are deteriorating but whatever happens you will have each other. You both are young and in the prime of life and have the energy to fight for your own happiness. You can do nothing about the world but as long as you have your minds and learn to use it for your rational self interest all the rest is bull shit.

I’ve come across some observation from Nathaniel Branden who taught me a great deal and I would be remiss if I did not share them with you while I still able to.

The following are from a book he wrote “THE ART OF LIVING CONSCIOUSLY”

Living consciously is a state of being mentally active rather than passive. It is the ability to look at the world through fresh eyes. It is intelligence taking joy in its own function. Living consciously in seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our interests, actions, values, purposes, and goals. It is the willingness to confront facts, pleasant or unpleasant. It is the desire to discover our mistakes and correct them. Within the range of our interests and concerns, it is the quest to keep expanding our awareness and understanding, both of the world external to self and of the world within. It is respect for reality and respect for the distinction between the real and the unreal. It is the commitment to see what we see and know what we know. It is recognition that the act of dismissing reality is the root of all evil.

If we wish to remain adaptive, we must be committed to continuous learning as a way of life.

Most people are unaware that their thinking and value system may be riddled with contradictions.

One of the most common forms in which people confront contradictions in everyday life if when their official view of themselves (their self concept) clashes with some aspect of their behavior. In such a
situation, they have three alternatives:
1) They can revise their self-concept.
2) They can change their behavior.
3) Or they can evade the contradiction.

We undermine our self-esteem when we persist in our contradictions, because at a deeper level we know what we are doing. In aligning ourselves with reality as best we understand it, we optimize
our chances for success.

Our inner world, too, is part of reality.

If we are to function effectively, we must learn to look in two directions: to preserve contact with the world and with the self.

If we choose to move through life blindly, we have good reason to be afraid.

When we are able to see the internal more clearly, we become able to see the external more clearly.

Among the many crimes committed against the younger generation, one of the worst is that younger people are taught next to nothing about reason, rationality, or the importance of critical thinking.

We must choose to think.

The quest of reason…this can hardly be stated often enough…is for the non contradictory integration of experience.

The practice of living consciously entails an openness to evidence that might suggest an error in one’s thinking…and a willingness to correct such errors.

One of the meanings of living consciously is: Pay attention to what works, and do more of it, and try to understand the principles involved. And also: Pay attention to what doesn’t work, and stop doing it.

Do I take responsibility for generating a level of awareness appropriate to the context? Do I give my activities the best consciousness of which I am capable, or do I settle for something less than that?

The essence of our psychological freedom may be summarized as follows:
1) We are free to focus our mind, or not bother, or to actively avoid focusing,
2) We are free to strive for greater clarity with regard to some issue confronting us, or not bother, or to actively seek darkness
3) We are free to examine unpleasant facts or to evade them.

The simplest strategy of avoidance consists of giving up the effort to direct the flow of awareness. We abandon purpose. We surrender to passive drifting.

Another form of consciousness avoidance (reality avoidance) is passive surrender to the feeling or emotion of the moment in a way that effectively freezes our rational mental activity.

Another avoidance strategy consists of switching one’s mind away from where it needs to be to some irrelevant issue to hold reality at bay.

Passivity as a policy leaves us feeling incompetent in the face of too many of life’s challenges and opportunities. It also leaves us with undeveloped self-esteem.

Fears: that paralyze thought:
1) Fear of facing truths about ourselves (about our thoughts, feelings, or actions) we have been denying, avoiding, or disowning so as to protect our self-esteem or our pretense at it.
2) Fear of facing truths about another person that, if acknowledged, might impel us to rock the boat of the relationship or even destroy it.
3) Fear of not knowing how to deal with the realities one is acknowledging.
4) Fear of losing face in the eyes of significant others if certain truths about oneself are exposed, so that one dreads to expose them even to one’s own inspection.

Success belongs to those who are willing to take responsibility for attaining their desires…those who respond to life proactively rather than passively, choosing independence over dependence.

What we repress does not simply disappear; at an unconscious level, it remains active.

People who are governed by a respect for reality lead lives that work better than those of people who place wishes above reason.

Know what you are doing. If we are present to what we are doing, our consciousness is open to receive..

Often, a flight from reality is a flight from the reality of our inner state.

When we are frightened, we typically pull energy in to our center, seeing less, hearing less…shrinking consciousness precisely when we need to expand it..

“I”…our deepest identity…is neither our social roles nor our beliefs nor our feelings nor our attachments nor our defenses nor our possessions, but that inner searchlight we brighten or dim by choice.

Mindfulness leads to increased effectiveness; its abandonment leads to failure and defeat.

If there is one certain indication of unconscious living, it is indifference to the question ‘”What do I need to know (or learn) in order to achieve my goals?

Living consciously entails paying attention to relationship between our professed values. goals, and purposes and our daily behavior.

Doing more of what doesn’t work doesn’t work.

If we are wise enough to base our self-esteem not on being “right” but on being rational…on being conscious,,,and on having integrity, then we recognize that acknowledgment and correction of an error is not an abyss into which we have fallen but a height we can take pride in having
climbed.

One application of mindfulness is that of learning to manage the feeling that pulls us away from where we need to look.

This is be one of the best collections of business advice that I have ever seen.

The safest plan, and the one most sure of success for the young man starting in life, is to select the vocation which is most congenial to his tastes.

…

Work at it, if necessary, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well now.

I posted a question on HN yesterday asking for clarification on an array of legal issues. They included questions about when to form a company, what type of lawyers to seek, and how to deal with copyright issues. The responses were generally well thought out but varied a lot.

- Form an LLC immediately (it only costs a few hundred dollars) to get some liability coverage. Most recommended talking to a lawyer before you launch, but forming an LLC is better than nothing.

- Definitely seek a lawyer when you start having employees because you’ll have to restructure the company, often to a C corp (need to research)

- For charging money you’ll have Terms and Conditions, which should be created/reviewed by a lawyer

- You produce content it is copyrighted. The little © doesn’t really mean much

- People can take your idea and modify it all they want. There’s not much you can do to stop them

- If you have a partner, make sure you have an Operating Agreement

- The type of lawyer that you look for to help with these things is a Corporate Lawyer

- Forming an LLC is easy; keeping up on the paperwork is hard. Make sure you do it properly

Matt Maroon, a poker player gone entrepreneur via YC threw in his 2c: don’t ask hackers, ask a lawyer. He followed up with an excellent blog post expanding on the idea:

This is dangerous to you, seeker of legal advice, because you’ll be fooled into thinking maybe, just maybe, you can save yourself the retainer. The guy telling you “oh don’t bother to form an LLC, you’re not making a profit yet so you can’t be sued” sounds so confident, surely he must know what he’s talking about. He doesn’t, and you really don’t want to find that out the hard way.

He goes on to explain how the law is difficult to understand and you assume a huge amount of risk by not taking the proper legal precautions. While I agree with him, I think that asking the community has merits too. For me, the question was somewhat of a starting point. None of the posts are a definitive “you should do this” and they couldn’t be, but it still gives me a foundation for future research. The ensuing discussion was filled with smart comments on his article. Some of the best points made included:

- It can be tough to know when it is appropriate to consult a lawyer

- It can cost a lot of $ to consult a lawyer. The benefits might not outweigh the costs. -$EV

- What if the lawyer wants to screw you over and take your money? People responded that most don’t do this because of reputation and they want you to come back in the future, spread the word, etc

- Keep in mind its free advice from nonprofessionals

Check out this great speech by Chris Wanstrath, a notable Rails developer. Most of the stuff I really liked was towards the end:

I don’t know how many of you read RSS, but I challenge you (that’s a keynote term) to give it up for a month. Just turn it off. Stop using Google Reader or NetNewsWire or whatever
the kids are using these days. It’s not worth your time.

If you’ve been meaning to learn a new language, start learning it. But don’t just read a book. Start writing a program.

In fact, stop worrying so much about other people. Every time I’ve worked on a project I thought other people would really love, it was a massive flop. Every time I’ve worked on a project I loved, it worked. If you’re sitting in this room, your taste is not as far off from those around you as you’d think. Build something you love and others will love it, too. (Not everyone, of course.)

My plea to you today is to start a side project. Scratch your own itch. Be creative. Share something with the world, or keep it to yourself.

One thing he mentions is to take one Sunday a month and just go go go. I think this is a really great idea for me given my current time crunch.