garry’s posterous - all I want to be is someone that makes new things and thinks about them
About Me

I'm a designer/engineer. I'm also a cofounder at Posterous.

My Other Sites
     
Tags
Get Updates

How Wage Slaves vs. Entrepreneurs look at money
via ribbonfarm.com

Really amazing analysis of business, interpersonal communications, and life coming out of ribbonfarm.com.

In particular, this latest piece on capital is brilliance.

My conception of money completely changed in the years and months leading up to work Posterous. The bargain when working as an employee is completely different. Its very easy to spend money like water when times are good and you've got a steady, reliable, and more than adequate. Its a renewable resource that in the moment seems to be infinite.

But if you want to make it on your own, you can't look at each dollar as something to be spent on your own happiness. That latte won't really make you happy. The only thing that may really make you happy is to be able to reinvest the money into yourself. It is, as Venkatesh points out above, building material for your dreams.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  economics   psychology   startups  
Comments (0)
Posted 10 days ago

Get high and be productive at the same time

The joy your nerd finds in his project is one of problem solving and discovery. As each part of the project is completed, your nerd receives an adrenaline rush that we’re going to call The High.
via randsinrepose.com

I think a lot of hacker/entrepreneur types are going to find this line very applicable. Every time I sit down at a computer, I'm seeking The High. And that high only happens when I fix a bug, write a feature, or do something that adds to Posterous.

It's an addictive cycle that actually creates value. Didn't know addiction could be a critical part of success...

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  productivity  
Comments (3)
Posted 11 days ago

Code bloat: You're killing me, McAfee

OK, let me get this straight. I can get VMware Fusion on its own, or I can get it with McAfee VirusScan. Tell me again why it's 3X the size? Does it come with a copy of Halo 3?

If this isn't a case study in code bloat, I don't know what is. Whatever happened to doing one good thing, doing it well, and letting everyone get on with their day?

Loading mentions Retweet
Comments (6)
Posted 14 days ago

When will the blog bubble burst? (via @biz)

I love this line. We don't hear much about the "electric light revolution" anymore-- but that doesn't mean we've all returned to candles.

Excerpt from Biz Stone's 2004 book "Who Let the Blogs Out?" -- back when he was working with Ev on Blogger at Google.

Biz was creator of Xanga, which is where I first cut my teeth blogging in a community in 2002. Before that I always wrote my own perl scripts to blog, the vestiges of with are partially memorialized in archive.org. My xanga on the other hand remains online.

Had no idea we would end up building our own take on things, but we certainly stand on the shoulders of giants.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  blogging  
Comments (2)
Posted 14 days ago

On designer humility

The latest much ado about nothing on the Internet: Blogger Joshua Blankenship has written a pot-calling-the-kettle-black diatribe against Dustin Curtis's apparent lack of humility in criticizing American Airlines. He seems to think that Dustin should be a little more humble in his criticisms of such a large, immovable corporation whose complexity seemingly exceeds that of a very good designer.

I call bullshit.

A humble designer is one who affects no change indeed. Designers should be less humble. When engineers or business guys or management or *anyone* makes a product lousier, they should get up and shout, and raise hell. Designers should NOT 'know their place.' Because if the powers that be keep their power, then we will continue to live in a barely working cesspool of compromises and bad experiences.

Apple wins because the guy who cares the most about user experience happens to run the show. And last I checked, humble wasn’t really a word you could use to describe him.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  apple   product design   product management  
Comments (7)
Posted 18 days ago

Get things done. More building, less talking: A simple rule of thumb for raising money.

We're impressed by teams that get things done, and unimpressed by teams haven't even started to build something. I've often found myself thinking, "If you think this is so great an idea, why haven't you spent some weekends building a version 0 prototype?"
--Trevor Blackwell, partner at Y Combinator, via news.ycombinator.com

Seriously, whether you're raising pre-seed from YC, seed from angels, or Series A from VC's, you've got to get moving.

This is not college admissions -- nobody is here to pat you on the head. If you want to get ahead, you've got to build, build, build. A great idea on its own is worthless without a team that can make it real.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  startups   venture capital  
Comments (15)
Posted 18 days ago

Google Redefines Disruption: The “Less Than Free” Business Model

Customers seem to really like free as a price point. I suspect they will love “less than free."
via abovethecrowd.com

Bill Gurley points out that Google's recent moves with Android and their Mapping API's have ushered in a new era of 'less than free.' Windows Mobile, Blackberry and iPhone platforms charge the mobile operators, whereas Google actually subsidizes operators that choose Android through ad rev shares.

Thus far, Google has been able to use its gigantic firehose of profits from ads to make it very difficult for people in other industries to survive. The consumer wins. But can you imagine how deflationary these tactics are for tech as a whole?

Every dollar Google gets its hands on... may eventually extinguish someone else's dollar of profit in an otherwise unrelated field. Crazy!

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  Google   innovation  
Comment (1)
Posted 23 days ago

Startup School '09 Highlights (video) from Y Combinator and @alexalee

via ycombinator.posterous.com

Great wrapup from a day of insights and great talks.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  startups   Y Combinator  
Comment (1)
Posted 25 days ago

Don't be paranoid: Ideas are fungible, execution matters

People who think their startup's success is going to follow from their immensely valuable secret idea are disproportionately likely to have bad ideas.
--Paul Graham via news.ycombinator.com

Some level of secrecy can be good psychologically -- it's been shown that telling *everyone* about an idea that you *want* to do will cause reward centers in the brain to fire as if you had already done it.

For tech in general, and web startups in particular, unless you have some one-time-exploitable loophole that powers your business (unlikely) -- you're better off being a little more trusting than paranoid when talking to people who can help you. You have to give a little to get a little... or sometimes get a lot.

Loading mentions Retweet
Comments (8)
Posted 26 days ago

I am kind of addicted to Cass McCombs right now, like a Beatles + Ryan Adams + refrigerator. Chill.

via lala.com

I'm really digging this new album by Cass McCombs... Just really really relaxing guitar ballads and riffs. Cass McCombs adds a retro bassline to a very sweet song on Dreams-Come-True-Girl. Jonesy Boy is like if you dropped a bunch of ice cubes on top of vintage 70's Beatles.

It's retro alt country / indie rock... some songs pick up some of the modern rhythmic repetition of Interpol and others, but still others have a down-home electric guitar twanging away.

Good for a mellow mood. Which we could all use more of these days.

Loading mentions Retweet
Filed under  //  music  
Comments (3)
Posted 28 days ago