Toby’s oldest daughter (Evie, age 6) sent a mass email to all her friends yesterday. It made my day. Check it out:
Email of the Week
Author: Mike P. Lewis
The Coach of Silicon Valley
On the plane this past weekend, i read a great article about a guy named Bill Campbell who is known in Silicon Valley as “coach.” He’s a former football coach at Columbia who is non-technical but has a knack for handling personalities and managing companies and employees. He’s on the board of Apple and Intuit, sits in on every Google board meeting, and can frequently be found around the valley drinking bud light and yelling at people (in a good way).
One interesting thing about the article is how he evaluates talent. He believes that startups often hire “early stage” people without thinking about whether they will succeed as the company grows. Instead, he believes they should hire major players who know how to scale up. Once hired, the review system should measure these 4 areas:
- On the job performance – the typical quantitative goals
- Peer group relationships
- Management / leadership and how well you develop the people around you
- Innovation and best practices
I thought these were interesting, especially having peer group relationships being part of a review. I think that’s smart as these interactions do impact your performance immensely. If you can’t get along with your co-workers, it’s hard to be productive, or manage or lead.
Bruno Movie – Cound be Better Than Borat
I thought Borat was genius but from what i’m hearing Bruno sounds incredible. Check out this report in The Smoking Gun:
JULY 8–Lured by $1 beer and the prospect of “hot chicks” and “hardcore fights,” thousands of Arkansans were duped last month into appearing as extras in comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest staged mayhem. Cohen and his confederates organized cage fighting programs on consecutive days in Texarkana and Fort Smith. Both cards ended with two male grapplers (one was identified as “Straight Dave” and wore camouflage) tearing each other’s clothes off and, while in underwear, kissing down their opponent’s chest. This man-on-man action
triggered Fort Smith fans to throw chairs and beer at the ring, according to one cop present at the city’s Convention Center. Cohen is currently filming a follow-up, of sorts, to his smash 2006 film featuring Borat, his fictional Kazakh journalist. The new film stars another of Cohen’s creations, Bruno, a gay Austrian journalist who interviews subjects about fashion and entertainment. It is reportedly titled, “Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt.” The June 5 Texarkana promotion was adverstised as “Red, White, and Blood.” The June 6 matches in Fort Smith were dubbed “Blue Collar Brawlin'” as seen in the below poster. Ads on Craigslist–like this one–noted that attendees had to be over 21 and suggested that fans arrive early “for $1 BEERS!” Cohen & Co. underwrote the cost of beer, which usually sells for $4 at the Fort Smith facility. “Blue Collar Brawlin'” drew about 1500 fans, who were greeted by signs stating that the event was being filmed. Attendees were also not allowed in with cameras or cell phones and some were asked to sign releases. The “Blue Collar Brawlin'” web site (fortsmithfight.com) was registered two weeks before the event in the name of “Peto Philer” of Algeria. The site, which remains live but has been stripped of all content, appears to be currently hosted on servers in Los Angeles.
I’ve always thought that Bruno’s stuff was a little bit funnier than Borat’s. If you’ve never seen any of his pranks, check this out:
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ilyA3s4FsHo]
Heavy Rotation: Band of Horses, Killers, Bon Iver
Just to keep y’all updated with what’s in heavy rotation in my iTunes/CD player:
The Band of Horses. These guys were recommended to me in 2006 and i choose to ignore all talk and hype and discover them on my own 2 years later. But at least now there are 2 albums for me to enjoy instead of 1. Most people like their frist more than their latest, but i actually LOVE their new stuff and just really like their old.
The Killers’ second album, Sam’s Town. This was considered a disappointment because it wasn’t as good as their first Hot Fuss but going back to it a second time, i’m actually really liking it. It IS very much a modern day Born to Run.
- The River is Wild MP3
Bon Iver is the rage these days and while i think he’s generally a bit too mellow, he does have some songs that i really like. You should check it out if you’re looking to fall asleep with a smile on your face and a song stuck in your head.
- Flume MP3
Wanted with Angelina
I saw the movie Wanted last night with my sister in the beautiful Arclight theater in Hollywood. I was surprisingly pleased with the flick. However, i have some problems with it
Apparently McEvoy’s heart increases to 400 beats a minute and he gets a shot of adrenaline which allows him to view things slower and move much faster. This is cool – and makes him and the others somewhat of a chemically superior race. But there are problems with what i saw on the screen:
- If you have more adrenaline, you can move faster which lets you whip a gun around, causing the bullets to bend. Ok, i’ll buy that. However, at the beginning and elsewhere in the film you see a bullet get shot from miles away from a guy sitting down in a chair and that bullet cruises through traffic like mouse to peanut butter. That doesn’t make any sense
- Even if you can slow everything down to slow-mo, how the hell do you learn how to flip a car over and shoot a guy through a sunroof and land correctly. This isn’t about having more adrenaline – it’s just ridiculous
- All the posters and marketing messages of the movie make you think this is an Angelina Jolie movie but it’s not. It’s a McEvoy movie. Of course he’s nowhere near the draw of Mrs. Pitt but i do feel misled
- If your dad abandoned you 7 days after birth would you be really excited to live in his room and want to please him after his death? I’m not sure i would. McEvoy didn’t show any resentment at all – which seems pretty unrealistic.
- If everything you’ve been told is a lie and then the people telling you it’s a lie turn out ot be lying. What can you believe? I’d feel somewhat distraught. Where was that? McEvoy seems to be sap in my mind. ‘
All this said, i actually really liked the movie for a few reasons. First, it was totally unpredictable. Sure you knew there would be some kicking of ass but you weren’t sure whose ass and how it would be kicked. It had hints of the Matrix with the wire-fu and McEvoy being "the chosen one." It’s nowhere near as good at Matrix but it’s some good popcorn fun on a summer day.
Twitter the most pure social network
Some social network thoughts…..
I’ve been using Twitter more and more lately and i have to say that i’m really enjoying it. I love the simplicity and ease of use. The fact that they limit the characters, is only text and is just a list of your friends thoughts makes it always interesting. Of course, Facebook used to be like that for me too. I’m not sure if it will ever catch on for the masses. The fact that only a subsection of my friends use it makes it more useful for me so i don’t get too many updates. I’m not sure if it’s fun enough for everyone just yet. I do think the mobile aspect of it could tip it over the edge. I wasn’t that into Twitter until i started doing it on my iPhone and then it became a must-have app. I still don’t see much difference between the AIM away-message, the facebook status message and Twitter other than the mobile/cell-ness of Twitter and the simplicity. 
More and more i think facebook will develop into a utility instead of a place of expression. I think it will be like the yellow pages – where is a tool people use to look up people, find out about friends of friends and find phone numbers, emails, etc. It’s a social address and people directory. It’s a tool
MySpace continues to be about self-expression and i think that’s a good differentiator as they could never beat facebook at their game. However, i do believe self-expression can be done even better. Something like Uber or Virb or something could be better – if it had more of Tumblr-type experience int it. We did some focus groups the other day and everyone used both Facebook and MySpace. They liked Myspace b/c it really represented them – it was a good badge but they hated the sketchiness about it. “Too many old weird guys” they said. They had facebook b/c everyone had it and it was easy to connect but it didn’t seem like it was fun to them. It was interesting.
What are your thoughts
YouTube getting its ass kicked by Hulu?
I read an interesting post by Cuban called “Hulu is kicking Youtube’s Ass” where he argues that YouTube’s business model is broken and that Hulu has the only sustainable model going forward. He argues that because Hulu has rights to sell ads on their videos they are doing a much better job in revenue per video and revenue per user. Hulu is gaining momentum. Cuban argues that they might already have more monetizaable users and traffic and that by next year it will have more revenue than YouTube.
These are fighting words but it does lead to a bigger question of whether you can monetize users and self-expresssion. Web 2.0 is all about user created content but if that content is only that and not something that can be monetized – then do you have a big business? Facebook and MySpace have taken shots lately of not being able to monetize their huge traffic.
Almost as if YouTube heard the conversation, they announced today that they are removing the 10 minute limit on their videos for Partners. I could see them getting more into Hulu’s business as time goes on and licenseing more and more content to distribute and sell ads around.
Steely Dan Cover
This is a good tune i heard the other day. I love it when the old classics get a little facelift. It’s by Cryptacize
Like Hansel, these are so hot right now
My cousin P-Walk asked me what sites are “hot” right now. My list of sites that may be below the radar of regular people but getting some well-merited attention is:
- yelp – anyone who loves food in a city should use this
- dopplr & tripit – for travel sites they are both good
- imeem – getting some mean traffic
- mahalo – really interesting for search (challenging Google by doing it person/wikipedia style)
- twitter – the most pure social interaction. It could be monstrous. Give this one some serious attention.
- Tumblr – a great little microblog tool
What am i missing?
(i’m just happy i went the entire post without saying Web2.0)
Raconteurs – the new Led Zepplin?
I love Jack White. I think he’s the best guitarist of my generation. There is no wonder to me why The Rolling Stones asked him above all others to participate in their recent movie with them. He rocks. His band, The White Stripes, is really him with his wife who plays drums. It’s good but it could be so much better.
I think he got tired of playing by himself and he found himself some legit band members and formed a band called The Raconteurs. Their first album was average but their second and latest is the BOMB. Seriously, you want to rock out – this is the album for you. It reminds me of Led Zepplin II which has Whole Lotta Love and Heartbreaker. Some classic guitar rifs and good tunes. The songs Consoler Of The Lonely and Salute Your Solution do the same.
I can only hope their third and forth album continue to impress. We need more talented rock superstars. Check out the tracks below: