Silicon Valley is high school. But it’s only the smart kids, and everyone has lots of money
It’s official: Silicon Valley is The OC.
Bravo has apparently commissioned a show called “Silicon Valley”, which will follow people “on the road to becoming techie superstars”. If you care to see a preview, skip forward to the 1:30 mark on the video below:
It’s difficult to put into words just how awful this is. I suppose I should have seen it coming- The Social Network made tech startups “cool”, and I suppose this is just a natural progression of that.
The supposed saving grace of this is that it’s produced by Randi Zuckerberg- Mark’s older sister. But from impression given off by promo, I’m not seeing much of the actual reality of the startup world. Think back to the TechStars reality show- that was done with the full involvement of TechStars, and it still came out with major issues. This looks to be in a whole other league.
So, consider this your early warning. When you introduce yourself as a web developer at parties you’re going to start getting some very strange questions. And everyone is going to assume that you’re a millionaire.
Living in the Big App-le Where There's An App for Almost Everything
New York Daily News article featuring Taxonomy:
Here are the top mobile applications to put the city in your pocket
Why are posts about the Geeklist controversy being removed from Hacker News?
Long story short- Geeklist had a public falling out with a female developer over a promo video they made. A storify of the tweets was made, and started rocketing around the internet. Unless you’re on Hacker News, in which case it never happened.
Well, it depends when you visited Hacker News. If it was this morning, then you had the chance to join in on a lively debate on the topic. It got to the third place on the home page- but then mysteriously disappeared. No matter- if you logged onto Hacker News later on in the morning, you might have had a chance to look at the second post. Oh, until that one was deleted as well.
What’s going on? Are people really flagging these stories to get rid of them? A story about Geeklist’s apology lives on, hiding out in the third page of stories- if the apology is relevant content to Hacker News, why is the backstory to that apology not relevant? If the HN community is flagging and deleting these stories then we’re making a statement of our own about sexism within the tech industry, and I would appreciate some clarity on what’s happening here.
So, the City wants a taxi smartphone app…
Well, file this one under “interesting news”. Today the Taxi and Limousine Commission uploaded a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a smartphone app allowing users to pay for their journey using their smartphone. Oh, and they welcome any applications which include extra functionality, sort of like the stuff Taxonomy does.
OK, I’m not getting carried away just yet.
I’m not deluded. Taxonomy is an entry in an app-making competition that hasn’t even been judged. It isn’t even a company yet. There will be larger, more established companies applying for this opportunity, and they’re probably far more experienced in submitting proposals to government than anyone involved with Taxonomy would be.
But still, it will at least be a good exercise. Proposals are due in June, so there is time to assess feedback from NYC BigApps and craft a decent, effective proposal. I’ve spent a long time thinking about what is needed in a taxi app, and I’ve got extensive experience working with online payments. At the very least it’ll be a fascinating framework to plan the future of Taxonomy around. At most, well, it could be something very interesting indeed.
The view from behind Kobayashi as he set his world record.
Once my StartupBus stuff was over, I put my yellow jacket back on and officiated some world records. This is by far and away the biggest- Kobayashi’s grilled cheese record. I’m shamelessly reblogging this from Alex, someone who did a way better job than I did of blogging their StartupBus experience- and by coincidence also witnessed the record. Great job blogging, Alex!
Kobayashi breaking the world record for most grilled cheeses consumed in a minute (Taken with instagram)
So, this week is going to be interesting. Tomorrow morning at 4am I get on a bus bound for Austin, and SXSW. On my way there, I’ll be making… something with a group of other New York technologists.
Expect updates.
NYC BigControversy
Over the weekend, Joshua Brustein of the New York Times published an article about the NYC BigApps program. Boy, did it strike a nerve. It discussed the perceived failure of previous winners Roadify and Sportaneous and the effect the contest has had on other government transparency initiatives, while not mentioning BigApps success stories like myCityWay. As an entrant in this year’s competition, I’d like to tackle each of those issues in order.
Iterate, iterate, iterate
The Social Network made it look like a startup is the shortcut to easily millions- coding in a dorm room then being mobbed by investors while you take over the world. The reality is that the very few startups succeed, and fewer still succeed doing exactly what they originally planned to do. They change- or, pivot- and adjust the idea, or sometimes switch to an entirely different one. That’s the process Roadify is in now- they took an idea and ran with it. Over time, they’re tweaking that idea to fit the market, recently launching a v2.0 with a whole raft of new features.
Thousands of companies are going through this process as we speak (did you know that Pinterest first started in 2008?)- it’s just that BigApps winners get a lot more publicity than other companies their age. That’s a double-edged sword, because it means that outsiders expect immediate success, and take any change from the “winning” plan as an admission of defeat.
And let’s be clear- your average BigApps entry is not a business when it is entered. The guys that made Roadify did the same thing I did when I made Taxonomy- found a problem they and their friends experience while living in New York, and explored ways that technology can help solve that problem. Converting that into a successful business is an entirely different, longer process. Business is difficult.
Of open government
The other charge leveled at BigApps was that many of the entries were not civic in nature, and not in the spirit of open government. I’m not sure I’m convinced by that argument (I’d say that many entries like Taxonomy combine both civic and non-civic elements), but I also think that it ignores a larger reality- that my time is not free.
Don’t get me wrong- I like to think of myself as very civic-minded, and I’m happy to donate my time to city causes. I participated in the Reinvent NYC.gov hackathon a few months ago- it had no tangible benefit to me personally, but it was a fantastic experience. I worked with some of New York City’s best development and design brains to imagine how the city web site could be better. But it only lasted one weekend. My BigApps entry took around three months of my spare time to create. I didn’t enter the competition for the prize money (though it would be very nice), I entered it to start a business. I want to take my idea and turn it into a New York success story.
If BigApps was limited to only civic-based entries, I’m confident that the quantity and quality of entries would decline, as people like myself decide that the cost/benefit ratio has changed. I think there is a case for a civic app competition (ideas like VoterFriendly are fantastic, and deserve recognition) but that isn’t the problem BigApps is trying to solve. It’s supporting the ever-growing New York startup scene, and giving each of us that participate a new sense of entrepreneurial spirit.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
Edit: as a quick footnote, I want to make it clear that I’m not trying to attack Joshua Brustein in any way. He was, I think, just reporting on the opinions that are out there. My reason for writing this was that I think the world of startups is often misunderstood, and that in the same vein, NYC BigApps has been misunderstood.
Windows 8: highlighting the stupidity of Hulu and Spotify’s business models
Windows 8, Microsoft tells us, is going to be everywhere. My PC, my tablet, my phone… all running the same OS, providing a consistent experience on all. Your laptop will even have a Bing Maps app, just like a tablet. Wifi connections are also everywhere these days, too. And laptops with built-in 3G connections are surfacing all over the place.
So, fast-forward a few months and imagine me with my Windows 8 laptop sat next to my Windows 8 tablet-toting friend in a coffee shop. We both feel like listening to an album on Spotify while we work, so we both look at our identical start screens, hit the ‘Spotify’ button and load the app. I select my album and start listening. My friend, however, is told “you must have a premium subscription to listen to Spotify on mobile”. Maybe we both want to catch up on the latest episode of Modern Family. Again, look at our identical start screens, load up IE, hit hulu.com, load up the video, and… damn. Hulu Plus subscription needed for the tablet.
Of course, Windows 8 isn’t out yet, and we don’t know how Spotify and Hulu are going to react. But that’s how it works right now- arbitrary lines have been drawn in the sand by music and video providers about who can and can’t access their media for free, and developments like Windows 8 are making that approach look very strange indeed.
Why can my Macbook watch Hulu videos while my iPad can’t? Because it has a keyboard? As our devices converge, these rules are making less and less sense- and these companies are going to have to change. I’m looking forward to a future where the limits of my internet connected device are decided by the abilities of the device, not outdated thinking.
My app has to dodge around government regulation. Should it have to?
Update: It seems from some of the discussion that this post has been misintepreted: it wasn’t intended as a complaint about the government. Rather, I wanted to highlight that small startups don’t have the capacity to lobby for government change, so we have no choice but to dodge around regulations. That puts us behind larger corporations- is there anything we can do to change that? We work together in co-working spaces, should we… co-lobby?
Taxi travel is stupid.
Well, OK, the actual travelling part isn’t. But the part before that- standing on a street corner in the rain, mindlessly flapping your arms around trying to attract the attention of a driver… that’s stupid. We’re living in the twenty-first century and we’re still getting taxis the way we did in the 1940s.
I have to admit, it’s (not) getting better
Now, improving taxi travel interests me. It interests me so much that I made an app with the express aim of making every part of a yellow cab journey in New York better. It helps you find destinations, estimates costs, tracks your journey and lets you share the information with your friends. It doesn’t find you a taxi. Because it can’t. You can’t book yellow cabs- the city doesn’t allow it. Now, I understand that there were a lot of reasons for creating this rule a long time ago. I understand that if I want to book my trip to the airport tomorrow morning in advance, I can use a private livery service. But if I want the nearest car to take me home right now, is that really a booking? Or is it just the modern equivalent of a street hail?
Well, according to the law it’s still a booking. So, what do I do? Well, for Taxonomy the short-term answer is simple, if unsatisfying- switch to using private car services. But imagine my fantasy future where everyone in the city is using Taxonomy to make immediate bookings of cabs every night. The yellow cab drivers have been shut out of the market by city regulations. And they pay the city a lot of money, so they’d probably have the right to be a little angry about that. They deserve to get customers. And the customers deserve to have as many cars available as possible.
Of laws and law-making
It’s not like my idea is alone in this, either. Uber, the car service that works along similar-but-different lines to my idea, has been threatened with bans in DC and San Francisco. AirBnb has a cloud of questions following it around. Finance, education, transportation… anyone working in these areas can tell you that there are acres of regulations and red tape designed to make it difficult for a young upstart to do something interesting. So what do we do about it? I’m a techie learning my way into the business world, but do I also have to become… a lobbyist?
But lobbyists are evil! Hmm. Refusing to bring money into the process might make it more legitimate (it’s not like I can afford it anyway) but there’s just a bigger barrier getting in the way.
Time = Money
Law changes move at a snail’s pace. In fact, they usually move backwards a few times along the way, too. Vested interests will be resistant to change (really, an understandable human reaction to an outsider deciding they want to change the way you make your living), so you’ll have to negotiate with them too.
The simple fact is that we don’t have enough time. When you’re trying to kick-start a business on a shoestring budget, every minute is valuable. And disappearing down the rabbit hole of government regulation is a great way to ensure that you won’t move forward. So we dodge around the issues and keep going. But it hurts our products and it hurts the experience for the end-user.
Surely there must be a better way? Discussion is, as always, welcomed on the Hacker News.
This post is part of a series about the creation of Taxonomy, a taxi assistant app. It is an entry in an app-creation competition called NYC BigApps. There’s a public voting segment, and I’d really appreciate your vote. The irony of BigApps being a city-run app competition is not lost on me.
My name is Alastair Coote. I make web sites, I talk about other web sites, I take photos.
I grew up in Britain, studied in Canada and currently live in New York.
