Archives for November 2012

I commute in the Bay Area most days (I get to work locally from Palo Alto on a lucky Friday!) and in that time I am either discussing work with Ben (we commute together), or we put on am audio book.

I have learned to enjoy this time, as life has fleeting moments to just listen and think. My mind is still bent after finishing Stephen Hawkin’s latest book The Grand Design!

Sometimes, I am not in the mood for music, NPR, or the audio book, and instead would like to catch up on my tech content. I want my content to read to me, and I want to be able to control what is read back via voice control (since I am driving).

My ideal features:

Which content?

. Read off of TechMeme

. Read from my Instapaper

. Read from my Twitter followers (both their content and the most popular content (e.g. prismatic/flipboard)

Fun features

I would love to crowd-source the voices. Let people compete and let me choose!

The ability to remix and splice pieces from different sources together (e.g. pieces of podcasts too [legal hell])

As new content comes in alert me “new TechMeme leaderboard entry, want me to read it?”

And then there is Umano

I was then excited to learn that some ex-Googlers are on the case, and their MVP is available as Umano. It is a limited curated set right now, and doesn’t get to all of the content that I really want, but hey, it is something. I am excited to see how they are able to grow, and if they can make this a platform so folks can crowd source their readings for sites (e.g. and let TechMeme point you to audio content).

Dan Pupius and Michael Galpin had some good comments on my thoughts on playing the ‘where I came from’ card.

Specifically, “hey, I have learned a ton from ex-[company] people” and “also don’t have an aversion to doing what a successful company has done”. Very valid points.

I was making a commentary on a narrow condition that I have seen.

I did it this way at [successful company] so obviously that applies here

The same play book doesn’t necessarily make sense at different companies. At Palm I felt like too many people wanted to beat Apple at its own game, when instead we should have been more focused on changing the game.

We are hiring Bob….. he will be great as he worked at [successful company]

Bob may be great (because of, in-spite of, or not related to any work that he did at that company). Making assumptions based on the team colors that someone wore has been a mistake I have seen.

This is all common sense. Blind faith isn’t the way to go, but you should cherry pick the best ideas and keep your eye on the ball.

If it is obvious, how have I seen this come up?

#1 Not qualified to judge. Have you seen the new startup founder introducing their tech guy and pretty quickly you realize “oof, oh man, this isn’t the right person.”

#2 Human psyche. We want the person to be this amazing force that will come in and bring in the wisdom from a far away land! Maybe sometimes we are a lil weak and that pushes us over the edge.

This is the fine line. I believe in people (over process or anything else). For that to truly work in a company, you must have the right hiring to make sure that the judgement is in place. Then, if you get the right people in, life is easier as you can fully employ “trust your people” and good things will happen.

We often fall into the trap of reading into the wrong side of the data.

One of the pieces of faith and understanding that I seem to run into more and more, is the belief that:

This guy worked at Google, so he must be perfect for us. I mean, he passed the crazy Google hiring bar!

As a (proud) ex-Googler, I admit to having played this card myself. I try hard not to utter the words “At Google we used to….” as I cringe when I hear that kind of thing. I did learn a lot of things while at the company, and from the great people at the company, so it would be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I didn’t think and surface some of those things at the right time.

If I was being cynical, I could see recommending that someone join an “in” company, even for a short time, just so they can latch onto that fact. This is just like saying “get a fancy MBA at a fancy school as a way to get into great jobs”. This would be missing the real point. The benefit to the schooling, or working at the great company, is the learning and the network that you will build.

I was driving by a JC Penney store (a rather empty looking one I might ad) and I wondered how Ron Johnson was doing there. Oof. Not too good. I started to picture him in meetings “this is how we did things at Apple.”

I then started to picture the thousands of people who are saying the same thing. Viruses spread from mother ships.

When I first saw a St. Patricks day in the US I was surprised by the number of people who considered themselves “Irish”. Their great-grandfather schtooped someone who’s 2nd cousin was “Irish”. This is how I feel about the people using their cards from Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Square, [insert other great company here]. I wasn’t the reason that Google became the company that it is. Not even in the tiniest way.

Interestingly, the success of a company can be the Achilles heel. If you are working at a great company it is often hard to question things. It is hard not to shake the “this is the fastest growing company in the world… who am I to question X?” Bold people need to be around, and leaders at the top need to keep shaking things up, else you stagnate and lose the edge that got you there.

If you play your cards right you can get amazing workers from amazing companies, and have them bring a lot to your table. If you play your cards wrong you get randoms from a company that you put on a pedestal.

(Based on some feedback, I have clarified some things and brought up some issues that I have seen that blocks the ability to purely “trust in people”)