How To Make Yourself Hated

I don’t fully understand the business of Cloudant to be honest, but what they did today absolutely blew my mind. They sent out a press release touting the company’s acquisition of a massive client: Monsanto. For those of you who are not aware of Monsanto, it’s one of the world’s most hated companies. If you want to learn about why they are so hated, you can Google their name, but as Wikipedia states:

Monsanto’s development and marketing of genetically engineered seed and bovine growth hormone, as well as its aggressive litigation, political lobbying practices, seed commercialization practices and “strong-arming” of the seed industry have made the company controversial around the world and a primary target of the alter-globalization movement and environmental activists.

O.k., so now you know that Monsanto is hated. I mean deeply hated by people around the world.

Participating In Unethical Business Activities

I know you need to fund your company if you are startup. The fundamental desire to keep your business alive at all costs could possibly bring you to a point where you have to decide whether or not you want to accept money from someone you may not want to. For the longest time, many people have simply accepted it as fact that corporations will do whatever is necessary to survive. Yet some of the unethical exchanges that have taken place up until now are the exact source of many of the “99 percent’s” discontent.

While the “99 percent” don’t yet have a clear outline for how they’re going to change things, one thing is clear: they’re frustrated. One of the numerous reasons that they are frustrated is that up until now, many corporations have been held unaccountable for immoral and unethical actions. They feel as though the consumer has been taken advantage of.

Depending on where you fall in the political spectrum, and more importantly depending on the values you hold, you may differ from me on how a business should act. However I personally believe that it is possible to build an extremely successful business without sacrificing your values. However Paul Graham doesn’t appear to believe so based on the comments he made today in defense of this stupid press release.

In reply to a comment voicing hatred at Cloudant over their decision to do business with Monsanto, Paul Graham posted the following:

It’s an unfortunate sign for HN when the top comment on a thread is such a content-free rant.

If the rule is, if x sells something to Monsanto, fuck x, then what you’re saying is fuck the entire corporate world, because I’m sure Monsanto buys Apple computers and Chevrolets and Clorox too. It’s sort of ridiculous to hold Cloudant to a standard that essentially zero other companies meet.

There are frequently inane comments of this type at the bottom of HN threads. What’s alarming is to see them at the top.

What is alarming is not the comment by the angry user but instead Paul Graham’s support of this press release. Perhaps he doesn’t have a problem with Monsanto, but his comment suggests he does. Typically I wouldn’t care about such actions but Paul is one of the most visible leaders in Silicon Valley. He’s actively suggesting the idea that because other people are doing it (people with big brand names), it’s ok for a YCombinator company to do it as well.

Some people have suggested that disagreeing with Cloudant’s decision is anti-capitalist. It’s not. I’m a free market capitalist who also happens to believe that your company should have values. For too long we’ve allowed companies to sacrifice their values, or at least hold weak ones. The next set of great corporations will not shove their values in a closet. Instead they’ll use their values as a core part of their marketing efforts and wear them proudly. If you agree with them, you will do business with them. If you don’t, you won’t purchase their products.

If Cloudant is wearing this partnership as a badge of honor, congrats. It just means that percentage of the population that doesn’t agree with the company’s values won’t purchase their services. Additionally, if YCombinator is promoting a world where values don’t matter and economic transactions are the only thing that do, then they are truly part of the old guard.

The old guard valued the acquisition of capital no matter the cost. This is exactly what the 99 percent is angry about. The 99 percent may not have clear objectives, or even a leader, but I can tell you that this type of behavior is exactly what they don’t like. We deserve more from our leaders and people like Paul Graham should be leading the charge. It’s time that we let them know.

Update
Here’s Paul Graham’s second comment:

I don’t think there are two separate crowds. I think HN’s initial population of smart, mostly apolitical nerds has been diluted by the arrival of a lot of new users who are not as smart, and are thus more excited by shallow controversies.

Politics happens to a big source of shallow controversies. But I don’t think most people who upvote comments saying “Fuck Monsanto” do it because they have a deep interest in politics, any more than most people who rail against “Obamacare” do it because they have a deep interest in politics. They do it because they’re dumb. It’s the shape of this sort of idea that excites them, not its content.

I’ll let the commenters, like Marcus and Jack who first pointed this out make their own judgement about it. Apparently he finds his own customers/supporters dumb.

While I know that I could probably take a couple vacation days from the blog, there has been this burning feeling inside of me that really make me feel like I’m getting close to my goals with this new company. The funny thing is that I just started. I am about to begin travelling around the country to host events and all this came out of a simple vision. I know it is feasible but I’ve begun to second guess a lot of my decisions. One of those being the decision to wait for investment.

My inbox is a streaming flow of data that is almost as challenging as my RSS feed reader. Ultimately, I should take a lesson from the 4-hour work week and turn off my blackberry and try to limit email to certain hours of the day. Regardless of all the problems, I have to tell you what just happened to me. As I’m feeling like I’m ready to break, I log in to this blog to write to the world what’s going on in my life. The first thing that pops-up to me is a link that says “Just Be Strong” It was like the message was talking to me. It was a backlink to my blog by an individual who’s trademark lawyer will now be attending my Social Times launch event. Here is one excerpt from the post that Mike Bonifer, author of the book “Game Changers” wrote:

Social networking creates endless opportunities for strong choices, for letting others in your network know where you stand. Whether you’re putting a new app on Facebook or launching a shop in Second Life, strong choices stand out. So take it upon yourself to be like Nick O’Neill, whose self-funded, soon-to-launch new venture, Social Times, I just happened to link to today — and now my trademark lawyer will be attending his launch party in D.C. and the network will extend, and new wealth will surely ensue. It happens just like that when you make strong choices. They have a magnetic effect on your audience, including those who will become your customers.

Included was a copy of my Facebook picture. I have never had something like this occur but let me tell you that Mike Bonifer just made my day. Just when I thought that I am the crazy one for working so hard, Mike helped me out. While I still may come to that breaking point and while I know that I will start needing to make quicker decisions, I at least know that I’m learning. I only wish the same for each of you because learning is the most important thing around. Also remember, never settle for good because you can do much more than that. Eventually, it will all work out as long as you believe it will happen.¬† Burnout may eventually happen but given that passion is the fuel for the fire, I’ve got a long way to go.¬† Thanks Mike!

• Wine Library TV
• Freewebs
• Hungry Machine LLC
• Qloud
• Razoo
• Clearspring
• Why Go Solo

I will be announcing more demos and sponsors over the next few days. The event is going to be December 13th in downtown D.C. If you would like to attend, go register for the Social Times launch event. This is probably the most ambitious project I have ever taken on. I am looking to turn this into a national entity in the next 6 to 12 months. I will be sure to document the lessons learned on this blog so you can hear about the trials and tribulations.

I have chosen to go without seed funding from investors and am instead funding it myself. This will be an amazing experience and a massive challenge. I’m excited! I hope that each of you can be part of the journey. See you at the finish line

I have never had the opportunity to sit down and chat with such a world class set of people. The best part about it was chatting about the future of the web and the amazing opportunity that is still available to all of the people that choose to be part of the industry. I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to sit and chat with these individuals. I wanted to share with all of you some of the lessons that I learned in the brief discussions that I had with this dynamic set of individuals:

• 99 percent of people aren’t going to try as hard as you will. If you truly have that burning desire, anything you want is within reach if you are willing to work for it.
• Link to the people that you aspire to be and eventually they will begin to pay attention to you. If they don’t, do whatever it takes to make sure that they do.
• Your blog titles may be the most important thing when writing an article.
• No matter how successful you become, always be willing to help others. It will come back to you a million fold.
• Try try again. On the web, there is so much opportunity that not a single one of us can pursue all of the things we want to try. If the first thing you launch doesn’t work, launch something new; eventually something is bound to work.
• When you finally figure out something that works, start monetizing it immediately. Many people fail because they don’t successfully monetize something that is already working.
• As Napoleon Hill says, you need to work yourself into a white heat of desire. Be extremely passionate about what you are doing.
• Finally, pick one thing and conquer it. Spreading yourself thin will only result in disaster.

I cannot express enough thanks to Frank Gruber who informed me of the pre-event happy hour. Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to the conference tomorrow. I hope to be posting about it either on this blog or on AllFacebook tomorrow.

There are a number of large companies whose focus is strictly on I.T. services for the government. I would guess that those companies make up the majority of I.T. professionals in the area, but I don’t have the numbers to back it up. Also, the average salary for someone in the I.T. industry living in the D.C. metro area is approximately $122,950. Not bad! Congrats D.C.!

People that rank lower on the scale include Financial Times, USA Today, Mashable!, O’Reilly Radar and Valleywag. It’s pretty awesome to see hard work paying off. Rather than embellishing on it (p.s. I am officially a dork), I’d like to post an overview of how to launch a top blog. I’ll be posting some follow-up posts over the coming days to give a thorough overview.

A New York Times article this past weekend asked the same question. Is it possible to make a job out of blogging? The conclusion was that it is possible but very difficult, with the rare full-time blogger making in the range of $40,000 to $60,000 a year. The real money in blogging comes from the connections made. From my two blogs, The Webpreneur (this blog), and my recently launched All Facebook, I have managed to build numerous business contacts. Some of these contacts have even led to potential business partners and start-up funding.

So can you make a living blogging? Yes, but the real value comes from building relationships. When you start a blog you need to be passionate and dedicated because chances are you are not going to see any money coming in the door for months to come. While I have already received cash offers for advertising space on my recently launched Facebook blog, the offers are nowhere near enough for me to live off. So if you have a blog idea, all I can suggest is to get out there and start blogging. There is so much more to be gained from writing down your thoughts and sharing them with the world than just monetary gain. If you choose not to share your thoughts with the world you are missing out on a world of opportunity.

Both apple and Facebook have made strategic moves to position themselves as the next “open-source” platforms. The only problem is that they aren’t actually open-source. They have set up branded platforms that provide developers with the ability to develop applications on top of their existing platform within their defined constraints. This is a step above open-source platforms such as Linux that gave developers complete access to the operating system/platform. Rather than enabling developers to simply expand the operating system, they are enabling developers to expand their brand.

We have entered a new phase in the technology world. Brands (Facebook and Apple in particular) will provide the platform (for frameworks which previously didn’t have “open-source” environments) for any developer to rapidly develop applications that can be immediately released to millions of users. While this already existed with Microsoft Windows and Apple OSX, never before had it been so easy for a developer to release an application and have it rapidly adopted by millions of individuals. Facebook has already illustrated its viral potential, now can iPhone?