

LiveJournal creator leaves as Six Apart fails to spin - mqt
http://valleywag.com/tech/brad-fitzpatrick/livejournal-creator-leaves-as-six-apart-fails-to-spin-286218.php

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aaroneous
Brad has created so many incredible projects (MogileFS, Memcached, Perlbal,
LiveJournal, OpenID) with many of them being OSS. He's a really bright guy
with a good head on his shoulders. Whatever company he goes to will be a lucky
one.

~~~
nostrademons
I've got several friends that were on the LJ dev/abuse/support teams (all
volunteers; none were paid employees). Brad is a good hacker, but a _terrible_
manager. He makes all the mistakes that novice technical managers tend to
make: not trusting underlings, micromanaging technical details, solving the
most interesting technical problems himself, belittling workers, and getting
defensive when he screws up.

Google or Facebook would do well to hire him in a technical capacity, but I
can understand some of the "watch out Google employees; you don't want this
guy as your manager" comments on the Valleywag article.

~~~
portLAN
I never want to manage _employees_. I think that model is broken and
perpetuates wage slavery. Similarly, I think the concept of "leadership" is
primitive -- why is it a given that someone else is going to make our
decisions _for_ us? Or, being a leader, why should I want to be "in charge of"
other thinking, autonomous human beings?

So I'm not surprised when I hear yet another "bad manager" story. The
organizational structure itself is the problem. Almost all innovation comes
instead from individuals or small groups of co-equals; the startup model of
equals _cooperating_ is the source of practically all progress.

When founders try to turn that into a big company, they choose a model for
stagnation -- trying to preserve things as they are. (This is akin to the
folly of the Elves in LOTR.) That is, they start out with some actual
innovation, but then they try to hold onto a worldview in which it remains at
the top, even as the world is changing around them. In trying to sell it as
long as possible, even when it is no longer new or cutting-edge, they will
fight to stop change, including _progress_ \-- competition -- by controlling
markets or channels rather than continuing to innovate.

I am going to keep my startup small, human-wise, and automate instead of
employ.

~~~
palish
Except there has to be someone, or a small group, to make overall design
decisions as the organization gets bigger. I doubt the iPhone would be
recognizable if Apple were a design democracy.

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nickb
Six Apart should have been what Facebook became. They screwed up.

Good for Brad, though.. he'll have lots of fun at Google!

~~~
portLAN
Facebook strikes me as a force for evil. They want real names, real background
info, real explanations of relationships, all of which they will data-mine
ruthlessly to the extermination of your privacy. They even ask for your e-mail
and IM passwords so they can mine all your contacts and information!

I don't trust them one little bit.

~~~
palish
I prefer to think of it from the other angle. Humanity is evolving to the
point where you can contact anyone. Old friends, super-intelligent people
you've heard of, band singers, anyone. As long as the government stays out of
the way, the next twenty years are going to be a ride.

~~~
corentin
I don't trust corporations more than I trust governments.

