

Calacanis vs DHH on This Week in Startups - pchristensen
http://thisweekinstartups.com/2010/03/fridays-guest-david-heinemeier-hansson-creator-ruby-on-rails/

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pchristensen
Most of the discussion is over now, but the video will be reposted to this url
by Monday. It's the first time I've ever seen someone do a good job attacking
dhh/37signals. It's not belligerent, but very probing. Makes me wish I could
have seen Calacanis when he was a tech journalist.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
I think I would have become one of the top 10 tech journalists ever if I had
not been cursed with being a CEO/founder.

Sometimes I wish I was still a journalist.

~~~
jackowayed
And you wonder why people hate you.

"I could have been one of the best ever if I weren't cursed with having to
make millions of dollars." It sounds so cocky.

I actually don't hate you (When I first heard of you, I asked a friend of mine
"Is this guy a dick, totally awesome, or both?" and I still think "both" is a
pretty good way to describe you, so you could say I'm split.), but I hope you
see why people do.

~~~
petercooper
_but I hope you see why people do._

And like Jobs, Gates, Ellison, Branson, or whoever, I hope he doesn't _care_
if random people on the Internet think he's arrogant or is a "dick." You don't
get to even Jason's level by dwelling on this (or, at least, showing it in
public).

That aside, if Jason had a ton of time to dump into being a "top tech
journalist", would he be up against _really_ serious competition? Cringely?
Mossberg? Scoble? Arrington? All awesome in their own ways but the gamut of
skill in that game is pretty thin.

~~~
_delirium
He seems to care enough to post in nearly every HN thread that mentions him,
often pretty defensively, unlike those other people you mentioned...

~~~
petercooper
Good point. I guess he's not far enough up the totem pole yet to stop hanging
out with us serfs ;-)

Actually, I wish he _would_ try and become a top 10 tech journalist. His
writing is good and certainly more entertaining than the constant Mahalo SEO-
runaround forced down our throats here at HN..

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
I like to talk with folks.... it's the journalist in me. I don't consider you
guys/gals serfs--far from it. I consider you guys the real people who actually
do sh#$%t. Most of the folks I get to hang out with are CEOs and VCs who talk
about the sh2@#$t their people do. I'm all about the doing....

... thus the reason I'm here with the doers. I'm from the bottom, so I still
feel it for the bottom.

~~~
petercooper
_I'm from the bottom, so I still feel it for the bottom._

    
    
      Don't be fooled by the blogs that I rocked;
      I'm still, I'm still Jason from the block
      Used to have a little, AOL gave me a lot
      Mahalo isn't spam and I still know where I came from.

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petercooper
404 error and I can't find the content on the site. Why was it pulled?

~~~
rnicholson
[http://thisweekinstartups.com/2010/03/twist-46-with-david-
he...](http://thisweekinstartups.com/2010/03/twist-46-with-david-heinemeier-
hansson/)

~~~
petercooper
Cool, but it doesn't play. The video gets a 403 error and the audio a 404 (on
the underlying media files).

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benologist
Eh .... 30 seconds in I'm listening to some guy crap on about how awesome
Apple are _because_ they only put one USB port in some laptop.

Back to work for me.

~~~
pchristensen
The interview section from about 45 min to 90 min in was really good, worth
coming back to when the full version is posted.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
Thanks! DHH was an amazing guest with great perspective and obviously he has
the talent to back up his positions.

Really enjoyed having him as a guest.... the show will be up at
www.thisweekin.com in two hours or so.

best j

------
jrockway
"Couldn't care less" versus "don't care very much" on "wow, i really don't
care".

The blogosphere is like an organism that can eat itself to survive and grow.

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simon_kun
The interesting bit is where David gets sucked into Calcanis' "more money is
best" angle (and in some respects, JC's brain really lucked out on picking up
on this weakness).

From what I can tell, DHH is much more focussed on Quality of Life than simple
monetary gain which was only briefly touched on (if at all).

Good discussion.

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robertgaal
I hope somebody (Jason?) starts doing shorter 10m summary videos of this.

~~~
pchristensen
<http://thisweekintwist.com/>

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benofsky
Does anyone have a link to the video?

~~~
ryanhuff
Its usually posted on itunes a day or so after.

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dnsworks
I was just thinking, it's been about 4 or 5 days since the last rash of
"Calacanis is an evil SEO monster bird mecha godzilla thing" blog postings.

~~~
pchristensen
This didn't have anything to do with that. This was one of the most even yet
intense debates I've seen in a while. Most of the time it's either one
dominant person that no one is standing up to, or everybody is buddy buddy and
I get suspicious about the lack of disagreement. The was healthy debate.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
I loved it. David is a smart, passionate guy... you don't see that too often
in our business. he reminded me of a young Mark Cuban

