
Alexis Ohanian on Colbert Report [video] - rickdale
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/430524/november-14-2013/alexis-ohanian
======
saadshamim
Canadian mirror:
[http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?videoP...](http://www.thecomedynetwork.ca/Shows/TheColbertReport?videoPackage=141176)
\- forward to part 3

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cclogg
Thanks! Glad one even exists lol. Last I checked, Comedy Network hadn't even
uploaded any South Park.

Man... geo restrictions... man oh man :(

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adamzerner
There's something weirdly effective about reducto ad absurdum arguments meant
to prove the opposite.

In the beginning, Colbert was saying "but don't we need gatekeepers to tell us
what's right?", which is obviously a bad argument. Him making the bad argument
did a better job of illustrating the good arguments point, than the good
argument itself.

~~~
kn0thing
As a guest I can tell you it's a giant mindjob to be interviewed like that.

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alayne
I watched the latest episode of Small Empires yesterday about Kitchensurfing
and was very impressed. I definitely recommend the show if you are interested
in startups and Alexis Ohanian [http://www.theverge.com/video/small-
empires](http://www.theverge.com/video/small-empires)

~~~
kn0thing
Thank you! Very proud of that series. You know, I foolishly tried pitching it
for a couple years to traditional publishers, getting told "we love you, this
idea, but we just need to change a few things..."

Inevitably I'd pass and then finally came to my senses and approached The
Verge after appearing on [On The
Verge.]([http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/25/3114567/on-the-
verge-007-l...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/25/3114567/on-the-
verge-007-levar-burton-alexis-ohanian-tim-wu)) Their setup was so impressive
that I realized I needed to work with them.

The rest is history! We're already figuring out Season 2 and some other fun
things... as I've traveled across the country on the Without Their Permission
book tour, loads of people have asked for Small Empires: Their City (we're NYC
for season 1). I've got a plan for scaling the project. Stay tuned and thank
you so much for all the support.

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gum_ina_package
What's the point of an interview like this honestly? It was just filler.

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Goladus
Honestly I thought that was a better-than-average Colbert interview. Sometimes
his gags and non sequiturs completely derail the topic but this one stayed
pretty focused and Alexis did a good job of getting his message across.

~~~
kn0thing
'twas straight nerve-wracking!

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kevando
This was way less interesting than I had hoped for. Although I do love the
giant up vote cut out.

~~~
kn0thing
You should've seen what we did off-camera with those upvotes and John Lithgow.

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mark_l_watson
I saw Alexis talk at a Google authors talk recently. He is a great speaker and
his book is a good read.

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kn0thing
Why thank you! That was a fun Q&A. Here's that video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsdYblcTHCk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsdYblcTHCk)

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wf
I met him pretty recently at Compute Midwest, super nice guy. He gave a
passionate talk about the same things. The book is a quick and very
interesting read, as a budding entrepreneur (haha ;)) I found it pretty
inspiring.

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kn0thing
Thanks, wf! I didn't want to waste anyone's time with the book and I write
like I speak -- that is, conversationally -- so you can get the info you need
and get back to changing the world!

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jdkram
For viewers outside the US using Chrome, Media Hint
([https://mediahint.com/install_chrome.html](https://mediahint.com/install_chrome.html)).

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pervycreeper
I'm curious regarding his advice to potential founders that was mentioned in
the interview. Is this available online in a concise format?

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kn0thing
I'm sure someone has written a TL;DR for the book...

I also believe quite a few of the college stops have been recorded, but here's
the entire tour schedule (the events are nearly all open to the public)
[http://withouttheirpermission.com/tour-
dates](http://withouttheirpermission.com/tour-dates)

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feint
been waiting to read his book, but unfortunately its not available in
australia yet (kindle format)

~~~
kn0thing
Yeah, that's annoying. Sorry, I'm sure you can find it somewhere....

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LukeG
Wait, who?
[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001864/](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001864/)

~~~
jsnk
Alexis ([http://about.me/alexis](http://about.me/alexis)) is more Josh Radnor
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Radnor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Radnor))
if anything.

~~~
kn0thing
Yeah. I even had an exchange on twitter w Radnor and he confirmed it.

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uaygsfdbzf
The Kim Kardashian of Silicon Valley.

People whose job is to be seen more than to, you know, build something.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Reddit just seems like one of those projects that got really lucky. Digg was
making its users upset, slashdot was too nerdy, and metafilter too hard to get
into due to $5 cost. Early reddit was kind of a mess too. Congrats on his
success, but its always odd to hear people give advice or talk about their
projects when there's a large element of luck involved.

To be fair, this may be true of all successful projects.

~~~
kevando
I don't think reddit got lucky because even after becoming mega successful,
it's still almost impossible to spam the site. And their "hot" algorithm is an
amazing way to always provide fresh content (unless you spend hours on the
site). Their luck did come though, from Digg's failure. I forget the number,
but they almost doubled their page views the week after Digg's infamous
update.

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TillE
Reddit was popular but still very niche pre-Digg 4. Not unlike Slashdot.
Digg's collapse rapidly transformed Reddit into something completely
different, exemplified now by the celebrity AMAs and godawful crap on the
front page.

Reddit did get a number of things right, but it still won't last. They may
look back at killing /r/reddit.com as a huge mistake; once upon a time, people
did really talk about Reddit as one big community, and there was some sense of
that. That's not the case anymore.

~~~
kn0thing
The reason digg died and we've thrived is because a month in, we realized
being a platform for people to create their own subreddits (and thus many
community forums) was the only way we'd scale. At some point if there were
only one front page, we'd hit a ceiling, whereas as a platform, we can scale
forever.

