
Turning Down TechCrunch - craigkerstiens
https://medium.com/building-gittip/5886749a4ded
======
jeresig
I've been watching Gittip and have been very impressed with how they're
attempting to run an open company:

[http://blog.gittip.com/post/26350459746/the-first-open-
compa...](http://blog.gittip.com/post/26350459746/the-first-open-company)

It's fun to read through their bug tracker and read discussions with their
payment processor and look at debates on how different corporate minutia
should be handled.

<https://github.com/gittip/www.gittip.com/issues>

Even if you're not interested in Gittip (and I am, I think it's a very
interesting funding model) the open company model that they follow should be
quite inspirational.

~~~
nbouscal
The really inspirational part, to me, is the follow-through. A lot of people
pay lip service to openness, but very few actually commit to it. I really love
the idea behind Gittip, but I'm even more impressed with the way they're doing
it.

~~~
jeresig
Agreed. I chatted with Chad Whitacre (the creator of Gittip) recently and was
impressed with how "all-in" he is on this. He's receiving 100% of his funding
through Gittip, taking in no outside contributions and even doing no outside
consulting work. He should certainly be lauded for this, few have the
commitment to execute. I assume at some point either Gittip will be bringing
in enough money to allow him to do this forever or he'll have to bail/get a
side job. Not sure how long that'll take but I really hope he succeeds!

~~~
whit537
You're too kind. :)

The full story is a bit more complex, but, yes: my wife and kids and I are
sacrificing financially so that I can work full-time on Gittip. When I work on
Gittip part-time, it flatlines. When I work on Gittip full-time, it grows. I'm
grateful to have consulting work available to me, but at this point I'm so
wrapped up in Gittip that I really just can't concentrate on other work.

I'm netting almost $200/wk on Gittip right now (thank you!) and if that gets
to $800/wk by the end of 2013 I'll be the happiest kid in America. Gittip will
be almost born. I'm encouraged that that's only a 4x increase.

That said, if Gittip works for me it'll only be because it's working for many
other people as well. My focus in the next month or three is going to be on
roughing in the features like communities and projects and funds and friend-
finding that will help Gittip work for everyone and will get money moving
through the system. Then the focus will shift again to building up the
contributor community around Gittip, once the pieces are in place to actually
get people paid for working on Gittip.

Gittip is almost a year old. If it's going to fly, we'll know within another
year. I'm hopeful! :D

------
MattGrommes
I wish Gittip all the success in the world but I'm afraid this is a big
barrier to getting anything written about the company, and that can only hurt.
It's not only TechCrunch that's going to balk at this, I can't see any news
organization wanting to get scooped by their own source. I don't think taking
the other party's needs into account when running a business is necessarily
bending your principles. Maybe recording the call for release after the story
comes out is a way to meet in the middle.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Nyah, I love what this guy did and how he's sticking to his principles. It's
smart too: his approach itself becomes newsworthy vs. swimming with the rest
of the fish.

Classy way to hande the TC reply too. It was clearly a d--k response, but he
didn't even comment on it. Just put it out there (in the spirit of openness)
to let others draw their own conclusions about the way TC handled it.

TechCrunch's relevance has long been on the decline anyway. Soon enough
they'll be begging for stories.

~~~
whit537
I left it off the post, but my reply in email was, "Thanks! :-)"

------
danilocampos
Regardless of how you feel about the situation, the TechCrunch writer's
dismissiveness reflects poorly on the publication.

~~~
iguana
I agree. TechCrunch has jumped the shark a long time ago, and uses the weight
of its name to focus on articles that have high pageviews. This reflects
extremely poorly on TC -- the TC author could've easily agreed to the open
call and participated in the open initiative OP feels strongly about.

------
jonsterling
The tone of that exchange struck me as very naïve. Furthermore, the entire
thing seems like “transparency theatre”, in that I suspect the only people in
the world who give a hoot about what went down during the interview are the
participants themselves.

Time to put down the Scoble koolaid and do transparency where it counts.

~~~
whit537
> Time to put down the Scoble koolaid and do transparency where it counts.

Okay. Where does it count?

~~~
randall
It really depends on what you're trying to do. I think running gittip as an
art project / science experiment is good for them... but does missing a
mention in techcrunch positively affect the outcome of their business?

Business / product design / commerce / fashion is all about making compromises
to further a larger vision. Art / science is all about a POV / exploring. I
think that's where it differs.

~~~
erikpukinskis
Sentences of the form "(business/art) are all about _____" are ludicrous. Do
you really think that all businesses share a single aboutness attribute?

------
jareau
haha. Chad, I love you, but I'm never introducing you to a reporter again :)

As you know, we at Balanced are trying to encourage openness as well [1], but
recently made the decision to not video record and publish (or live stream)
guest speakers that come into our office. We feel this actually promotes a
more honest and open discussion for the attendees. We may revise this
decision, but it seems to be going well so far. We're also working on events
specifically for remote audiences. Those will be recorded and published.

[1] [http://www.fastcolabs.com/3008944/open-company/why-i-made-
my...](http://www.fastcolabs.com/3008944/open-company/why-i-made-my-payments-
startup-an-open-company)

~~~
whit537
I can understand and respect that decision. :^)

I actually really love the way that Balanced is finding its own definition for
what an open company is. It's so much more powerful than if we always agreed
on everything. And I hope you know you can call me privately any time you
think I've truly gone too far, and we'll find a solution together.

------
dmor
Hey I don't know if you'd be up for it, but I'd love to try out this open
interview format on daniellemorrill.com and we can see how it goes. Contact
info is in my profile if you're interested

~~~
whit537
Thanks, I'd love to! :D

Is the refer.ly address still best?

<http://www.daniellemorrill.com/about-me/contact-me/>

~~~
dmor
Yup!

~~~
whit537
Sent! :D

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Turing_Machine
Love it. This would probably be a good idea for anyone who's being interviewed
by the media, actually. No open archive -> no interview.

------
christopheraden
I met Chad Whitacre at the Gittip booth at PyCon (the heart-punching coin
machine was pretty cool!). I found him to be very earnest and interested in
the perception of his company.

I'm glad he felt strongly enough about the openness to refuse to conduct the
interview. Hopefully the community can rally behind him in solidarity.

The correspondence reflects very poorly on the TC reporter.

~~~
whit537
:^)

------
jval
It is an interesting experiment and kudos to them for having the courage to
actually commit to it. I'm pretty sure Steve Jobs tried to do something very
similar to this at Next Computer and it failed.

I think the openness of Next, where employees were allowed to know what every
person in the organisation was earning, contrasted with the secrecy of Apple,
speaks volumes about what Jobs ended up thinking about the value of openness
in corporate settings. Unfortunately, as Peter Thiel points out, there are big
advantages to having secrets.

That said I'm sure gittip can survive on a small scale with this kind of
attitude and it probably helps given the market they're working in, I just
don't think it scales long term.

~~~
whit537
Thanks! I didn't know that about NeXT. It's especially interesting compared to
Apple, as you mention! Also, your comment about Peter Thiel led me to discover
these great lecture notes from a class of his:

<http://blakemasters.com/peter-thiels-cs183-startup>

I want to find a way to combine the transparency and emphasis on personal
autonomy of open source projects with the unparalleled productivity of
traditional, closed corporations. It's a delicate balance.

------
epoxyhockey
The example video linked on the page does not seem to want to stream:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbBj3v1F0gA>

My one comment, from being on both sides of the journalist fence, is that
journalists love be the ones that break news. If you live stream an interview,
how are they going to be the first to report on the details?

I love the idea of being open. Though, it seems like most journalists will
only participate in this scheme if they _have_ to interview you.

~~~
whit537
The thing is, these "open calls" are hidden in plain site. How many people are
actually watching an hour and a half of me gabbing with somebody? I understand
that journalism has traditionally been about "the scoop." In a world of
information overload, just because something is technically open doesn't mean
it's made its way into the public consciousness.

~~~
mst
Right. Damned if I'm going to go listen to a conversation if I can read an
article written as a 'transcript of the interesting bits' instead.

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lnanek2
Haha, awesome. That's principles. I was impressed with the hard facts in the
hiring thread too. I browsed that thread and your company is the only one I
remember. :)

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ntumlin
I think this is a neat idea but I also find it ironic that while so many
people here in HN are so adamant about privacy, etc, they also think it's a
great idea to livestream all of your phone calls. I suppose it's by choice,
but I still think it's kind of funny.

~~~
danilocampos
I can love burritos but still prefer they not be forced into my mouth by
corporations or governments.

~~~
andrewflnr
Precisely. It's about choosing when and how to give up privacy.

The "adamant about privacy" perception mostly comes about because of all the
people actively trying to expose our information to various other parties. In
response, we fixate on those cases where we don't want that to happen, as an
argumentative counterpoint. The times where we want to share things are simply
not as interesting, since sharing is easier (technically and politically), so
we make less noise about it.

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KMinshew
This is fascinating. Has anyone tried this with another journalist /
publication?

