
Svbtle Funding - kurtvarner
http://blog.svbtle.com/svbtle-funding
======
pg
Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded.
Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because
Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with
haters _want_ to misunderstand what Svbtle is.

One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in
progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a
traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose
confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations.
Beyond that few of the details are figured out. But costs are low and traffic
is growing steeply, so although in most cases I'd be nagging founders to
figure out more details, in this case I've advised Dustin to let this grow and
see what it turns into.

I encourage neutral observers to do the same: let's see what this turns into.
And as for the haters, it's fine with me if you want to keep hating. Though
this was not a deliberate strategy by Dustin (he is actually confused and hurt
by all the hate), being controversial is actually a good thing for a
publication.

~~~
oinksoft
Can we all agree to stop calling critics "haters"?

~~~
pg
I think not. Haters are distinctive enough that it would make the language
less expressive to discard the word and merge it into "critic."

I'm slow to adopt new words, but I think "hater" is a useful addition to the
language, and not simply a pejorative version of "critic." The difference is
that a critic is what you're called as a byproduct of being critical in a
particular instance, whereas being a hater is an ongoing state of mind. So for
example it is reasonable to say "he was sometimes a critic of the
administration's policy" but not to say "he was sometimes a hater of the
administration's policy."

"Hater" is not a pejorative version of "critic" so much as a negative version
of "fan." In fact the distinctive thing about a hater is how _uncritical_ his
responses are.

~~~
waterlesscloud
Then isn't the word "haters" misapplied here?

What I've seen in this thread is that people have reasons for disliking
Dustin, some of which directly relate to Svbtle. To the extent that they don't
directly relate, though, people are quite explicitly saying they evaluate
Svbtle separate from Dustin.

And by far the most common reaction expressed is a lack of understanding any
valid business model for the network, which in your op you say is quite
understandable.

What I don't see in this thread is any willful misconstruing of the project.
Which seems to be the requirement for a "hater".

~~~
pg
HN users are sophisticated enough not to simply post comments saying "I hate
Dustin Curtis." Here they resort to something more akin to concern trolling.

The way you can tell something is amiss is the volume of commenters who seem
worried about e.g. how Dustin is going to make money. If most startups issued
such a bland funding announcement, it would sink beneath the surface of HN
with barely a ripple of comment.

~~~
lmm
I hate Dustin Curtis.

~~~
tptacek
Man I have never wanted to see a company succeed more than I want to see
Curtis' thing succeed now. What a bunch of wangs you all are.

If this is some kind of genius nerd underdog sympathy marketing ploy, I've
never seen it done better.

~~~
lmm
Underdog? Have you read anything the guy writes? He's like Kanye West but
without the humility.

~~~
sillysaurus
So you made me curious. I went and had a look at Dustin's writing. Here's a
piece entitled "Do".

=========================

 _Wake up early. Show up. Learn how to think. Be genuine, but appear nice. Use
envy for motivation instead of destruction. Do what you say you’re going to
do. Ensure balance in every area of your life. Confront repressed thoughts
immediately. Surround yourself with people who are better than you (but
remember the thing about envy). Work out every day. Be good at what you do.
Make money doing what you love. Have good friends. Never settle._

\--

Now, as far as I can tell, every aspect of that post is good advice. It's
evident that Dustin's advice was derived from experience, because some his
points are counter-intuitive-but-true (which tend to only be learned as a
byproduct of screwing up). The advice seems to match my own experience as
well, so it seems possible it may be broadly true and (and therefore broadly
useful).

I don't know what demon you see in him, but you're wrong.

Now, at this point, it seems only fair that we contrast Dustin's writing
against someone else's writing. Let's use your writing, in fact.

So here's a piece you wrote, entitled "New Year - No Fun Allowed".

=========================

 _My resolution is to blog every day. Whoops, already missed that one. Make it
every week, I guess.

Also, to finally launch the enormous white whale of a ship that I’ve been
working on in Kerbal Space Program (which is what has kept me from here for so
long). It will set all sorts of records, visit all the planets… I just need to
have the damn thing not explode. I’m getting closer now; got as far as 20km,
and the most recent launch was spoiled by pure bad luck (a piece I’d blown off
the top of my rocket fell down back onto it).

You might think stuff like buying a flat or finding a job should be higher on
the list than achieving something in a computer game. And you’d be right. But
damned if it doesn’t feel like the other way around._

\--

Eh... I was going to say some more stuff, but it appears you may be going
through a rough period in your life.

This is something of a tangent, but: if you happen to want to talk with
someone about what's on your mind nowadays, or if you just need someone to
talk to, then please feel free to toss me an email. I'm happy to listen (if
you want that) or to do whatever else I can.

Life can be rough, but don't let it break you, even if it seems hard not to.

~~~
lmm
>It's evident that Dustin's advice was derived from experience, because some
his points are counter-intuitive-but-true (which tend to only be learned as a
byproduct of screwing up).

That seems implausible given his age and job history. I don't see how he can
possibly have tried e.g. settling enough to be able to assert one should never
do it.

The whole tone is one of condescension, of the enlightened master speaking
down to his acolytes. I'd accept it coming from e.g. that guy who built a
windmill out of scrap metal, or Helen Keller, or even Mark Zuckerberg. Someone
who's overcome adversity and/or achieved something useful - or perhaps even
just someone old enough to have a bit of life experience. From a bay-area
upper-class white male who has never had to struggle, who so far as I can tell
has never done a day's real work in his life? No; I'd accept domain-specific
advice on design or writing (which he seems to have a genuine talent for), but
I refuse to believe he knows better than me how to live - and that's how he's
phrased it, not as suggestions or things that worked for him, but as
instructions and universal truths.

>Eh... I was going to say some more stuff, but it appears you may be going
through a rough period in your life.

Hah, a reader. No, don't worry, I guess it sounded bad out of context. No Fun
Allowed is the blog title, not because I don't have fun but because I spend
most of the posts taking silly things way too seriously. My present employers
have chosen a somewhat inconvenient time to make 2/3 of their developers
redundant, which in the worst case might set my life plans back a few years,
but life is good; thanks for the sympathy, but I'm doing ok, at least for the
moment.

~~~
pg
_who so far as I can tell has never done a day's real work in his life?_

How could you possibly know a thing like that?

The things you've said in this thread are so much worse than anything you
accuse Dustin of saying. I wonder the contrast doesn't strike you.

~~~
lmm
It's always hardest to see flaws in oneself. Do I come across as telling
people what to do? I try to avoid that (outside my specific expertise), but
I'm constantly worried I've failed.

Is it that I think I'm better than Dustin? That's a tougher one; I'm hardly
any less privileged; I think I'm less condescending. Being proud of one's
humility is a trap, but that doesn't mean one should never call others out on
their arrogance.

Is it the hate? I'd like to be more constructive, but I think there's still
value in being honest. There is a risk of a negative impact here, but the
worst obvious case is that I upset one person and have no other effect.

~~~
throwanonaway
"Is it that I think I'm better than Dustin? That's a tougher one;"

A world class designer with a funded, successful blog network or an unemployed
LARPer. Not sure it's as tough as you think.

------
w1ntermute
After the discussion I had with jrockway in this thread[0], I've come to
really dislike the Svbtle network and what it stands for. I can't speak for
the rest of the community, but I would consider Svbtle branding to be a strike
against a blog, and not something that is a sign of its quality.

0: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993094>

~~~
mnicole
ITT: You neglect to read the two blog posts about the topic you're debating
and cast a blanket statement about a guy who was just trying to help the brand
and didn't understand the internal conflicts going on at the company. The
designer was fired for sharing internal information relevant to the initial
blog post he made (letting him know there were competent designers in-house,
but not much they could do about typical politics), not because Dustin said
their design team sucked.

~~~
bri3d
Had Dustin simply made suggestions, he'd be trying to help the brand. Instead,
he made it personal and demeaned the livelihood of professionals he'd never
met. After he received a response, he then went on to make more backhanded
jabs, for example saying he was "surprised" that the other designer's work
actually looked good.

Telling an unfamiliar company to "fire designers" he hadn't interacted with
wasn't helping a brand. It was being a douchebag and demonstrates an
astounding lack of maturity and experience at best.

Edit: Dustin responded to a sibling post:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5027792> .

~~~
mnicole
The idea that anyone on HN is innocent of making statements similar to those
he did are laughable, and posts just like them make the front page and are the
most-upvoted every day. Are people not allowed to have opinions anymore? It
isn't like they hired him to clean up house and that was his approach; he saw
a terrible user experience and he gave his advice on how to fix it. Often
times, starting fresh is the best way to do that.

A UX architect came forward to apologize and let him know why things were the
way they were (again, corporate politics and the design process). AA found the
email by scrubbing their Exchange server and fired the guy over discussing
that process.

Original complaints: <http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html>

The UX Architect's response:
<http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html>

Dustin's response to the firing:
<http://www.dustincurtis.com/incompetence.html>

~~~
jessaustin
I have no opinion of Sᴧbtle, but I can't fault Curtis's conduct in this
episode. He offered a completely valid critique of the antiquated web presence
of a large and poorly-managed company. When he received a response from
someone involved in the production process, he republished it w̶i̶t̶h̶
̶r̶e̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶d̶i̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ [edit: OK that was a bit strong]
cordially. It is unfortunate that someone lost a job in a knee-jerk corporate
response to that candid exchange. Everyone likes to be employed, but I doubt
even that UX person will admit to having lost a _good_ job. I hope the next
employer snapped up the person promptly, and I hope that the new organization
is much less dysfunctional. Whatever the case, Curtis is responsible neither
for the poor culture at AA nor for the erstwhile employee's poor anticipation
of the probable response of that culture.

In the meantime, I'll be unchecking "AA" on the sidebar of the Kayak site for
the foreseeable future.

~~~
bri3d
Suggesting people he'd never interacted with in any way (who, mind you, ended
up not being the responsible parties anyway) be fired wasn't a valid critique
of much of anything.

And I don't think that registering that Dustin was "astounded" that the
designer he received the email from had a good portfolio or only admitting to
having been "partially wrong" with respect to the firing comment was
particularly cordial or respectful, either.

I agree that the whole debacle reflects -much- more poorly on AA than on
Curtis, but his conduct wasn't beyond fault by any means either.

~~~
mnicole
I'm an in-house designer at a company whose print and web design I detest, and
I would hardly blame anyone for going off on a rant about it, including
telling the company to get rid of their current crop of designers (which can
be a part of the problem, because even after shareholder input there are still
little things you can do, and often times they can only go off of what they're
presented to begin with).

Truth be told, I would be grateful because my voice has gone unheard. That's
the name of the game with a lot of in-house design; you make due with
implementing non-designer's ideas for a steady paycheck and good benefits.

------
waxjar
> The future of journalism

I can't help but laugh at this. All Svbtle does is slap a pretty, unified
design on the articles of people that have interesting stuff to say. It's very
good at doing that and I appreciate it for doing that.

Like Curtis intended, when you see the Svbtle design you can expect something
interesting. Most of the articles I've read on it were indeed interesting.
However, these articles would also exist without Svbtle, they just wouldn't
look the same.

Svbtle's got a good thing going, but future of journalism? Please.

~~~
brown9-2
I think in the full context of the quote this makes more sense. He is saying
that now they have the resources to build something that could maybe be "the
future of journalism", not that the current state is "the future".

In other words, what they build next could be "the future of journalism".

------
mladenkovacevic
I don't know much about Svbtle but there's something so un-exciting and
unapproachable about the way they describe their objectives:

>Svbtle is a curated, invite-only collection of great people who have things
to say. ... >Our goal is to make it easier and more natural for interesting
people to write down their thoughts. ... >Think you should be a part of the
network? Apply for membership below.

The most exciting thing about idea exchanges (whether in oral or written form)
is the openness of it. You can go out into the world wide web and read as much
or as little as you want. You can have favorite sources of information, least
favorite sources and have some of your beliefs confirmed, while turning other
ones on their head.

In Svbtle, it seems like everyone is a self-proclaimed "great" person with
interesting things to say. Then the Svbtle network invites you, gives you a
stark blog theme to share your brilliant thoughts with other people of equal
greatness. I guess the quality of content will ultimately be deciding factor
of whether this has merit, but for right now I can't get excited about it.

~~~
wmf
I just realized that Svbtle is like TED or TEDx for blogging, and those have
been very successful.

------
RyanZAG
I don't understand - what possible business model could you have with such
niche blogging? Can anybody explain how this is expected to work? Some kind of
sponsored advertising on what the blog topic is about?

~~~
tuananh
I was gonna type this but then I saw your post. I don't see where Svbtle is
going. What benefit can membership get from joing Svbtle network? well there's
only 1 thing i can think of right now is link exposure. and how Svbtle is
going to make profit is still a huge question. Ads is obviously not an option
because I felt like it's against the philosophy how Svbtle was created.

~~~
steveklabnik
> What benefit can membership get from joing Svbtle network?

I applied (and got in) to Svbtle because of two things: exclusivity and the
interface. Svbtle at least attempts to have only high quality writers there,
and it was made clear that sometimes, if posts were of low quality, they'd be
asked to be revised. There was also talk of helping Svbtle members with their
writing through things like copyediting. I haven't heard of any of those
things happening yet, but I can tell you that (generally) I try to keep Svbtle
much higher quality as a result. I still maintain a personal blog where I put
shorter/news kinds of things, but bigger, more in-depth essays go to Svbtle.

The interface is also really nice. It's good enough that I actually write in-
browser, rather than writing in Vim and copying it over.

Oh, and also: I suck real hard at design, and I'm sick of maintaining Yet
Another Blog Platform/design. I really like the look and feel of Svbtle. My
personal blog is basically just Skeleton default with a few small
modifications: <http://blog.steveklabnik.com/archive>

~~~
sfard
As a shameless self promotion, for those who can't make it into svbtle and
want a nicely designed (IMO) and simple blog, try <http://throwww.com>

~~~
flexie
I like this. It would be nice with an option to sign in with something else
but twitter.

~~~
sfard
working on it.

------
neya
There is nothing wrong in running an invite-only network. But claiming to be a
genuinely 'quality-oriented' network[1] when your are not is tricking your
readers and is plain wrong.

For example, there are a lot of shitty blogs[2] on this network. Even shitty
posts[3]. It's just like any other blog network with some extra-hype and a
minimalistic design mixed and matched from theme sites (Trust me, I've seen a
dozen themes like this _before_ Dustin came up with this and dismissed anyone
trying to create a similar design[4])

A really good quality-oriented network would be something like Quora, but for
blogs. The readers, people, us should rate what is good and what is bad,what
is ethical, what is unethical, what is right and what is wrong. Not at the
mercy of some clown advocating minimalism to emphasize elitism and branding
for himself.

[1] This was SVBTLE's pitch initially.

[2] massivegreatness.com [An arrogant, unethical Apple fanboy, writer at
Techcrunch who supports anything Apple without proper logic]

[3][http://influencehacks.com/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-
ventureb...](http://influencehacks.com/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-venturebeats-
assault-on-y-combinator)

[4][http://howells.ws/posts/view/93/svbtle-vs-obtvse-and-on-
copy...](http://howells.ws/posts/view/93/svbtle-vs-obtvse-and-on-copying)

~~~
tuananh
[2] He's MG Siegler which is short for 'Mini Gruber' for a reason.

------
kevinalexbrown
When people suggest this is a stupid idea, I think there's a profound
misunderstanding of how enticing exclusivity is.

Not everyone gets to send a piece in to the NYTimes, the WSJ, the National
Review and get it published as an op-ed. But for someone in political science
or macroeconomics it's _definitely_ a status symbol. Note that anyone could
just as easily put something on their own blog. In fact, many people who
regularly send in pieces _do_ publish on their own blogs. People who have much
larger fan-bases, power, and immediate influence than almost anyone in tech
still seem to find value in spending a few hours writing a piece for no
profit, no ad revenues, no pictures next to their name. Larry Summers, who was
the head of arguably the most gate-keeper-ish institution in the nation still
wanted to get his views published in the WSJ.

Tech people may not view these venues as worthwhile for their field. What
then, is the prestigious place to have your content featured? I think Svbtle
could be that. If you own something every influential person wants to be
featured in, that would be _huge_. You'd be a gatekeeper of ideas.

~~~
heartbreak
That's the problem with Svbtle. You can't just "be" that. You have to earn it.

~~~
tptacek
Says exactly who, and with what evidence?

~~~
heartbreak
Well I account for respect on a personal level so the answer is me. Other
readers may behave the same way, and they could also feel that respect is
something which must be earned.

As for evidence, plenty of research has gone into respect and credibility,
particularly as they relate to leadership.

<http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=leadership+credibility>

------
karterk
Reading this reminded me of 9rules[1], which used to be pretty popular some
8-10 years back but eventually withered away. As with most communities,
scaling svbtle without comprising on the quality is going to be the greatest
challenge.

[1]: <http://9rules.com>

~~~
MrAlmostWrong
This is why I'm really interested to see where things are headed (co-founder
of 9rules here). It is easy to get great people together when the reason for
joining is set behind an idea that everyone can share. In this case it was to
bring great content back to the web. However, once money starts to enter the
equation it changes the mindset of things a bit. Instead of writing because
you are passionate to share your thoughts, you begin to start thinking about
what you can write about that will get you the most views/money.

I hope this doesn't happen to svbtle because some good content is coming from
it, but as you said it is a difficult balance that will need to be achieved
moving forward.

------
akoumjian
How is this in any way a new approach to journalism? It is a network of
editorial / expert writers. Online and offline publications have been doing
this for over a century.

------
le_isms
I think there is quite a bit of animosity and maybe even jealousy in the HN
circle regarding Svbtle because of the apparently pretentious manner that
Dustin Curtis launched and promoted it. However, it seems what he did is
working out for him in the long run. Svbtle has also adjusted its message
significantly since the launch to be more friendly.

Personally I would like to learn more about how Dustin used the situation to
his advantage, even leading to funding.

------
camworld
It's interesting what Dustin is trying, but I find the utter lack of design
personality across the sites to be quite off-putting.

It's trying to fix 200+ differently-shaped circles into the exact same square.

~~~
nickheer
> It's interesting what Dalton is trying, but I find the utter lack of design
> personality across the sites to be quite off-putting.

Dalton is the guy behind App.net. Svbtle is a Dustin Curtis thing, I believe.

~~~
camworld
Whoops, you are correct. s/Dalton/Dustin

------
xt
I liked the minimlistic approach of Svbtle, so I created a super simple
Git+Markdown-based blog that draws inspiration from Svbtle.

Check it out: <http://hveem.no/simple-blogging-with-lua-and-git>

~~~
pclark
Silicon Valley appears to think there is a fine line between "drawing
inspiration" and "copying." There isn't and to be honest, your output is a
good example of the latter, not the former.

~~~
dangero
What makes you say that? I'm looking at the two side by side right now and
they are vastly different. What has svbtle created that is being copied?

------
pdog
_"Svbtle now has more than 200 writers with expertise spanning at least eight
disciplines, including entrepreneurship, business, finance, political science,
and literature."_

Is there a directory of all blogs in the Svbtle network? The only ones I've
seen have been about technology/entrepreneurs, but I'd be interested in
finance topics.

~~~
steveklabnik
There is explicitly no directory. There is a feed: <https://svbtle.com/home>
But it's only for 'featured' posts.

~~~
brown9-2
I'm curious what the rationale of this is if one of the ideas behind this
network is it's "exclusivity" and curation of authors.

Why be cautious of who you pick to be in your network yet not promote who
you've picked to be in your network?

~~~
steveklabnik
I'm speculating, but: the best of the best. Everyone has off days.

------
andrew93101
Will they be compensating the bloggers whose content they are profiting from?

~~~
cwe
Are they really profiting at this point? I haven't seen any ads on the sites,
and funding shouldn't be considered profit.

~~~
ceejayoz
I doubt the funding was set up as a charitable donation, so at some point,
they're certainly going to have to figure out some way to make revenue.

------
SeoxyS
In order to be a respected author and build a personality online, I think we'd
all be much better off taking the time and care to build our own personal
theme and identity.

Our blogs are our online identities. Using something like Svbtle take all the
personality and brand recognition out of it.

For me, I designed my own blog around my personal tastes in minimalism, and
the way I want to brand myself: <http://kswizz.com>.

------
citricsquid
Prediction: Kudos will become a Flattr esque financing model.

------
brackin
Either TechMeme got it wrong or the story was edited to remove it but the
TechMeme quote includes "YCombinator" in that list.
<http://www.techmeme.com/130108/p31#a130108p31>

Edit: Now says "(including, previously, Y Combinator)"

~~~
dcurtis
Y Combinator was not part of the most recent round, so I edited to clarify.

------
bdcravens
Explains the angst against WordPress themes copying the interface. It's not an
artistic issue, but a money one.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993094>

~~~
nchlswu
Even if it was a financially/revenue-independent blog network, it's an issue.

It was never an artistic -- it was always a branding issue.

------
chrisgoodrich
Svbtle sounds eerily familiar to the old 9rules blog network. The only
difference (from what I can tell) is that Svbtle provides the bloggging
platform and site design as part of membership in the "network."

If Svbtle is to ever monetize as a "publication" aren't they going to pay the
writers? Or maybe they'll take the HuffingtonPost route and not pay them?

Not a hater, just voicing some legitimate concerns.

------
rglover
I was a bit uncertain at first, but Svbtle has really grown into a great
resource. The writing on there is phenomenal and it's great that the list of
authors keeps growing. Excited to see how they use their new resources.

------
joeblau
I didn't realize there was so much contention over the Svbtle theme. I was
using a Tumblr version, but I just changed to something standard as I spend
time to work on my own custom theme. As far as the funding, I think it's great
that the blog platform will continue. As a relative new comer to the valley, I
have gained some pretty insightful information from some of the Svbtle
authors.

------
nicholassmith
I wonder if they're going to try a revenue model that doesn't use ads, I can't
see ads fitting the flow of the site overly well if they do go for them.

~~~
pknerd
Selling data?

~~~
nicholassmith
Selling what data though? There's probably some analytics, but enough for a VC
to be interested? There's two outcomes, they're either bought by a bigger
network and make the VC's happy, or they take find a revenue model and try
make the VC's happy.

Curious to see what happens, if nothing it's been an interesting experiment
for the web.

------
wahnfrieden
Nice empty "Also read..." beneath the article.

