Michael Broukhim › Likes

I think he has two + years before he's asking why every 5 seconds. - Scoble, Alex Scoble

Iduno, my son is 3 1/2 and he has been chattering and asking why for at least a year now. - Jeff P. Henderson

awesome strategy...love it, especially the part about dinner and sharing best bottle of wine...then comes the demo - Susan Beebe

Le reste est l'histoire - paul mooney

I'm not sure about anyones point here, really. - Roberto Bonini

You uber bloggers do like to bitch, don't you? - David Semeria

Next time I'm there I should take you guys out to dinner and show you our simplyfeed then. ;) - Moushumi Kabir

Moushumi: don't forget the wine! :-) When are you going to be in SF? - Robert Scoble

hymanroth: we learned in high school that no one pays attention to the geek in the science room but that everyone pays attention to the fight in the quad. - Robert Scoble

I wish FF would let me 'like' comments in a thread because I really like Robert's geek vs. fight comment. Still trying to understand why LeWeb always has controversy around it...but then any buzz is better than none, right? - Karoli

Just the sort of civilized values and appreciation of human communication celebrated by the Slow Food movement http://tinyurl.com/5n84bh . I think Loic was articulating this type of view. I read in Lemur's blog that Arrington took his Latop to a Michelin 3 star restaurant! No-one can condone this. Can they? - Mac Taylor

Mac: Loic later admitted that Mike didn't do that. - Robert Scoble

hymanroth: the fight might be manufactured, but it isn't all that fake. Just because they planted the fireworks, lit the fuse, doesn't mean that there aren't real fireworks going off now. - Robert Scoble

Robert, he did not do that but went to the bathroom check Techmeme, and was begging for the Chef to leave him in peace at the end of the dinner :) - Loic Le Meur

Loic: like I said, maybe you invited the wrong guy to dinner! (Hi Mike!) I appreciate five-course French meals and don't feel the pressure to get on my blog. But, you might catch me in the bathroom on FriendFeed. Luckily, in Europe, I don't have cell phone access so don't feel that kind of pressure there. - Robert Scoble

I wonder if everybody is having a boring weekend and plays kindergarten because of it. - Christian Scholz

but having that said I think the europeans could get things done a bit more.. like in Germany we seem just to copy everything and complain that specs are not written in german, too ... - Christian Scholz

Christian - my feeling is that that's exactly what's going on today (techmeme's sidebar is longer than the main part of the page today) - but then, we used to have a lot more manufactured fights like this - sadly, the fight takes away from the substance of the discussion, which is basically about work/life balance - and which is an important topic - Frederic

Frederic, right, work/life balance is one and it's of course also a cultural thing. It might also be about different thinking about risks you take when it comes to startups. And the latter is also influenced of your environment.. Like in germany we do not really have an atmosphere which allows for too much risk.. and you'd better not fail. - Christian Scholz

Robert, sure, wine too! I'll be there in February. Or, you are welcome in Atlanta and we will extend Southern hospitality, calling the trip, "Silicon Valley goes Southern." :-) - Moushumi Kabir

Christian - Good point - entrepreneurial risk taking isn't exactly encouraged in most parts of Europe - and that is definitely holding potential startups back (more so than taking time out for lunch...). Of course, there is also a lot of bureaucratic hassle if you want to start a company in Germany... - Frederic

right, bureacracy adds to that (and we like to add another two layers in order to remove one because we are actually very aware of that). That being said and having thought about it, I am not sure if those american startups are actually better. Most of them seem not to be very interesting to me but probably there are simply more of them so the chance that some winner arises from that mass is higher. - Christian Scholz

I would have dinner with Loic. And I have had briefings over meals from companies - BackType being a good example. - Louis Gray

Anyone is always welcome to come visit out here (Salt Lake City) as well - we have at least 6-12" of snow on the ground now as of today, so we could go skiing! (although I've only been once) Want to review tech companies? We have Omniture, Mozy, Doba, SocialToo, i.TV, We're Related (facebook app), Ancestry.com, BackCountry.com, UnitedOnline (the makers of Classmates.com, NetZero, and Freeservers.com), OrangeSoda, Overstock.com, and more - all w/i 45 minutes drive! - Jesse Stay

Oh, and despite what Scoble says, I'll make sure you can eat at a Mexican restaurant that makes good Margaritas. ;-) - Jesse Stay

I almost forgot Novell - Jesse Stay

Novell ...hahaha! OMG are they still breathing? Suse linux?? My hubby was a top shelf Novell CNE, MCNE, ECNE... then came Windows Server! augh! Novell's "windows client" was the death of novell. 2,3,4 all worked great in DOS, then the windows stuff crawled and cost MY company money...sucked big time... OK where's that NT 3.51 book?? Windows for workgroups anyone? - Susan Beebe

So ... they key is the wine. right? :D - funkyboy from Posty

Silicon Valley is much more about relationships than Arington has made it out to be...and not necessarily for the better all the time; I remember reading a good post somewhere about the role of VC's essentially being reduced to funding buddies and finding exits for buddies to former vc's / buddies :) - Michael Broukhim

Michael: I agree. Arrington, though, does always look for the next thing and I could totally see him wanting to escape from a five-hour dinner to make sure he's not missing anything important. - Robert Scoble

Robert: Yes, he does seem *much* more meritocratically oriented than many others... though I think in some of his US / EU observations, he projects unto other U.S. techies his own ethos - Michael Broukhim

Broukhim: oh, yes, he does do that. Big time. But then, so do I in a way. We all try to shape the world to be how we'd like it to be. - Robert Scoble

I think Robert made a big mistake here. He should not have done this. Judging startups that have not even launched yet by their websites in one minute... come on! - Loic Le Meur

I don't get it -- if their websites suck (in Scoble's opinion) why shouldn't he say so. (And I have been through it Loic, many times.) People said my websites sucked, sometimes they were right, and sometimes not, but what the fuck, people have opinions, that's just the way it goes. In your world everyone hides what they think, I'd rather live in a world where people are expected to say what they think. We'd solve problems faster. Esp startups who have websites that suck. Maybe they'll fix them and succeed. - Dave Winer

And Loic, btw, Scoble worked for my startup. Just FYI. - Dave Winer

hey Dave, yes, people have the right to say startups suck before they even launched and by spending a minute on their website, sure. I also have the right to say my friend Scoble sucks for saying that, right? - Loic Le Meur

I love your face in the thumbnail for this video, Loic! - Zach Landes

From what I gather, Scoble was saying the websites suck, not that the actual startups are bad, wasn't he? - Derrick Kwa

here is the real truth: Opinion never caused a startup to fail. Let Robert say what he will. Let others say what they want. I hope those startups at DEMO bust ass and succeed through effort. I hope the startups at TC50 do the same. Those that allow the stones to break the glass houses deserve to fail epically. - Micah Baldwin

you are wrong Scoble said they suck, not only the websites: "I just visited every one of these companies. Boy do they almost all suck (at least their Web sites and if their sites suck, I can’t believe their products are going to do much better)" from http://scobleizer.com/2008... - Loic Le Meur

Loic: I know you're French, but read that again, now read it again, but slower. It implies that I visited the sites, and that the sites suck. I then infer that if your Website sucks, it might infer that your product sucks, but I don't quite cross that line. I'm going to answer you next. :-) - Robert Scoble

Agree with Zach about the pic, Loic. It's priceless! - Michelle Trent

Robert, what got me started is this shortcut you made "I can’t believe their products are going to do much better". How can you judge a product not even launched by a crappy website? WHO GIVES A SHIT ABOUT A COMPANY WEBSITE anyway? I don't even have one for Seesmic. In fact, we're building one, I will ask your advice. - Loic Le Meur

Loic: my point is that first impressions matter. A lot. My first impression of Seesmic still stands today. My first impression was seeing this really cool conversational video site that was different from any other I had seen previously. Now THAT was a launch. These? Well, OK, let's rejudge them on Friday. See ya then! - Robert Scoble

Wow, this is getting crazy, I think that people need to understand that everyone comes from a different perspective, Robert Scoble didn't understand the effect this would have on everyone because he has never actually been an entrepreneur. It is not his fault that he has different life experiences than others because everyone takes a different life path and Robert's is as a blogger. - Andrew Fielding

Loic, everyone cares about a startup's website. It's the first thing most people see when checking out a new product & it has a huge impact on the visitors attitude & vision for what the startup will be - surely you don't disagree with that? - Zee.

By the way, Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, in a separate post here on FriendFeed, said the same thing that these sites really sucked. So did Andrew Baron, founder of Rocketboom. I'm not alone here. - Robert Scoble

The fact is Robert made a statement about the quality of the landing pages of these soon to launch products and thought most of them sucked - and frankly I agree. Where he screwed up was he then implied that their actual products/companies sucked too and that's where the uproar lies..it's as simple as that. If Robert was writing for TIME Magazine, this story would be have been reviewed by a half a dozen people before going to publication & that critical error would have been pointed out.... - Zee.

however this is his blog and in the tech/web industry carries almost as much weight at a TIME magazine article and so it's understandable why so many people are pissed off. - Zee.

Robert, the more you comment, the more I disagree. Nobody gives a shit about a company website. Does Friendfeed have a company website? here is my video comment with more about this http://seesmic.com/video... - Loic Le Meur

Zee: if I worked at Time the story would have gotten killed because their editors don't care about startups. Oh, and if it were run it would be in four weeks in a back of the magazine where it wouldn't have gotten noticed anyway. But, you are right, it would have been fact checked and edited and all that. That's what happens to my FastCompany magazine column. - Robert Scoble

Friendfeed does have a company website Loic & it actually looks pretty damn inviting. - Zee.

Robert thanks for the compliments on Seesmic, really, but this is not a company site, it is our product, that is the whole difference. The startups you are talking about have not even started yet - Loic Le Meur

Loic: I think we're talking past each other. Let's remeet on Friday and then we'll compare the actual website and product (if they are different -- I don't think they are. Unless you think that Zoho is different from the spreadsheet inside). - Robert Scoble

Robert, deal. - Loic Le Meur

Nice to stand-up for the lil' ones trying to be "the little engines that could". Until Scoble comes up with a brand new idea and forks his own dime down for the start-up...then @loiclemeur it appears we've all been *had* by @scobleizer. Scoble just needed another article. plain and simple. yet it's the good fight to stand-up and help the little ones. - Jes Tu

I think scoble's post will make me and others put more effort into out sites. It's a positive influence on the web. Needed to be said. - Andrew Warner

Not continuing the discussion Loic? - Zee.

Loic, I appreciate you standing up for these start-ups here, and I agree with you...being in the middle of the whole startup thing myself, I've found myself to be a real believer in 'get something out there' -- even if its not perfect, polished, and with all that marketing jazz around...I think even Scoble deep down agrees with that - Michael Broukhim

And before you guys start insisting that sartups can't look any better before they launch, checkout how causecast.org setup their landing page. Quick and easy to create, but it's also a good representaion of the company. - Andrew Warner

Jes Tu: in my career I have worked at four startups and a fifth small company. I've put my own sweat into these things, which, for me, IS money. - Robert Scoble

Loic: would you allow a site you were about to launch look like some of these sites? - Andrew Warner

Michael, surely if you were going to go & spend $18000!!! on a product launch at DEMO. And you knew that your company was going to be mentioned before the actual event...you would create a really well designed intriguing, inviting, impressive landing page which made potential journalists & bloggers think "woah, this look interesting & impressive...i'll look out for these guys". - Zee.

i gotta say, i'm pissed off Loic has just jacked the debate & discussion...what happened to listening to your community Loic? - Zee.

Zee: I think there's something to that...I think it's a stretch to extrapolate from suboptimal PR strategies to products and the companies behind them 'sucking' ...there's limited time/$ and a lot of things to do... - Michael Broukhim

I think its inevitable that we judge a product by the company website - first impressions. In this case -the products haven't even launched yet. If they haven't launched yet, there is nothing for the website to do - they are just place holders at the moment. Will Scoble say they are great if the real website do some utterly neat AJAX? And maybe do some neat SAAS tricks as well? Both Loic and Scoble have valid points. - Roberto Bonini

@Scoble “Loic: I know you're French, [. . .]” OK: that was offensively condescending. There is no grammar ambiguity in what you wrote, and you did cross that line. Cultural hint: apologies would be welcome. - Bertil Hatt

Loic: I would love to know how the meeting went between you and Robert? - Thomas Cook

My son had corrective boots with bolts on the bottom and a bar bolted across them and he succeeded in walking at 10 months (we had to take the boots off out of pity). Once they start most are absolutely determined. I am sure it won't be long. - Brian Sullivan

Nah, my son takes the impatient route. Stand up, take 2 steps, realize that this isn't moving faster than mommy anymore and drop back to hands+knees. - Rahsheen

At 32 years, a friend of mine is STILL trying to perfect this. It's amazing/amusing. - Akiva

Begin to lock everything openable in your house and under 1 mt of height. - Federico Bolsoman

I would make the kid wait until it's at least 18-years-old before it should try ecstasy, Nicholas. - Akiva

I had one who just took off. Darned if I can remember which one. Had to be one of the girls since the boys both had PT. ;) - Cyndy

you missed the "put video on youtube for cheap pops" piece - Allen Stern

sounds like a company or two I've co-founded - Dave Hodson

Process of learning to walk is applicable to running a business, making art, being in a relationship, doing anything well.:-) - Cathryn Hrudicka

That sounds like my morning ritual walk to the coffee maker. - Steven Perez

And TotSpot is meant to keep track of this all... - for tots, not companies, that is... - Michael Broukhim

the story of my life - just too stupid to know when to quit! - Bill Sanders

"I got to pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again" - Peter Tosh - Larry Kless from twhirl

sounds like a life lesson for business - Rodney Rumford

inch by inch :-) - Jeff Sandquist

It's probably a good thing that nobody yells "FAIL" while you're learning to walk. - Ray Grieselhuber