Antone Johnson › Comments

"Good point. So many large vehicles only have one person in them. Also, parking is a huge waste of precious space in places like SF. Two wheels really is the way to go for solo commuters in urban areas (weather permitting). Proud Vespa owner here!" - Antone Johnson

"How is this intimidation? So the government subpoenaed a record of every phone number I called in the past two months. That means it has a record of every phone number I called in the past two months. No more. Is anyone at AP being charged with a crime or investigated as a suspect? Not to my knowledge. They are sources of relevant evidence — or more accurately, the phone company is a source of relevant evidence that their calls generated — to be used in identifying and prosecuting a government employee for felonious misconduct. If intimidation is a motive here, it's other government employees who might be tempted to leak in the future that are being targeted for intimidation — or, in the less pejorative language of criminal law, "deterrence." Journalists hate this for the same reason they get all sanctimonious about going to jail to protect anonymous sources: These sources give them juicy stories to tell that sell papers and win prizes. When is the last time an AP reporter was..." - Antone Johnson

"They're not going after AP at all. They're going after the government employee who apparently committed a serious crime by divulging classified information to the AP reporters." - Antone Johnson

"My guess about CA is that it fared well primarily because researchers included at least two anti-gay slurs in the mix. That's not widely tolerated in the sprawling coastal metroplexes of the SF Bay Area and LA-SD that comprise 2/3 of the state's population. There's a reason the Village People wrote a gay liberation anthem called "Go West" 35 years ago. If you know California, Humboldt has little in common with (or allegiance to) places like LA or Orange County. It's closer to Oregon both geographically and culturally. It's also in the rural region north of the Bay Area that fares worse in this study than much of the state. Hard to believe the data would be manipulated both to make the state as a whole look artificially good and to make its own area look relatively bad by CA standards. (It would be roughly equivalent to people in Syracuse or Rochester publishing a study making NYC look good.) Greater LA fares surprisingly well for a county of 10 million with a history of infamous..." - Antone Johnson

"Setting aside analogies, on which reasonable minds seem to differ, the defendants' process and intent (as evidenced by their words and actions) are dispositive in my view: Discover an apparent security hole. (A truly boneheaded one at that.) Repeat a few times with different parameters to verify that the results are reproducible. Yes! Reproducible results = good practice consistent with scientific method. Congratulations, gentlemen, we've discovered a bona fide vulnerability. We could deliver this news to AT&T as good samaritans, or to the press to publicly shame the company for its sub-standard treatment of consumers' personally identifiable information (likely in violation of its own privacy policy and/or state privacy law), or both. Fair enough; perhaps cause for thanks and a lucrative security consulting engagement! The problem is these guys didn't leave well enough alone. Showing the reporter or AT&T five or 50 or 500 examples would have been ample to make the point. Instead,..." - Antone Johnson

"Well, on the plus side, you can buy a house in depressed Michigan for $55K. A parking space will cost more than that in many big cities." - Antone Johnson

"Interesting commentary, particularly on the subject of "friction." Low friction is great for entrepreneurs, but it also entails minimal due diligence and accountability, creating some nasty incentives and unintended consequences as I wrote at Gust (http://gust.com/angel-investin... ). I'm a cheerleader for all forms of entrepreneurship, and support crowdfunding *products* or creative works (e.g. Kickstarter), but it's hard to envision mom-and-pop *investors* (vs. buyers or donors) being anything other than disappointed with equity crowdfunding. The AngelList guys candidly disclose to investors, "Expect to lose your money." Why would any sane person make that investment? Angels invest because they know with a relatively large sample size, there should be a good positive ROI for the whole portfolio — but you need to make quite a few investments (or have high-quality deal flow coupled with great judgment and/or sheer luck) to get there. I fear that unaccredited retail investors placing..." - Antone Johnson

"Isn't there some irony in using the term "bullshit-free" in a post announcing a group that christened itself The Pramana Collective? Did they take branding lessons from the folks at the PandoDaily School of Obscurely Pretentious Foreign Names? ;) But seriously, it's all about the people. No doubt this talented trio will make an indelible impact on the industry. Look forward to seeing them in action." - Antone Johnson

"Am I missing something here? The Los Angeles Times posted timely, relevant factual information about the single most newsworthy annual *and local* event in the global entertainment industry — a powerhouse of the local economy, centered in Los Angeles County, employing hundreds of thousands and shaping the English-speaking world's popular culture (for better and for worse) for the past century. So what's the problem? If there's one "respectable" online publication in the world (using Pulitzers as a proxy) that *should* be posting information about a globally influential media event taking place in its own back yard, shouldn't it be the LA Times? Of all people who genuinely care about the Oscar winners in Production Design or Sound Editing, I'd venture to guess 3/4 of them live in the LA Times coverage area. This is nothing like the HuffPo posting about the Super Bowl. Apples and oranges — or perhaps sour grapes?" - Antone Johnson

"Joe, what a great idea to implement at the state level! I'm on the record* as a strong skeptic regarding equity crowdfunding in general; I think the great paradox is that the more issuer-friendly it is, the more it will attract widespread abuse of investors by snake-oil salesmen. But I would love to be proven wrong, and I can't think of a better way to silence critics than to try it out in a state like Washington and witness its success. *See http://gust.com/angel-investin..." - Antone Johnson

"Seriously. People exercise so little critical thinking. Put yourself into the business's shoes for a nanosecond: If you ran an online business and lost thousands of dollars because some jackass took it down for a few hours with a DDoS attack as a "free speech" act of "protest", would you be angry? Damn right you would. It's a crime for a reason. We have the freest of free speech in the history of the world at our fingertips, without having to vandalize others' property or attack their livelihoods." - Antone Johnson

"Well said. Even at hacker-friendly MIT they have to be concerned about such things. As someone posted elsewhere, this was about as "victimless" as if a person went around trying doorhandles at 5 million homes, entered all of the ones that were unlocked, and then left. Even if he didn't steal anything, that doesn't make it legally or morally OK." - Antone Johnson

"You're absolutely right. First Twitter and then the blogosphere has been swirling with FUD (like this article), fed intentionally by ideological agendas but also unintentionally by bloggers and others who know little about criminal law and procedure, yet don't take the time to educate themselves or consult experts. It's no accident that the weekend of Swartz's tragic death, amid a whirlwind of commentary in social and online media, the only stories that even bothered to consult and quote experts were the NYT and WSJ pieces that went online Sunday night. That's the difference between journalism and blogging. (I say this as a blogger myself.) Why do we have so much trouble accepting moral ambiguity and other flaws in our heroes? Even geniuses are imperfect. It's only human to cast blame for the senseless early death of a popular activist, but politicizing this does a disservice in diverting attention from what truly killed him that day: Major depressive disorder, aka clinical..." - Antone Johnson

"Touché. I hate paywalls as much as the next guy but that doesn't mean I'll go hack my way around them to get access to 5 million publications for free — even if I believe they *should* be free in an ideal world." - Antone Johnson

"This is a misleading piece. Mention 50 years in prison up front and the reader has to wade 14 grafs in to discover the latest plea bargain actually involved 6 months (jail, not prison, according to a quote from Swartz's lawyer). No attempt to get the POV of any experts who prosecute or defend computer crimes for a living. The best analysis on the Web — including calls for reform of the sections of the CFAA that are most likely to be abused by prosecutors — is a two-parter by Orin Kerr at http://www.volokh.com/2013/01/... . Google him and you'll find it's hard to conceive of someone better qualified as an independent expert. (He defended Lori Drew in the infamous MySpace suicide case.) I mourn the premature loss of a great innovator and activist, but we owe it to ourselves to understand the complete legal and factual picture — including, yes, direct action he allegedly took that was criminal, as a defiant act to liberate 5 million articles from behind a paywall. Progressive activists..." - Antone Johnson

"$1 per message is a fortune to spammers. They use nearly-free email to send messages by the millions at a variable cost of essentially $0 per message. Charge even a small amount and their entire business model vanishes. My hunch is that $1 is much higher than it needs to be. Even something like $0.25 would cause aggressive spammers to give up and go elsewhere." - Antone Johnson

"At least pepper spray — the kind that makes your face feel like it's on fire for half an hour." - Antone Johnson

"There are ways to monetize beyond intrusive advertising. The world has moved on from banner and pre-roll ads. Look at what Pheed's doing, for starters. I would love to see the new owners pull this off, although it's puzzling that they didn't rebrand along with the relaunch. (They'd still have the tens of millions of active users and gobs of content from artists.)" - Antone Johnson

"Can't wait to read Part II. Although thankfully I've never had to deal with the race and gender stereotypes you described, the point about learning from others' (false) assumptions is golden. Great salespeople already know the long list of objections a potential customer could raise and have responses down cold for every one of them. The same is true for investor pitch meetings: "But you're a _____________" (solo founder, non-engineer, coming from a different industry background, wrong location, too young, too old, etc.). Learning what these objections are, and having authentic, persuasive responses to each — no matter how much they rankle — on the tip of your tongue makes for a winner." - Antone Johnson

""Pro-consumer?"  Really? How about two more words for you:  "Regulatory capture."" - Antone Johnson

"Took the words right out of my mouth. Interesting reading, but I'm not sure how productive it is for marketers to simply tell their companies to make a better product that will sell itself. Just sayin'." - Antone Johnson

"Seriously. Where is the Vinod Khosla character? The Pierre Omidyar? Hell, the Tony Hsieh or Anil Dash or Jerry Yang or Sachin Agarwal? Pathetic." - Antone Johnson

"Kevin, thanks for your thoughtful comment. I agree in principle with the "libertarian wisdom" that you describe. No doubt we'll see all kinds of creative approaches to building credibility by platforms that compete for crowdfunding business. The final version of the JOBS Act places a lot of responsibility on these intermediaries. That said, I'm concerned that crowdfunding is uniquely difficult to keep in check because the dollar amounts involved are so small, relatively speaking, and spread so thin. You're absolutely right that policing of private issuers is weak; with finite resources, the SEC focuses enforcement efforts on public markets, where (1) the stakes are much higher in dollar terms, (2) "mom and pop" retail investors participate, and (3) the flow of information from the company is vast under the '33 and '34 Acts. Do retail investors read and analyze an S-1 before deciding to buy? Of course not. The flow of information to analysts, state and federal regulators, and..." - Antone Johnson

"This is faulty reasoning. A website is not *obligated* to enforce its TOU in a private dispute between users where one alleges than another has violated it. That would simply be unworkable at scale for any site with millions of users (or hundreds of millions, in the case of Facebook). If you think about it, one of the hardest aspects is the need to play judge, jury and executioner, so to speak. In all but the most egregious of cases, there are two sides to every story. It would be a nightmare for the site to get caught up in that, thousands of times over. Kickstarter has no practical means of forcing one of its users to pay others money. Pragmatically, all it can do is remove the offending user (project creator) from the site for allegedly violating the TOU and be transparent in telling its other users (backers) what it did. It's up to the backers to go after the project creator if they have a legal claim for refunds. In most cases they won't bother because the amount of money is too..." - Antone Johnson

"Seems to me that PG's view makes some sense for startups that have already achieved product-market fit, but for those in earlier stages, if they follow Lean Startup methodology -- doing customer development, "getting out of the building," developing a minimum viable product -- it makes no sense to use consistent rapid growth as any kind of litmus test of legitimacy. In fact, to turn things around, rapid growth, when it occurs, is an *indicator* that product-market fit has been achieved. Does that mean the startup wasn't really a startup in the earlier stage? Hardly. To quote Steve Blank, "a startup is an organization formed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model." I think that fairly covers the period of "incubation" before hyper-growth kicks in." - Antone Johnson

"It's not an Apple issue. I have Verizon and they don't block FaceTime, nor does Sprint, as the article says." - Antone Johnson

"What?? Sarbanes-Oxley has nothing to do with charging consumers for products. It's a securities law requiring publicly traded companies to make certain disclosures and comply with corporate governance requirements." - Antone Johnson

"Peter, thanks for your comment. I've rarely seen things take off so quickly, but it's certainly possible with the hottest startups. That said, if Series A investors do balk at the discount, I think a more likely outcome is that they will negotiate with the seed investors and the Company to modify the terms of the convertible notes. It sounds like an odd game of "chicken" of sorts, but seed investors will generally be better off agreeing to reduce their conversion discount vs. risking the company's future if it is running out of cash and needs to close the Series A round ASAP." - Antone Johnson

"Amen! Shout it from the rooftops. It wasn't all that long ago that convertible notes didn't have valuation caps. As you said, the issuing companies — unfortunately for their investors and founders alike — weren't infinitely valuable! I wasn't aware of Mark Ury's Storify piece; I put one together myself with additional links and references. Call the "unabridged" version versus Mark's more concise summary of the conversation. Anyway, for those who can't get enough of this startup finance geek material, it's located at http://storify.com/antonejohns... ." - Antone Johnson

"That is a great service. I look forward to seeing it in action. That said, as I posted below, I think there's a point beyond which DIY is dangerous for entrepreneurs; a little good advice from an experienced startup lawyer goes a long way." - Antone Johnson