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Pejman Pour-Moezzi posted a message on Twitter

“i <3 radiohead http://tinyurl.com/5umcwd”

July 14 at 10:22 pm - Link

Vikram Shenoy liked this

Kevin Fox posted a message

“The time is right for a new news network that actively comments on the veracity of the news and shies away from sensationalism, instead biased toward truth, pragmatism, and relevance. What's that called again? Oh yeah. Journalism.”

July 11 at 2:24 pm - Link

Adam Lasnik, Shakeel Mahate, Fred Neil, Josh Staiger and 34 other people liked this

sadly journalism and capitalism don't seem to play nicely. - Robert Seidman

But what if there's a demand with little supply? Every now and then products in a saturated marketplace need a differentiator to be successful. Couldn't that play here? - Kevin Fox

Show 28 more comments

News Hour on PBS - Hutch Carpenter

Here here, Kev. I've tuned in more lately to MSNBC, but that's probably only out of my political convictions. Lord knows, Fox is far from news and CNN seems too busy trying to find out if Jolie had her babies yet. There's room for something in the middle. ABC had talked of starting a 24-hour news channel but has since balked. My thought for balance? Perhaps a 24-hour PBS news channel a la the PBS Kids channel they already operate. The McNeil/Lehrer News Hours. - Chris Reed

@Hutch: We were thinking alike... - Chris Reed

BBC America does a much better job than most American news broadcasts. - David Worrell

That's why God invented blogs. If you're wondering about the truthiness of an item, check the comments. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins

Chris: IMO, 24 hour news is part of the problem. - David Worrell

What about PBS' news program? (NewsHour?) Or NPR? Or BBC News? - Bill Bittner via fftogo

We get the media that we deserve. - Steve Weis

NPR lost my respect as an objective news service a few days ago. Don't ask. - Helen Is SOOO Not Of Troy

Kevin, that's what the Internet is for....You don't need a "license" to report and be a journalist....If the demand is in fact there, the Internet (as of now) is the medium to make it happen. - Chris Rossini

I don't dispute that the internet is a place for that to be possible, just that even with this level playing field, most of the players are biased either politically or toward sensationalism. - Kevin Fox

Unfortunately pragmatism is boring and sensationalism is interesting. See Reddit. This is why The Daily Show manages to be one of the best sources of news -- they make it entertaining via comedy instead of sensationalism. - Paul Buchheit

And the more I think about it, it's funny: I don't want pragmatic news for my own sake. I want it so that everyone else understands what's really going on. Of course, having such a network out there wouldn't fix the problem, because people will always choose the network that portrays the world in the way they want it to be, and the people I would most want to 'learn up' would never watch it. - Kevin Fox

@Helen: I'm asking, because I am a regular NPR listener and now I'm worried. - grant

Paul and Kevin, really great points. Kevin, it's possible they might watch it if it was so entertaining they didn't realize they were "learning up". - Robert Seidman

What I want is more field reporting and less meta-analysis. The Internet and blogs are good at meta-analysis, combining and comparing and filtering and echoing existing information. But very few bloggers are interested in actually walking the beat because, well, it's time-consuming, tedious, and potentially even dangerous. Counterexamples: groklaw, Alpie's greatergreaterwashington, ...? - ⓞnor

re: packaging: The Daily Show and Onion News Network aren't enough? You want a Charlie Rose style channel? - Phil Wolff via Alert Thingy

Truth is easy (there are many truths to pick from, you just need to search hard enough) but relevance for the audience is tough, because there are other interests at play than educating the audience... like making the channel a good environment to sell commercials in, to name one. - Philipp Lenssen

thats the rub, 24 hour news based entirely on truth doesn't fill the seats. With ad dollars at stake I don't see a switchover anytime soon. - Steve Spalding

yeah! hell yeah! now how do we make that happen? who do I have to pay? - Bruce Williams

@grant, a few things: http://www.commondreams.org/he... , http://www.thenation.com/blogs... , and now http://brickgrrl.blogspot.com/... - Helen Is SOOO Not Of Troy

Kevin, if anyone can make it happen it's you guys. - j1m

Isn't that what it's like in Europe already? - Andrew Bonventre

I do not share the pessimism expressed here. The truth cannot be a niche service; knowledge is very, very valuable. However, a service based on 'truth' may be incompatible with American television for structural reasons (high costs, mass audience, expectation of free content, tolerance of advertisting, inherent technological limitation on information density). - Neil Kandalgaonkar

Was that supposed to support your lack of pessimism somehow? - j1m

*inherent technological limitation on information density* wadda ya mean? - silpol

What do you think of this news report Kevin? http://youtube.com/watch?v=M3P... - Philipp Lenssen

"Isn't that what it's like in Europe already?" TV channels aside, have you heard of Europe's most popular newspaper (according to Wikipedia)? German BILD. It even got its own German watch blog, and several books were written on the subject -- including one where an undercover journalist worked there to investigate into their methods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... His book is not published in its uncensored version anymore here, though. - Philipp Lenssen

@j1m: I'm saying it's inevitable that a service like this will arise, it just won't be on television, at least not TV as we know it. - Neil Kandalgaonkar

@silpol: Historically, TV has delivered low resolution images. TV producers compensate with flat lighting, simple composition, fewer than 20 words on screen, reliance on emotionally charged images (like emotive faces), and rapid cuts. Compare that to how you feel watching an IMAX documentary -- they just have to hold the shot continuously and you are fascinated. This is why the very nature of TV militates against a real presentation of reality. HD may be changing that soon though. - Neil Kandalgaonkar

Interesting. So you figure low-res means viewers pay less attention? - j1m

Bret Taylor shared an item on Google Reader

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett Discuss "Creative Capitalism"

June 26 at 5:36 pm - Link

Millard Baker, Sherif Mansour, Dave Morin, Vikram Shenoy and 24 other people liked this

hi - lovethph

Creative capitalism, good; crony capitalism and vulture capitalism, bad. The former promotes excellence and innovation; the latter promotes mediocrity and stagnation. - Sean McBride

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See what Freakonomics said about "Creative Capitalism" - http://freakonomics.blogs.nyti... - Roger Chen

Thanks, just added this feed to Goog Reader. - Andrew Meyer

Creative capitalism is a baloney. Whenever you force altruism through people, it is bound to fail. As an alternative, I propose sensible capitalism, which is the realization that by ensuring "prosperity" to people all over the world (universal health care and certain other welfare measures comes into this category) and by ensuring the "sustainability" in this world (environment, etc comes into this), we are achieving two things that are important for capitalism. (contd) - Krishnan Hussein Subraman

We are increasing the reach of the markets by several fold with the cost distributed throughout the society (greed, hallmark of capitalism followed by the market fundamentalists, is ensured even in the taxes) and we are reducing the enemies by several fold (imagine what will happen if people left out by capitalism take up arms struggle). In sensible capitalism, we can achieve everything which Gates says in his theory without altruism. Hope I have explained this idea properly. - Krishnan Hussein Subraman

In short, under sensible capitalism, you achieve all the things which Gates wants to achieve with his creative capitalism but by keeping greed as the central dogma (which market fundamentalists will always prefer). - Krishnan Hussein Subraman

Pejman Pour-Moezzi had a new status message on Gmail/Google Talk

“..doesn't necessarily need to be number one. just in the top 50.”

June 26 at 11:29 pm - Link

Vikram Shenoy liked this

Nivi posted a message on Twitter

“"You can't build to sell. If you build to sell, you're not building anything of sustained value." – Craig McCaw, http://snurl.com/2c67o”

June 2 at 9:16 pm - Link

Vikram Shenoy, Xavi, Adewale Oshineye, Yu-Shan and 5 other people liked this

Amen, I wonder how many have a business model which is to get bums on seats just to sell to Google/Microsoft or News Media - Robert O'Callaghan

This is why I'm so annoyed by those “flip that house” shows on TV — they teach people how to make houses *look* good without actually *being* good. - Amit Patel

Sell = value? - torque

Marc Andreessen posted an entry on blog.pmarca.com

From Bill O'Reilly's point of view

May 20 at 11:56 pm - Link

Nikpay and Vikram Shenoy liked this

Marc Andreessen posted an entry on blog.pmarca.com

It's not just Bill O'Reilly...

May 16 at 9:49 pm - Link

April Buchheit, Thomas Brox Røst, Daniel Hartmann, Vikram Shenoy and 5 other people liked this

Paul Buchheit posted a link

Where does Google go next? - May. 12, 2008

May 12 at 12:42 pm - via Bookmarklet - Link

Satish Thomas, d e f c o n, Gavin, Ian and 52 other people liked this

"Paul Buchheit, the former Google engineer who is on to his second startup now, recalls what he loved about Google's early days. "I was always so excited at Google, because I didn't know what would happen next," he says. "Then I knew what would happen next." Predictability is a virtue in the world of big business. It's just not particularly Googley." - Paul Buchheit

"When Schmidt is asked how he as CEO balances the need for process with the less quantifiable demands of experimentation and innovation, he responds by relating the thoughts of Page and Brin. "Let me give you the argument that Larry and Sergey have made, which is, I think, surprising," Schmidt says. "They are concerned that the company is becoming too conservative. They say to me, 'We took huge risks when we had no cash. Now we have all of this cash and we take few risks.'"" - Paul Buchheit

Show 17 more comments

"We've been hiring on the order of 100 people a week," he (Eric) says. "So in one week we hire more people than the people you just named." - Sanjeev Singh

are the needs of big business and the spirit of us against them mutually exclusive? - Morgan via twhirl

Let's see how many of these start-ups will be bought back by Google later on :) - Philipp Lenssen

Eric's quote is frustrating both because it presumes that more people equates to more execution, and that people are fungible, so losing 100 people is immaterial because you just hired 100. Of course Eric realizes the importance of experience and institutional knowledge. It's just sad to see him try to spin it. - Kevin Fox

I agree Kevin, though I think too often people seem to focus on the absolute number of people leaving Google, which is silly when you consider that any organization of 17,000 people will have a significant number of people leaving all the time, and there's nothing wrong that that (on it's own). - Paul Buchheit

How come nobody comments on the people who leave other companies to join Google? - John Mueller

John: I think a year or two ago everybody did just that -- when massive numbers of people left other companies to join Google. - Ole Begemann

As I suggested on Phillip Lenssen's recent blogpost (and certainly not blaming him here), I really really really wish that everything in blogosphere and MSM wasn't so win/lose, black/white. ZOMG... Google is God! Google is conquering the world! ZOMG... Google is falling apart. ALL their great engineers are leaving! Bah - Adam Lasnik

I agree Adam. Unfortunately I think it may be the case that such articles simply don't get as much attention, and therefore in order to be successful you have to tell a more win/lose story. - Paul Buchheit

Google themselves posed in very black and white terms in their beginnings, and in a way, they are still judged by their own words (e.g. I'm counting 9 occurrences of "unusual/ not conventional/ unconvential" in the IPO founder's letter). The CNN article was actually quite balanced I think, though yes, it does suggest some kind of trend it seems, and it's hard to tell from the outside if this is really a trend or just noise... - Philipp Lenssen

Paul, very true. Philipp, agree with you on the first point to some extent (plus we've certainly played up our food :D), but I don't sense an internal "way less cool" trend... certainly nothing to match the outside rhetoric. - Adam Lasnik

Just discovered Ooyala through this FF item, and seriously considering using them for our video publishing & distribution needs. Thanks, FF! - Andrei M. Marinescu via Alert Thingy

I am drawn to Google profiles like a bee to honey, it is kinda crazy how I get excited about reading them. Anyone else feel the urge to read any profile about the company> - Caleb Elston

Caleb: Yup, mentioning Google is like sprinkling fairy dust on it. To me it makes it magical and wondrous. - Vince DeGeorge

Keep in mind though that when Google hires/hired 100 people a week, it wasn't all Eng and Product. Google is actually severely understaffed in certain departments (you just don't really hear much about them...) that may actually hinder the company from scaling and moving faster. - Jennie Lin

I hardly think Schmidt is spinning. Sure, holding on to a good person you have is even better than hiring a new good person. Hell, say it's twice as good. The problem with the story told in this article is that it is: "Google hired 1000s of people last year. But wait, 6 people left. Whoa! Trouble." To their credit, we can assume a bunch more people left, but it's hard to see this as surprising or anything. - j1m

I highlighted the comment not because of spin, but because it doesn't make existing employees feel valued. It's like saying, "go ahead and leave, I'll have a replacement tomorrow". - Sanjeev Singh

you can tell they still value employees, sometimes they even threaten to TP peoples houses... :P - bob

... - Mario Nogueira

everything repeats and repeats and repeats - read http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nom... - silpol