rontr

Google is employing a small army of Java developers -- are they mediocre? :)

I think Google picked Java because J2ME has already won a big midshare among mobile developers and Google wanted to appeal to them by providing a familiar tool.

Google Gears is multi-threaded.

This article would have been so much more interesting if it had said, "Not only did Leopard not ship with Java 6, but Apple, in typical fashion, apparently thinks it has no obligation to its customers to inform them it replaced Java with Haskell" :)

Different people find satisfaction in different ways. Tycoons like Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch are driven to build empires -- they strive over decades to increase the dominance of their companies in their markets. Many Wall Street bankers are driven by the desire to make money -- even when they are already rich, they still want more. Other people, like Michael Jordan, are driven to win one championship after another. (Incidentally, MJ tried to take a spritz -- twice -- and it didn't quite work out for him. He had to get back in the game.) Another group of characters -- the serial entrepreneurs -- get their "fix" from creating and flipping companies. It sounds like Levchin is the latter type. It's in his nature. He couldn't take a spritz even if he tried.

I think Max deserves praise, not criticism. In his endeavors, he's creating wealth, jobs, and happiness for millions teenagers who get to display animated slideshows on their appalling MySpace profile pages :)

I agree that many desktop apps can't be entirely replaced by web-based equivalents. However, if a webapp can provide 80% of the features of a similar desktop app but with a much lower barrier to entry (nothing to install, cross-platform) and additional web-oriented features (collaboration, publishing, Facebook intergration, etc), this webapp can potentially capture a large market share. Google Docs is a good example -- it will never do everything that MS Office can do but it's easy to use and it's certainly good enough for many users. Desktop apps still occupy a niche, but the Web has made this niche much smaller than it used to be.

"Superstar" is a word that should be reserved for a select few. For example, the hackers who built the Google search engine are superstars. I somehow doubt people of such caliber send their resumes to Fog Creek Software seeking opportunities to maintain aging enterprise bug tracking software.

This article reads to me like a thinly veiled recruitment effort. "Work for me and I'll appreciate your contribution, only ask you to work 40 hours a week, and even call you 'superstar'!"

I'd rather start a startup.

Clearly, only superstar hackers are skilled enough to add features to FogzBugz.