s4sharpie

This is such a brilliant example of how attention to detail and treating every customer as your most valuable customer is crucial. Such a simple situation to show: 1. you never know which customer is the one that will tweet/publish their experience (good or bad). Offering to pay the $12 immediately would have solved this and caused no negative PR 2. you have to make sure your entire business and it's assets are up to date, all the time. It might be a rookie mistake to have a website that the proprietor can't update ... but I feel they plain forgot to make the change. If your website isn't integral to the way you run your business and considered in every decision you make, close down your website.

I want to show this to my wife, but afraid it will only serve to reinforce her reliance on Coconut Oil on everything we eat :-)

Looks like a smart move by Yahoo to be the default search for a major browser: google/chrome, bing/ie. This also means that Firefox will likely get some serious support from Yahoo in $$s to build back market share. Question is can they catch Google?

It comes down to percentages. I think what the author is trying to say (and referencing others) is that your chance of success is lowered by being a single founder vs a team. He references the support network and skill sharing. I would argue that a large additional part of the value of co-founders are that by having to at least convince someone else of your decisions, you avert the true howlers. Similarly, you have someone that validates your priorities (really, assessing another shade of green on the logo vs calling the customer/PR/etc?).

That's like saying, anything published in the New Yorker can only be focussed on things that happen in New York

While Japan continues to build and push the boundaries of train travel (regardless of the cost), other countries (USA, Australia) get mired in cost benefit analysis and special interest morass on any big nation building train works. It is interesting to note that the original lines are now considered 'super profitable'. It would be fascinating to see the original cost benefit analysis (if any was done) when they started their journey 50 years ago.

Quietly retract their German employee's accusations. The open letter is a PR disaster for Apple

While Apple is known to be less than open in its relationship with the media, this does seem like an overreaction. Probably on both sides.

I posit that the local German response of Apple was an overreaction, the magazine's response has probably exacerbated the conflict. It will be interesting to see how this resolves itself.

Very interesting about the density and energy impacts on sapphire vs glass. In a watch context (where the chance of dropping is less than the chance of scratching the face) the use of sapphire presents some additional challenges for battery life. If the Apple Watch intends to use sapphire, this might play into some of the rumours that release has been delayed because of battery life concerns.

Agreed - if ever there was an example of why performance matters on a web app. I gave up after the spinner was still spinning after I had navigated away and back (and replied to 5 emails)

The article references having burial specialists. This would require certain people having the right to take deceased corpses and burying without regard for the family/tribal/religious requests/requirements etc. This would at the very least be seen as impinging on the rights of the family, it would likely need armed support. If these burial specialists were say American, they would NOT be deployed without American armed support. Having American armed support (most likely the army) on the ground supporting people who are likely to be impinging on perceived rights will be viewed as trampling sovereignty.

Australia and the Netherlands had a similar issue with the downing of the Malaysian Airliner in Ukraine. In this case, the Ukrainian government had to pass legislation to allow armed Australian and Dutch military to support inspectors. They were just 'inspecting', not creating forced closures of specific areas, forcing burials, witholding care, etc all under significant armed guards.

The present situation on the ground (and the lack of 3rd party government level interaction) is largely a result of weak leadership by the UN. The better question is why the UN hasn't taken ownership of the outbreak?

There are massive global political ramifications that restrict the ability of those countries that do want to make a difference. As the article refers to, it is ultimately the UN that has the powers to essentially trample on a country's sovereignty (that is what you need to do to make a difference). The UN has been called a toothless tiger in many respects - this is another example where they can and should take a more proactive and aggressive stance. Only then can we comment on the actions of other Western nations.

The way that South Africa dealt with their AIDs epidemic (from a western perspective, true head in sand activity) is a case in point: despite many aggressive offers of help from western governments, the South African's continued their denial. To make a change would have required going against the government policy of the time. This is viewed legally as an invasion by an outside force.

This may be a larger announcement securing the future of Apple - there is a LOT of Newson in the Apple Watch

qualification: I am not an Apple Fanperson

What is utterly amazing is the Apple marketing engine. They have created (again) an amazing amount of buzz without any traditional marketing (if anything eschewing traditional channels). Probably so many lessons to be learnt here, but the one I think is most key is how they are completely turning release marketing on it's head. Traditional marketing would have leaks, pre-release interviews, teasers, celebrities getting access to a pre-release version. They do the opposite - nothing. In an insatiable world demanding instant news and updates, conventional wisdom suggests this should not work ... but it does, spectacularly so.

Obviously, there are many reasons behind why LinkedIn took this decision (and indeed made the original purchase decision) and they may be using the technology internally at LinkedIn in other ways. And, I am a fan of LinkedIn and use it everyday.

Having said that, I am baffled by this. While I appreciate that there is a battle own an individual's primary social network and spend more time/content on LinkedIn vs say Facebook. But, IMHO, wouldn't it have been more prudent to build up the functionality of the LinkedIn component while still offering the functionality that 300k plus users obviously wanted anyway? While this will probably be re-offered (it now looks that it is) as a LinkedIn only plugin, LinkedIn are limiting their reach to only LinkedIn users.

Had they continued to build the multi-network capabilities and brought the marketing/reach of LinkedIn to the product, I dare say they could have owned a significant portion of all GMail users and likely been no.1 in the space. Controlling that (and offering preferential treatment to LinkedIn) what definitely add value.

Who knows the end result, but it looks like a missed opportunity that someone else will come in and take.

The author rightly points out that there is, dare I say, a disruption in traditional career paths. Consulting/Banking/Large Corporate was 20/30 years ago seen as a key entry point for any career. And in that there was an informal contract: start with us, work hard, and we will promote you internally and externally so that you can move into the next big thing. This ultimately depended on said big bank/corporate/consulting house continuing an inexorable growth to support everyone growing.

Today, big banks/corporates/consulting firms now no longer offer that same social contract (they would argue they do, but they don't - with few exceptions). You are expendable and most firms would be happy for you to stay where you are (same role, same salary) and if you want to change, go find it outside the company.

So in complete agreement with the author that a big name brand name won't necessarily move your career forward.

But extrapolating that further, what I am now seeing is that this first choice can irreparably hamper your choices down the road. Following the 'traditional' and 'secure' path of a big company/consulting firm etc is now seen as the safe, risk free, dare I say boring choice. If you have any intention of being in a risky role (ie startup/entrepreneur) the signalling from a big comfortable riskless name on your resume may do more harm than good.

I review candidates for roles in a fast paced tech startup. If I have a choice between someone from say Microsoft and someone from a failed startup, everything else being equal, I will pick the startup man/woman every time.

Can't wait for sidewalk/bikelane wars over this. Too fast for the sidewalk with people walking. Will cyclists give up there precious bike lane space?

I completely agree that 100k is a very steep price for the coursework/books. If that is all you aim to get out of a MBA, you will not get value from the MBA.

It is now everything else besides the coursework/books and framework of teaching that is now valuable for a budding entrepreneur: access to additional funding, VCs, and a structure to support you.

Indeed, and I may have been remiss in mentioning this before, for an entrepreneur, some MBA programs provide a very safe opportunity to pursue your initial idea. You have two years with a large amount of unstructured time, amazing resources (including funding) and typically a strong financial support network (feed, house, cloth you). At the end of your two years you can have built either a successful initial idea or indeed cycle through 2 or 3 ideas. And at the end? If you haven't made it, you will have a strong position to re-enter the workforce - with some great stories to tell.

That a MBA is purely coursework/books is very myopic.

Very interesting perspective on the value of a MBA: specifically as a path to be an entrepreneur. Traditionally (say 20 years ago) much of the MBA was focussed on specific career paths: Investment Banking, Strategic Consulting, and Large Corporate Management Track.

I completed my MBA in 2006 while my school was shifting itself from the traditional aspects above to include a more entrepreneurial focus. If you asked me at that stage for a budding tech entrepreneur is there value in an MBA, the answer would mirror the position of the writer.

However, some schools have made significant strides in developing their programs and themselves to support entrepreneurs (or people who want to pursue that pass). I have been stunned in the way some schools now offer almost entire programs around entrepreneurship. Is that enough to overcome the cost?

I don't have an answer for that, but here are my thoughts: 1. Many, if not all of these programs, now have incubators/competitions as a part of the program with significant seed funding available 2. Similarly, many schools have developed networks with local VCs getting that initial access to funding and offer amazing access to coaching and angel investors 3. Maybe a little esoteric, but that 100k might give you that one piece of credibility/analysis etc that gets you that first round of funding, or helps you avoid that one mistake that could jeopardise you business and/or any funding you needed to keep your business running.

This is not an easy choice, but increasingly, some MBA programs do offer a LOT of value for the $100k

Whatever you post on the internet will be available for posterity!

Having read the pastebin link below, the author (regardless of it being true or not) could be liable for slander of individuals and probably in violation of his employment agreement constraints about sharing private data.

A likely scenario is that this post was circulated internally at Grooveshark and their executive team and/or HR team reminded their employees about their obligations.

I am concerned for the submitter - I don't think this is the last we hear of this.

Bradman survived the 'Bodyline' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodyline) series where the bowlers (pitchers in American parlance) literally targeted the body to injure the players and to hamper Brandman's prowess. It had the desired effect (Brandman only averaged 56 for the series as opposed to his career average of 99.94) and resulted in multiple injuries.

I think he would do just fine today.

The greatest challenge will be to see how Dropbox is able to integrate so many teams/developers successfully over time. It will be interesting to revisit this post in a year from now and see how many Predictive Edge (or their other acquisitions) former employees are still with Dropbox.

AcquiHire is becoming a real trend in the market. I think the key drivers are a lack of available talent willing to change companies and misaligned remuneration. The lack of talent is a common thread. Misaligned remuneration is something more interesting and likely to affect existing devs and companies more and more.

If you are in that high echelon of dev talent, you can find someone willing to offer a good salary and the promise of x% of potentially something large in the future. Or now, you can launch your own company, throw out a flashy project to demonstrate your skills, and by acquired by a Dropbox (or it's ilk). This way, you will likely get the same salary, the same promise, but a significant signing bonus upfront.

How companies are going to react to this trend will be interesting. Will signing bonuses and ongoing bonuses make a significant return?