Personal reminiscences warning: One of the weird things about my digg experiences was where I sat in the conference hierarchy. Kevin would go to London (FOWA), Paris (LeWeb), etc, and listen to a bunch of other fake people talk about fake stuff. They sent me to 2 conferences. Webmasterworld in Las Vegas, which was all SEO, lots of hustlers, the best party I've ever been to (a Yahoo party in the Hugh Hefner suite at the Palms), met Matt Cutts; and then they sent me to Reflection/Projections in Urbana-Champaign (why would we want to go there?) - which included Steve Yegge and Randall Monroe (XKCD), and was probably the best conference I've ever been to. You pose, poseurs gather around you. You get pushed into the background, you meet lots of interesting people.
I'm guessing you don't have the fondest recollections of the Digg team? (Not trying to be snarky: I just don't recall ever reading you talk directly about Digg before.)
I have good memories of most of the people I worked with there (in fact engineer no. 2 now works for me). The 2 people at the top I have zero respect for.
Reflections/Projections is consistently a good time. The year before that one, I saw Yale Patt, the guys from Rooster Teeth (Red vs. Blue), Max Levchin, Jawed Kareem, and Joel Spolsky - that was a pretty exciting weekend. And there's a job fair one day so there's all sorts of recruiters, which means all sorts of free food/drink!
Webmasterworld's Pubcons are awesome. I'm a writer, a programmer, whatever, but the energy of the people in the SEO and marketing world is contagious and they put on excellent events. Any grandstanding is all in good fun unlike when you get a bunch of passive aggressive programmers together.
Day one's keynote firesider was Paulo Coelho — the favourite author of that girl you met on the first day of university who spent her gap year in Thailand and like totally found herself. "Everyone has something interesting to say," Coelho said at one point, clearly showing that he's never had a conversation with one of his fans.
I skimmed over that until I thought "Coelho" is a strange name. Then I realized he wrote The Alchemist, which I read at the behest of a girl that pretty much fits that description.
Good writing, but the mutual animosity between France and Britain is itself funny, if not a bit childish. No flame, but my impression is that both countries lost their past influence and glory, but none of them would admit that. ;-)
I think definitely these so called "conferences" are almost a waste of time.. no one is really that interested in the keynotes any more because most of the interesting people blog it all anyway.. right?
It's all about networking now: and the guys right - why not do it in a Sauna whilst getting drunk!
Your right we lost it... 30 years ago it would have been like that but now.. meh :(
I've found TED to be an incredible source of entertainment. I've learned quite a bit from it, too. If I could ever go in person, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I think there is a difference - the British do recognise it through satire and humour - "taking the piss" out of themselves - I haven't observed that in the French (but perhaps it does exist, just not as obvious to the rest of the world).
I like how the article descends into a rant about how it would all be a lot better if we all just got drunk, a typically British answer to just about anything.
I'm cracking up laughing here. Here's some perspective for my fellows 'mericans who haven't been to this part of the world. English people love to pan everything French for any reason whatsoever. Most English folk will openly say, "I hate the French" - they don't actually hate the French. It's just that they really, really get off on having a laugh at anything and everything French.
I was cracking up laughing when I saw the headline - and then saw it was from the Guardian. The article's probably all correct, but the really gratuitous tone the author takes, like he's glad the conference was a mess because it made him able to write this article hardcore "taking the piss" out of the conference? Yup, it's an England thing :) I love it, and mind you, I'm a quarter French and a quarter English so I'm pretty neutral in the whole affair.
I'm French and I enjoyed the article. This Loic LeMeur guy has always been a self-proclaimed ambassador of whatever he wants, but he's just blow hard. He needs the bad press so he'll disappear sooner (I hope so).
And you're right about the gratuitious French bashing, it's a cultural thing and it takes part on both sides of the Channel, there's nothing to be offended about, it's funny if you take the right stance.
Hey! easy there fella.... we had screaming wifi and internet at www.techcrunch50.com !!! (for 2.5 out of three days that is!).
Note: I've figured out how to get wifi to work at a conference.... run ethernet cables to everyone's seat.
Seriously, that's how we've solved the problem. I've told the tech people every year that wifi sucks for large groups, it doesn't handle 1-3k connections in a 30,000 square foot room and that ethernet cables are rock solid.
every time the techs fight me, every time I force them to run ethernet and every time i'm right.
very frustrating... i will NEVER use wifi as anything other than a backup at a conference. Run ethernet cables people... it's really that simple. also, get three different connections and run three separate networks for each 1/3rd of the conference. then if things go down at least 2/3rd of the people are up.
Judging from the one instance of this type I've observed up close, it doesn't much matter if your startup is failing badly. You simply switch to "teaching" other people how to do startups.
One thing that characters like this have in common with upper managers in large corporations is a remarkable ability to frame failures as successes, at least in terms of promoting themselves personally... which is what they really care about.
Looking this over, I want to clarify: when I said "characters like this", I meant, "characters of the type we're talking about". I'm not making any point about the individual named in the thread, whom I don't know and haven't observed, and for all I know may be unfairly put in this category.
I can't imagine that would make anyone feel better. I enjoyed following his videos when I was first starting up, and his energy is certainly infectious. Since his layoffs I've had a bit of a more dour opinion of him, as it seemed opportunistic, and he does tend to jetset quite often.
That said, I hope he does well. I can't see the value in what he does, but then I'm not likely his target market (though I certainly tried Seesmic, and tried to like it). And I haven't a clue as to where the revenue stream was supposed to materialize (product placement? Brand communication channel?) But as an entrepreneur, I would hate to see him fail badly, as you put it - his family is here, he's put a lot of effort, etc.
Although I suppose you didn't explicitly state that you take pleasure in watching another who's risked quite a bit fail spectacularly, I thought I might just drop my two cents.
Loic is actually a really great guy who works very hard. I wouldn't pass judgement on him without getting to know him. All entrepreneurs share the common struggle, and it's very easy to attack people you don't know in forums, blogs and on twitter.
Truth is he is a serial entrepreneur who's had great success, who works hard and makes a ton of mistakes like all of us do. No one is perfect, and trust me layoffs SUCK for everyone including the person who has to do them. I've had to do layoffs at two of my four startups and those days were the worst days of my professional life.
give the man a break... he created an event for startups to come together and the wifi didn't work.... and it was cold.... and maybe it was a little boring. however, i'm sure the parties and networking were great... and it's Paris.
i mean, come on... it's paris! (note: i canceled my trip because i've got project A launching on Monday and i needed to be focused. )
The other commenters reflect my thoughts. While I don't enjoy watching startups fail, it really rubs me wrong when people are too busy going to conferences/twittering/emailing/whatever instead of working on their startup. If you can't do, teach.
Yes it makes for some great laughs. I am a fan of "Yes Prime Minister":
Humphrey: "If the French have the bomb, we must have the bomb"
PM: "But isn't the Russians we are worried about"?
Humphrey: "well yes, right now, but what about the last 1000 years?"
I think there is a similar streak in the American national character (although I we'd probably phrase it as "I hate France", which is a distinction with a difference). Freedom fries, etc. We know we've been bffs for a few hundred years now and if someone attacked France the same folks who voted for "freedom fries" would be the first ones suggesting we come to France's aid.
They would add "Like we always do", of course, and give France guff about it for the next century or so. But we kid because we love 'em, even though they are cheese-eating surrender monkeys. (Google it.)
There's an even stronger streak with regard to Canada. Jon Stewart the other day said that Canada's chief national export is "jokes that they are the butt of."
Yup, that's true... Such as this: Go to google, type in "french military victories", and press I'm feeling lucky. It takes you to a french parody site, suggesting that you meant "french military defeats".
About the only think it leaves out is the American Civil War, where France was initially rooting for the Confederacy. The later reverted to type: switch sides after the battle is won and take credit for the victory. (Jokes aside, the UK performed similarly that time.)
We Americans do too. In high school my history teacher liked to ask the French students "how do you say I surrender in French?" We hold WWII over them the way you do Waterloo.
Some take it too far and start using the term "Freedom Fries".
Absolutely fantastic! For a moment there, I though this article was actually a skit on A bit of Fry & Laurie.
This quote specifically: And even more satisfying than all of that is the fact that the idea of a huge state-sponsored piss-up is such an anathema to Americans that there's no way they can outdo us
Our drunken bouts are all the result of good hard-working private industry. The government will get our rye whiskey when they pump it from our cold dead stomachs!
why is France the face of European tech scene? Shouldn't Britain have that job? I mean for Brits its easy as hell to release world wide apps since English is so popular.
It's very difficult to start a company in Germany. You need X amount of capital and masses of paperwork, etc. Talinn in Estonia should probably be the European startup capital.
I don't think that is true anymore. The classic "GmbH" was comparatively expensive, but I think they now made a cheaper version. Also, you can choose any other "company model" from any other european country, british Ltd. being the most popular. I haven't founded myself yet, though, so I can't say for sure...
paperwork: I think once you have a business, your tax declaration becomes more complicated, you might be obliged to have a professional tax advisor. What else is there to do/pay?
The analogy doesn't hold because there isn't a coherent legal system or common language (tho' in practice everyone speaks English) across Europe. Incorporating in Estonia and doing all your business in Germany isn't nearly as straightforward as Calfornia/Delaware.
