FWD: Outlook — October 28, 2015
The top two stories in tech from around the web
“Stables and Volatiles”
– Michael Lopp (rands), head of engineering at Pinterest
There’s an interesting dynamic being explored by the head of engineering at a major tech company and the author of “Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager.” Michael cleaves the engineering department in two — or better yet, he argues, the engineering department is already divided, and Michael is showing you how the two sides are at war.
On one side, there are the Stables:
Your Stables are there to remind you about reality and to define process whereby large groups of people can be coordinated to actually get work done. Your Stables bring predictability, repeatability, credibility to your execution, and you need to build a world where they can thrive.
On the other, the Volatiles:
Your Volatiles are there to remind you that nothing lasts, and that the world is full of Volatiles who consider it their mission in life to replace the inefficient, boring, and uninspired. You can’t actually build them a world because they’ll think you’re up to something Stable, so you need to create a corner of the building where they can disrupt.
You might expect the author of a leadership book to show managers how to orchestrate a truce between the two factions. Michael fans the flames. He argues that the two sides should be at war, building in fits and starts, finding stability and chaos in cycles.
It’s an entertaining read, one I highly recommend. The premise reminds me of one of my favorite Thomas Jefferson quotes:
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
“Where is the Value in the Tech Stack?”
– Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures
It’s all about access. Yesterday, Fred wrote a post titled “Software is the New Oil” that depicted the software as “the oil of the information revolution.”
“Companies that control the software infrastructure of the information revolution will sit back and collect the economic surplus of the information revolution and that will be a path to vast wealth and economic power.”
The comments section lit up. It’s not the software; it’s the stack! It’s not the stack; it’s the data! It’s not the data; it’s the cost! None of them fit the bill. Fred took to his blog today to redefine what truly is the new oil. It’s a mix of Software and Access.
“The new oil is going to be found in various places in the tech stack where software and data come together to produce a service that has high operating leverage at scale and is defensible by the network effects that the data provides. That’s a mouthful. Software is the new oil sounds a lot better. But the mouthful is more accurate.”
People Are Talking About: Homejoy and Fly Maids
What the hell is happening over at Homejoy? Or, more clearly, what is zombie startup Fly Maids doing with the personal data and credit card info of all former customers?
John Salzarulo brought this to the internet’s attention in his post, “Wait… Didn’t Homejoy Shut Down?”
John’s credit card information and address were stored on Fly Maids’s site. No permission was granted, no SSL-encryption was used, there’s zero PCI compliance.
So Homejoy sold off John’s credit card info to Fly Maids… Huh. And who’s the founder of Fly Maids?
Aaron Cheung, co-founder of Homejoy, writes on HackerNews:
I’m one of the founders of Homejoy. I’m still very passionate about the home service space. After leaving Homejoy, I started FlyMaids, where we’re exploring a few different angles on the space.
We recently acquired the customer and service provider data from Homejoy.
We’re a small team that has been focused on moving quickly while bootstraping. We tried to quickly test different approaches, but we realize now that we did so in an unclear manner. We recognize the need to use the data we acquired responsibily [sic]. As a result, we’re taking the site down, and we’re going to do a better job with our testing moving forward.
“We tried to quickly test different approaches, but we realize now that we did so in an unclear manner.”
That’s not the half of it, Jack.
Here’s a shot of the Fly Maids landing page and Handy’s, the surviving competitor between Homejoy and Handy:
It’s a total ripoff, word for word. And as John discovers, the press links (NYT, TC, etc.) are duds—these publications have never once written about Fly Maids.
This is fraud. The founders of Handy ripped off a customer, ripped off a competitor, and ripped off their investors. What are you going to call that — “Business?”
Recommended Articles
“What is Going to Get People in the Stores?” by joanne wilson of Gotham Gal Ventures
Honorable mention for discussing an oft-overlooked element of tech — brick and mortar retail. There are hybrid models being built now that are almost entirely overlooked. Some big box brands are figuring it out, and Joanne speculates on what’s to come.
“Some Data on the Tech Bubble” by Jeffrey Carter of West Loop Ventures
“Some Survival Math for Startup CEOs” by angel investor Gil Dibner
“Customer Acquisition is Harder than Product Development” by David Cummings of Kevy
“Filling the Gaps” by Phillippe Siclait of Airbnb Engineering
“Certificates, Reputation, and the Blockchain” by Philipp Schmidt of MIT Media Lab
“You Gotta Stand for Something” by Dave Pell of NextDraft
“The Case for Board Cyber Risk Oversight” by Tanium Team
“Peeking Under the Hood at Uber” by Betsy Masiello of Uber
“Magic in Product Design” by Martin Otyeka of Spark Centre
“Don’t Say That You are Great. Be Great.” by Alex Iskold of Techstars
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