6 ms·

Ron Conway Explained

118 points by sharpn 16y ago

paulbaumgart 16y ago
This link works for me: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/ http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/ Could sharpn/a moderator replace it, please?
- sharpn 16y ago
  Thanks for the updated link (no idea why it was moved). I tried to edit, but couldn't - I guess it times out.
faramarz 16y ago
Does anyone here have experience working with Ron? anything else to add? I really enjoyed reading through this article.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- pg 16y ago
  We have a lot. This article is right on.
- joshu 16y ago
  I'm a relatively active (but junior) angel investor. When I need advice, Ron is where I go.
- jmintz 16y ago
  Best article about Ron I have seen. He is awesome. (He is one of our investors.)
tumblen 16y ago
If anyone has read The Tipping Point, Ron Conway is an amazing example of a 'connector'. In this example, he made a single connection that Tipped Tellme towards success. Would be interesting to put together a list of angel investors that similarly stand out as connectors.
- joshu 16y ago
  Ron isn't so much a connector as he is THE connector.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
SWalker26 16y ago
I love this quote from the post: "If Ron’s awake, he’s working. He can be at a party, in his pajamas, or at the Super Bowl. Ron is always on the job and the network is always on." That's the world I come from. You have to work your balls off to succeed (as I discuss in tip #6 here: http://bit.ly/5Gccio http://bit.ly/5Gccio). Fuck this part-time shit that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (at 37signals) are pitching. Ask Larry Bird or Michael Jordan if they worked part-time on their basketball skills?
- marketer 16y ago
  You know, there's probably a whole class of professional athletes that have a hard time supporting themselves. I don't have the numbers, but I'd expect that most minor-league players don't make remarkable salaries, but they continue for a chance to make it to the major leagues.
  - SWalker26 16y ago
    Maybe they're not working hard enough. Larry Bird and Michael Jordan both said they were the first to the gym and the last to leave. My point here is simple: there are no shortcuts to success (other than rare exceptions).
    - philwelch 16y ago
      And for a contrasting view, from Allen Iverson: "We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, but we're talking about practice, man! How silly is that?"
      - jfornear 16y ago
        Thanks, now I have this stuck in my head again... :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I I'm not sure why SWalker is being downvoted (unless it's just for his tone). We really need to clarify criteria/comparisons here. Iverson should not be compared to MJ or Bird (IMO), as 37signals should not be compared to Google. Jerry Rice is probably the best counterexample to Iverson types. He's known for working harder than anyone. No one could keep up with him, and he was the best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jerry_Rice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jer... If you want to be the next MJ, Bird, Rice, or Google, you better be working hard... I don't understand why it's trendy to believe otherwise (assuming SWalker is being downvoted in disagreement).
jasonlbaptiste 16y ago
I sincerely hope I have the honor of working with Ron one day. The values described here are hard to come by and the same ones that I was taught to value growing up. The values of honor, loyalty, and timeliness transcend "money".
rjurney 16y ago
I read the book about Ron they mention, Godfather of Silicon Valley. It is not a good book, but it is interesting in that it captures the fervor of the dot com era. The really funny thing is that the timing worked out so that the dot com bubble exploded just before the book was finished. Rivlin therefore spends the entire book building Conway up as the world's biggest jerk. The book is a character assassination. Conway lets Rivlin into his life, and Rivlin is unmerciful. Conway is depicted as the personification of the excesses of that era. The book comes out after the market crashes and it had to hurt. Then... Google hits. Conway was an early investor. He's back. His methods are validated, his fund returns profit, he starts new funds. They prosper. And now Conway is the king of the world again, and Rivlin is the douche. Oh the ironing.
jackowayed 16y ago
Am I the only one that loathes those link previews?
- Qz 16y ago
  Huh? Not getting any link previews here.
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    On the article, if your mouse passes over a link (and you have JS enabled), it pops up a snapshot of what that page is, using http://www.snap.com/ http://www.snap.com/. It appears to require you to have your mouse over the link for a little while (like a tenth of a second), so if you always move your mouse fast and never considered clicking a link, you wouldn't have seen it. It's really annoying.
    - Qz 16y ago
      Maybe it's being blocked by AdBlock Plus -- I hovered for several seconds and nothing showed.
- nzmsv 16y ago
  Yeah, I've been adding all these preview sites to adblock. So much better.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
initself 16y ago
That is the most readable site layout I have ever seen.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  I still used Readability on it. I appreciate that it's not gaudy or hard, but I couldn't resize the text to the size where I like it (which is a large size); after two Ctrl+Wheel-Up increments, the tab stops responding and has to be killed in Chromium on Linux. Just used Readability because it doesn't have the same problems.
  - Qz 16y ago
    Is chromium good? I just did ctrl+wheel up 10 times on that site in Firefox and had no problems.
    - cookiecaper 16y ago
      Yeah, it's good. It's just the unbranded build of Google Chrome. I think it's just a bug with one of the features on that page; it seems to zoom to screen width and then crash when I try to go up more. Probably using a CSS shadow or something else uncommon and buggy.
      - Qz 16y ago
        I just went back, and zoomed in and out from max and min zoom levels back and forth several times, with a video streaming on my other monitor -- not a hitch. I really don't think there's anything wrong with the website.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
netcan 16y ago
I'm not sure exactly why, but something about this kind of sits badly. Somehow, I don't like the idea that a person has this infrastructure role.
- stretchwithme 16y ago
  it seems human networks are inevitably composed of humans
djhomeless 16y ago
I've always had a high opinion about Ron despite never meeting the man. After reading this, it makes you want him as an investor that much more...
barmstrong 16y ago
LOVED the last ditch email haha...."we may be going down": "So sometime after 11pm, I wrote Ron and essentially said: “hello, you don’t know me, I’m an executive at a company you’re an investor in, and we need a meeting—in person—with the CEO himself of this Fortune 50 company—this week—and if you can’t make this happen, hey that’s ok, but we may be going down—sorry.” Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.”"
- barmstrong 16y ago
  Just to elaborate...I'm thinking back to some of the most memorable moments of my life, and they have come out of situations like this, where for some reason you need to accomplish the impossible in a very short amount of time. That's when you really do something drastic and operate on the edge of your ability, and amazing stuff happens.
zackattack 16y ago
The Game song, referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJZhKT7W6g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJZhKT7W6g P.S. HipHopGoblin is now open source, a few of us from HN are working on bringing it back to life. We are implementing it now with DirectedEdge. Email me if interested.

118 points by sharpn 16y ago

This link works for me: http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/ http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/07/ron-conway-explained/ Could sharpn/a moderator replace it, please?

sharpn 16y ago
Thanks for the updated link (no idea why it was moved). I tried to edit, but couldn't - I guess it times out.

faramarz 16y ago

Does anyone here have experience working with Ron? anything else to add? I really enjoyed reading through this article.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
pg 16y ago
We have a lot. This article is right on.
joshu 16y ago
I'm a relatively active (but junior) angel investor. When I need advice, Ron is where I go.
jmintz 16y ago
Best article about Ron I have seen. He is awesome. (He is one of our investors.)

tumblen 16y ago

If anyone has read The Tipping Point, Ron Conway is an amazing example of a 'connector'. In this example, he made a single connection that Tipped Tellme towards success. Would be interesting to put together a list of angel investors that similarly stand out as connectors.

joshu 16y ago
Ron isn't so much a connector as he is THE connector.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

SWalker26 16y ago

I love this quote from the post: "If Ron’s awake, he’s working. He can be at a party, in his pajamas, or at the Super Bowl. Ron is always on the job and the network is always on." That's the world I come from. You have to work your balls off to succeed (as I discuss in tip #6 here: http://bit.ly/5Gccio http://bit.ly/5Gccio). Fuck this part-time shit that Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (at 37signals) are pitching. Ask Larry Bird or Michael Jordan if they worked part-time on their basketball skills?

marketer 16y ago
You know, there's probably a whole class of professional athletes that have a hard time supporting themselves. I don't have the numbers, but I'd expect that most minor-league players don't make remarkable salaries, but they continue for a chance to make it to the major leagues.
- SWalker26 16y ago
  Maybe they're not working hard enough. Larry Bird and Michael Jordan both said they were the first to the gym and the last to leave. My point here is simple: there are no shortcuts to success (other than rare exceptions).
  - philwelch 16y ago
    And for a contrasting view, from Allen Iverson: "We're sitting here, and I'm supposed to be the franchise player, and we're talking about practice. I mean listen, we're sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we're talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last, but we're talking about practice, man! How silly is that?"
    - jfornear 16y ago
      Thanks, now I have this stuck in my head again... :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exOxUAntx8I I'm not sure why SWalker is being downvoted (unless it's just for his tone). We really need to clarify criteria/comparisons here. Iverson should not be compared to MJ or Bird (IMO), as 37signals should not be compared to Google. Jerry Rice is probably the best counterexample to Iverson types. He's known for working harder than anyone. No one could keep up with him, and he was the best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jerry_Rice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_records_held_by_Jer... If you want to be the next MJ, Bird, Rice, or Google, you better be working hard... I don't understand why it's trendy to believe otherwise (assuming SWalker is being downvoted in disagreement).

jasonlbaptiste 16y ago

I sincerely hope I have the honor of working with Ron one day. The values described here are hard to come by and the same ones that I was taught to value growing up. The values of honor, loyalty, and timeliness transcend "money".

rjurney 16y ago

I read the book about Ron they mention, Godfather of Silicon Valley. It is not a good book, but it is interesting in that it captures the fervor of the dot com era. The really funny thing is that the timing worked out so that the dot com bubble exploded just before the book was finished. Rivlin therefore spends the entire book building Conway up as the world's biggest jerk. The book is a character assassination. Conway lets Rivlin into his life, and Rivlin is unmerciful. Conway is depicted as the personification of the excesses of that era. The book comes out after the market crashes and it had to hurt. Then... Google hits. Conway was an early investor. He's back. His methods are validated, his fund returns profit, he starts new funds. They prosper. And now Conway is the king of the world again, and Rivlin is the douche. Oh the ironing.

jackowayed 16y ago

Am I the only one that loathes those link previews?

Qz 16y ago
Huh? Not getting any link previews here.
- jackowayed 16y ago
  On the article, if your mouse passes over a link (and you have JS enabled), it pops up a snapshot of what that page is, using http://www.snap.com/ http://www.snap.com/. It appears to require you to have your mouse over the link for a little while (like a tenth of a second), so if you always move your mouse fast and never considered clicking a link, you wouldn't have seen it. It's really annoying.
  - Qz 16y ago
    Maybe it's being blocked by AdBlock Plus -- I hovered for several seconds and nothing showed.
nzmsv 16y ago
Yeah, I've been adding all these preview sites to adblock. So much better.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

initself 16y ago

That is the most readable site layout I have ever seen.

cookiecaper 16y ago
I still used Readability on it. I appreciate that it's not gaudy or hard, but I couldn't resize the text to the size where I like it (which is a large size); after two Ctrl+Wheel-Up increments, the tab stops responding and has to be killed in Chromium on Linux. Just used Readability because it doesn't have the same problems.
- Qz 16y ago
  Is chromium good? I just did ctrl+wheel up 10 times on that site in Firefox and had no problems.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    Yeah, it's good. It's just the unbranded build of Google Chrome. I think it's just a bug with one of the features on that page; it seems to zoom to screen width and then crash when I try to go up more. Probably using a CSS shadow or something else uncommon and buggy.
    - Qz 16y ago
      I just went back, and zoomed in and out from max and min zoom levels back and forth several times, with a video streaming on my other monitor -- not a hitch. I really don't think there's anything wrong with the website.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

netcan 16y ago

I'm not sure exactly why, but something about this kind of sits badly. Somehow, I don't like the idea that a person has this infrastructure role.

stretchwithme 16y ago
it seems human networks are inevitably composed of humans

djhomeless 16y ago

I've always had a high opinion about Ron despite never meeting the man. After reading this, it makes you want him as an investor that much more...

barmstrong 16y ago

LOVED the last ditch email haha...."we may be going down": "So sometime after 11pm, I wrote Ron and essentially said: “hello, you don’t know me, I’m an executive at a company you’re an investor in, and we need a meeting—in person—with the CEO himself of this Fortune 50 company—this week—and if you can’t make this happen, hey that’s ok, but we may be going down—sorry.” Ron wrote back in literally 2 minutes and said, in what I have learned is Ron’s distinctive email style (immediate, short, all caps), “AM ON IT.”"

barmstrong 16y ago
Just to elaborate...I'm thinking back to some of the most memorable moments of my life, and they have come out of situations like this, where for some reason you need to accomplish the impossible in a very short amount of time. That's when you really do something drastic and operate on the edge of your ability, and amazing stuff happens.

zackattack 16y ago

The Game song, referenced: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJZhKT7W6g http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkJZhKT7W6g P.S. HipHopGoblin is now open source, a few of us from HN are working on bringing it back to life. We are implementing it now with DirectedEdge. Email me if interested.