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Personally, I respect Ev more for his decision to put on the brakes, even when Medium seemed to be a financial success. We already have enough blogging platform
by whack 10y ago
Personally, I respect Ev more for his decision to put on the brakes, even when Medium seemed to be a financial success. We already have enough blogging platforms. We really don't need yet another one.
Ev Williams' mission to change the way journalism is funded and operated though, that's a truly noble ideal. Yes, it's likely too ambitious to succeed. Yes, it's a moonshot. But it's exactly the kind of moonshot that Silicon Valley needs to be taking. It's exactly the kind of moonshot that the world could really benefit from. I applaud him for his decision to put his unicorn at risk, in order to build something that could truly change the world.
- navs 10y agoHe could have done that with a lot more tact - informing publishers and employees. He's non-confrontational - ok. Hire someone that isn't. Moonshots carry a risk and it's not all his risk. It's the investors, the users, the employees as well.
- boozywoozy 10y agoWell said. Hindsight is 20-20 though. I imagine it's not easy to make the right calls when one is in the driver's seat. My takeaway: It's freaking hard to be CEO.
- mgkimsal 10y agoLetting employees know they're getting laid off before they read about it somewhere else isn't really one of the great mysteries of life, and doesn't take decades of CEO/executive experience to figure out. It's sort of a basic human decency thing. It shouldn't be that hard to be a decent human being.
- anamoulous 10y agoIf this comment is satire it is very good.
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y agoGlad I'm not the only one. All I could picture was Gavin Belson on stage at TC Disrupt while I was reading this...
- idiot_stick 10y agoWhat about Medium is a moonshot? Hero worship in SV is peaking.
- oddevan 10y agoFrom a technical level, no. Absolutely not. I can name at least 5 other free ways to blog, and maybe 15 if we throw in ones that require me to have my own server. But finding a way to make money on blogs/internet journalism is starting to look pretty difficult. How much money is tumblr making for Yahoo? What about all the traditional media companies that should have this in the bag? People are too used to "free" that making money on the kind of content Medium wants to be known for is starting to look a lot like a moonshot to me. But instead of the laws of physics or technology, you're going against human nature and culture. Not exactly a fight I'd want to pick. I'm not going to argue with you about hero worship, though; it's pretty ridiculous.