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This is going to be a very biased comment because Noah is a close personal friend of mine. Noah will generally be the same guy while talking to your parents as

by kadavy 15y ago

This is going to be a very biased comment because Noah is a close personal friend of mine. Noah will generally be the same guy while talking to your parents as he is having a beer with close friends: direct, open, and sometimes irreverent. This is shocking to many people in our (to use the author's term) "post-polite" society, but this is precisely why Noah is one of my favorite people in the world. When you're talking to Noah, you know that he will tell you exactly what he thinks, and he'll have fun doing it. I owe a tremendous portion of any success I've had to Noah. In addition to being a brilliant marketer, Noah has taught me to ask for forgiveness and not for permission - something every entrepreneur needs to be reminded of every once in awhile. He's always been a huge help to me. A mere 2-minute conversation with him can be pure gold, so it's a shame that the author was too upset to absorb what was (just positing - I wasn't there) probably a great presentation. On one hand, I personally would not have used "the bitch slide" in a presentation. There are not enough women in tech, and while I wouldn't compare the word "bitch" to a racial slur, it is just sexist enough to ensure that at least some of the few women who are in the audience will feel alienated when used within the context of a male-dominated conference. I'm sure that Noah doesn't really think that his ex-girlfriend is a bitch. His current girlfriend is the only serious relationship I've known him to have in the past 5 years, so he may have just made up this ex for the sake of joking. In actuality, Noah is one of the more emotionally mature and communicative people I've ever met, so he's perfectly capable of understanding that relationships are two-way streets. On the other hand, the hypersensitivity the author demonstrates is exactly the kind of buttoned-up bourgeois bullshit that made me want to work for myself. I want the freedom to be myself. Sexuality, relationships, and the ambivalence that comes from all of it are a part of being a human, and success in entrepreneurship is about as close as one can come to self-actualization (at least in America). The line: > the small but influential industry of high tech companies and service providers who cater to high tech startup companies (yes, I’m serious, there is such an industry) gives away that the author was clearly out of her element. This isn't the world of stodgy HR policies and training manuals. We make it up as we go along, we test the boundaries, and sometimes we make mistakes just to find out where those boundaries are. I'll be damned if a flame post and an errant Sriracha bottle is going to take that away from us.

verdum 15y ago
"Noah has taught me to ask for forgiveness and not for permission" This. I speak as an entrepreneur: if you're crossing a moral line and using this as justification, you're using the philosophy in the "wrong" way.
- kadavy 15y ago
  I think you're implying that putting up a slide with a faceless person on it and calling them a "bitch" is inherently morally objectionable? If so, I wouldn't agree with that. Louis CK called his 4 year old daughter a "bitch" [0] on stage, and I know I'm not alone in thinking it was hilarious. Noah called an anonymous person a bitch. If it were a comedy club, probably nothing would have been said. But, it was a tech conference, and there probably weren't many females there, so it came off as sexist, and it alienated and offended at least one person. As the author alludes to when mentioning the style of presentation, the line between conference presentation and comedy routine is blurred. Noah made an attempt at comedy, and it apparently didn't work out. (I wasn't there, so maybe it was hilarious) [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhr502wIc#t=1m24s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhr502wIc#t=1m24s
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
iron_ball 15y ago
"we test the boundaries, and sometimes we make mistakes just to find out where those boundaries are." But somehow I do not think you are acknowledging a mistake in this case.
raganwald 15y ago
[blah blah blah] that made me want to work for myself. I want the freedom to be myself. Don't confuse working by yourself with working for yourself. When you work by yourself, you can do as you please. When you work for yourself, you have employees, customers, investors, landlords, and many other people with whom you have complex relationships full of consideration for each other's objectives and feelings. Do not start a business with the goal that since you're the boss, you will be above the consequences of words or actions that hurt people. You are a person. When you deal with other people, it's more than a few bits here, a few dollars there. We can disagree with whether the word "bitch" is appropriate or not in a presentation at a conference, but I implore you not to think that somehow running a business means that you need never worry about hurting other people with your words or deeds. This isn't the world of stodgy HR policies and training manuals. Leona Helmsley once said "We don't train people to be nice, we hire nice people." I bring this up to say that no, I abhor HR policies at least as much as you do, but I suspect for different reasons. Your words suggest that the problem with HR policies is that there will be a rule that you may not use the word "bitch" in a presentation. My problem with HR policies is that there is a focus on following the rules rather than taking responsibility for making choices. Kinda like the difference between law and morality. Like you, I prefer to work in an environment where people speak their mind. However, I also prefer to work in an environment where people apply their own filters, where people take responsibility for their words and don't shrug it off as automatically acceptable since there are no rules, no HR people vetting their decks. To summarize, like you I love the freedom of small startups. But the whole point is to use that freedom in positive ways. Perhaps you and I disagree about whether the word "bitch" is negative or not. But I hope you can appreciate that with freedom comes responsibility, and by ditching the HR department we voluntarily take on the responsibility to make good choices, and we accept accountability for our actions.

by kadavy 15y ago

verdum 15y ago

"Noah has taught me to ask for forgiveness and not for permission" This. I speak as an entrepreneur: if you're crossing a moral line and using this as justification, you're using the philosophy in the "wrong" way.

kadavy 15y ago
I think you're implying that putting up a slide with a faceless person on it and calling them a "bitch" is inherently morally objectionable? If so, I wouldn't agree with that. Louis CK called his 4 year old daughter a "bitch" [0] on stage, and I know I'm not alone in thinking it was hilarious. Noah called an anonymous person a bitch. If it were a comedy club, probably nothing would have been said. But, it was a tech conference, and there probably weren't many females there, so it came off as sexist, and it alienated and offended at least one person. As the author alludes to when mentioning the style of presentation, the line between conference presentation and comedy routine is blurred. Noah made an attempt at comedy, and it apparently didn't work out. (I wasn't there, so maybe it was hilarious) [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhr502wIc#t=1m24s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vRhr502wIc#t=1m24s
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

iron_ball 15y ago

"we test the boundaries, and sometimes we make mistakes just to find out where those boundaries are." But somehow I do not think you are acknowledging a mistake in this case.

raganwald 15y ago

[blah blah blah] that made me want to work for myself. I want the freedom to be myself. Don't confuse working by yourself with working for yourself. When you work by yourself, you can do as you please. When you work for yourself, you have employees, customers, investors, landlords, and many other people with whom you have complex relationships full of consideration for each other's objectives and feelings. Do not start a business with the goal that since you're the boss, you will be above the consequences of words or actions that hurt people. You are a person. When you deal with other people, it's more than a few bits here, a few dollars there. We can disagree with whether the word "bitch" is appropriate or not in a presentation at a conference, but I implore you not to think that somehow running a business means that you need never worry about hurting other people with your words or deeds. This isn't the world of stodgy HR policies and training manuals. Leona Helmsley once said "We don't train people to be nice, we hire nice people." I bring this up to say that no, I abhor HR policies at least as much as you do, but I suspect for different reasons. Your words suggest that the problem with HR policies is that there will be a rule that you may not use the word "bitch" in a presentation. My problem with HR policies is that there is a focus on following the rules rather than taking responsibility for making choices. Kinda like the difference between law and morality. Like you, I prefer to work in an environment where people speak their mind. However, I also prefer to work in an environment where people apply their own filters, where people take responsibility for their words and don't shrug it off as automatically acceptable since there are no rules, no HR people vetting their decks. To summarize, like you I love the freedom of small startups. But the whole point is to use that freedom in positive ways. Perhaps you and I disagree about whether the word "bitch" is negative or not. But I hope you can appreciate that with freedom comes responsibility, and by ditching the HR department we voluntarily take on the responsibility to make good choices, and we accept accountability for our actions.