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Tumblr: ‘It Was the Biggest Game of Chicken I’ve Ever Seen.’
- Sniffnoy 13y agoWhy does this link to the second page...?
- Pwntastic 13y agoLooks like it links to the second page, but pops up the printable copy that has the entire article.
- sp332 13y agoDid anyone else feel like the description of people's appearance was judgmental? Maybe I'm reading too much into it. Edit: After a second reading, I think I've cracked it. The author is describing Karp as currently immature, but gradually developing into CEO material. So the descriptions separate each aspect of his appearance and personality into "immature", "developing", or "CEO-like".
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI didn't think it judgemental but I did find it typical. As an engineer I've always been drawn to "functional" clothes (do the maintain the right temp, can I carry my stuff, do they launder easily) but that is not the 'norm' for a lot of people it seems. If you look for it you can easily identify how much emphasis people put on their outfit. So our author is somewhat focused on that, and a number of my east coast friends have been trained by social cues what "is" and "is not" acceptable dress, which they follow or don't in equal measure. It is one of the more observable culture differences in the US.
- pnathan 13y agoMy understanding is that the Northeast US care(s|d) a great deal about appearance, as contrasted with Silicon Valley. Does that agree with your experience?
- ChuckMcM 13y agoIs Washington DC in the Northeast? Basically folks I have hung out with who are in that nominally urban region defined by New York, Boston, and DC are certainly more aware of appearances than folks in the Portland/San Francisco/San Jose region. I'm careful not to assign 'caring' or 'not caring' because it is that the attribute of caring is more evenly distributed, its more about awareness for me.
- nostrademons 13y agoBoston isn't that appearance-conscious, at least as far as clothes go. It's much snobbier about academic pedigree, which books you've read, and how much interesting trivia you can recall. I'd say that the fashion corridor runs from New York (epicenter) down the eastern seaboard. Paul Graham's "Messages cities send" piece is a pretty interesting reflection on this: http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html http://www.paulgraham.com/cities.html
- kingraoul3 13y agoYou forgot Philly. It's cool. 5th largest city in the country and everything, but you know, whatever.
- dkuntz2 13y agoYou forgot Chicago, third most populous city in the US and everything, but you know, whatever.
- kingraoul3 13y ago? He was listing the cities in the Northeast corridor.
- pnathan 13y agoI do lump it in as sort of the bottom tip, in my mind. But thanks for the clarification regarding the attention paid.
- eth 13y agoWithout actually caring, I do agree. The choice to go into greater detail regarding appearances, as opposed to making some sort of sweeping statement about "hipsters" or "Brooklyn-folk", came across as mostly unnecessary.
- parennoob 13y agoTypical of a lot of the the writing/journalism crowd, they want to belittle people and make them social outcasts they were in high school again. Cannot bear the fact that those 'nerds' are now enormously successful, both financially and in their personal life. The writer's jealousy just shows through in this. "The enormous features that read so well in photos looked cartoonish in person: Chiclet teeth, rubbery grin, duck-feathery hair." Yeah, if it had been a slam poet, how much are we betting the writer would have said something like "Wavy hair, dreamy eyes, and delicate-boned face"?
- devindotcom 13y agoThe "writing/journalism crowd"? What is this new prejudice? There is no such "crowd," nor, if there were, would they share the features you describe. What an absurd generalization.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- revelation 13y agoHuh? Of course there is such a "crowd". Who do you think can be a journalist in this country? You need, at the minimum, a college degree. Since it is a rather popular field, you will need to do an internship for no or minimal pay (this pretty much disqualifies anyone without significant parental suppot). And to get any of the previously mentioned qualifications, it will help enormously if you have been socialized/grown up in an environment that 1) speaks the correct dialect and 2) fosters interest in things like politics. And then, of course, lots of publications have deeply ingrained political (even social) leanings that they more or less openly display; if you want to get a job there, you better share the mindset.
- parennoob 13y agoI mean a loosely defined aggregation of people who work in freelance writing, journalism, and content strategy who tend to be born into middle-to-upper class homes, are generally socially successful at high school and (often liberal-arts) college. They typically come from non-technical majors such as English Literature, "Communication", etc. Is there really no such group that comes to your mind? Alternately, let me put it this way. Is there anyone on HN who has a job at NYMag?
- badman_ting 13y agoYes, absolutely. I am getting really tired of this hoodie-bashing thing, after Zuckerberg and now Karp. People would rightly find it outrageous if a woman sold her company and all the media could comment on was her clothes.
- sp332 13y agoIs that sarcastic? I feel like that scenario is very plausible.
- Smudge 13y agoPlausible, perhaps. Still outrageous.
- chollida1 13y ago> People would rightly find it outrageous if a woman sold her company and all the media could comment on was her clothes. Half the Melissa Mayer pieces I read, spend a great deal o the article talking about her fashion sense. No only do people not mind it seems like it's a prerequisite for writing an article about her.
- dasil003 13y agoTo be fair, people comment on plenty besides Karp's wardrobe.
- EStudley 13y agoI find it interesting that moot was there talking about Canvas, they really snuck that in in the last paragraph.
- debacle 13y agoMaybe Yahoo is going to buy 4chan. :)
- ihsw 13y ago4chan recently created self-serve ads to help boost revenues, perhaps the same model would work for Tumblr users. Then again what would a bunch of 15 year olds be advertising to each-other?
- debacle 13y agoI'm not really sure if you're referring to 4chan or tumblr with your 15 year old comment - 4chan is a diverse place, and means a lot of things to different people. I could see self-serve ads working better for them than for reddit.
- josh2600 13y agoExample: DuckDuckGo has placed some excellent ads on 4chan over the years and eat24 did a great blog post on advertising on porn sites. Alternative channels have crazy low CPM and CPC.
- zombio 13y agoThere is absolutely no way Yahoo would ever buy 4chan. Sorry if you're being sarcastic and I'm not picking up on it.
- ffrryuu 13y agoIt was/is a bubble and your timing was right on.
- debacle 13y agoIt's interesting that the author noted that moot is not CEO material when he has 4chan. In ten years, moot will still have 4chan and tumblr will be a memory.
- hayksaakian 13y agoAs people continuously switch to the "new thing" in social media, forums and message boards are always there, and far more active than most people give credit
- GuiA 13y agoYes. 4chan is ten years old, and does not have to raise money or please their executive board to survive. Grassroots communities are by nature more durable than ones artificially built by millions in venture money. One potential exception to that rule is Reddit; it'll be interesting to see what becomes of it.
- josh2600 13y agoDid they ever take money beyond the YC seed check before they sold to Conde Nast? Reddit was a massive community before the acquisition and 100k is hardly oodles of venture money, right?
- brown9-2 13y agoIs tumblr really "the most successful start-up in New York"? What about Doubleclick?
- eCa 13y agoFounded in 1995, bought by Google in early 2008 for $3b. Not a startup any more.
- brown9-2 13y agoSo what is the definition of "most successful startup" being used here? Is it historical? Is it just number of users, or acquisition price? It certainly can't be revenue if Tumblr is the king. I know it's a small aside in the article but it always irks me how these type of labels get tossed around without any actual consideration by the tosser as to what it means.
- omonra 13y ago"So what is the definition of "most successful startup" being used here" --I guess not making money?
- dasil003 13y agoTumblr's not a startup anymore either!
- wmeredith 13y agoWhat's wrong with the mobile scrolling on that site. The article is unreadable.
- charlus 13y agoIt's the same on desktop, and I think it's because it links to the print copy, which has completely broke scrolling/keys functionality. The paged copy is fine however, and I'd like to think this is not deliberate.
- jgalt212 13y agoI can't read another piece on Karp. The guy is addicted to magazine/newspaper profiles of himself. Nary have I read an article on Tumblr that didn't focus mainly on Karp. I'm pretty sure if Ali G were still doing his thing, he could easily dupe Karp into taking an interview--he's just that desperate to be on camera.
- sbierwagen 13y agoWhen asked a question that bores him, his eyes go unreactive, and there’s a nearly audible shutdown noise as he disengages. Among the topics that bore him are cars (“I don’t like cars anymore”); Internet comments (“Gross”); his company’s colossally expensive infrastructure (“I have a very rudimentary understanding of how Tumblr actually works these days”); and management (“I’m not super-passionate about how we run the company”). So what does he... do? Count his money all day?
- blazingfrog2 13y agoHe flies drones in the office.
- georgemcbay 13y agoPrimarily to annoy people, it seems. Sounds like a fucking horrible place to work.
- colmvp 13y ago$110 million well spent.
- notaddicted 13y agoHilarious quote of Marco Arment from 4 years ago: When a similar idea circulated back in 2009, Tumblr’s then–lead developer, Marco Arment, summed up the party line in a scornful blog post: “I hope they let me work on some of the many exciting projects at Yahoo … I want to move to California and get stuck in traffic every day on the way to my midlevel engineering job where I sit in a cubicle all day and can’t make any product decisions while working on something nobody will ever see to manage regional ad clickthrough stats tracking.” Thanks, but no thanks.
- eeeeaaii 13y agoMost arrogant quote I've ever heard coming from a developer. I hope this sounded different in context because that is one of the most horrible and elitist things I've ever heard pertaining to our industry.