Can you feel the morph?

  Two seminal pieces totally worth reading.
  1. David at 37 Signals says Apple must use their new power more carefully. Been saying saying the same thing here. Not just in this loop but in previous ones. I urged Microsoft not to try to snuff out Netscape, to leave the web alone. My argument was that they'd get 60 percent of the growth no matter what, just selling more operating systems, word processors, etc. They needed the ideation process to run outside The Borg, because nothing creative comes out of the hive-mind. They can't hire the kind of people who build the stuff that makes a new layer of tech. Just kick back, I urged Bill, to no avail, and count your chips. Your pile is about to get much taller, and you don't have to do a thing. He completely went the other way, and hit two brick walls: 1. The reality of the hive. 2. The US government. My guess is that Steve Jobs didn't learn from Gates's mistakes, and now that it's his turn, he's going to fuck it up, probably in a much bigger Jobsian way. Because that's how he is.
  2. Mike Arrington at TechCrunch is returning to his roots, and that's a great thing! Reflecting on his experience with TechCrunch, and obviously thinking about what's next for himself, he's asking the good questions. Who am I, what am I capable of, which direction should I head in next. I encourage him to take his time here, because he'll be living with the decisions he makes now for a long time. He's at a personal inflection point. And Mike is a powerful and super-smart guy. Expect something interesting from his corner of the world. Sent him an email of congratulations. Good work.
  3. One more thing, today is Mitch Kapor's 60th birthday. In a tweet he says it's not 16. No doubt. I'm only 55, so how would I know, but I knew Mitch when he was not much more than 16. He's still the same guy he was then, only smarter and wiser. One of my best teachers when I was starting out, it was from Mitch that I learned the review process of software. That you have to take time out and put down the compiler and actually use the stuff you're creating, to solve the problem it was intended to solve. Without this reality check, done often and with thought and care, your chance of shipping something that works as a product are pretty slim. You'll miss the target every time. Seems so simple, but so often this is the step people miss.
  PS: I used the word tweet in this piece. Sorry Twitter, I'm not going to capitalize the T. Nice try. :-)