I’m sitting here at 01:53 AM EST chain smoking and writing when I should be fast asleep. My mind is running 99% c and I just can’t sit still. I’m close. I am so fucking close to it now. I almost understand it; all of it. I have taken the vast constellation of news and press releases and bullshit that I read every day and boiled it down into one standing wavefront that represents the future of the Internet. Some highlights:
The Internet industry has become a morass of preemptive announcements and vaporware and hype about the next big thing until the hype for the next-next big thing starts up. A beta announcement is more important than the actual product shipment. Netscape 3.0 Beta takes the front page of PC Week. Netscape 3.0 shipping merits a mere paragraph buried deep inside. There are great heaping piles of money to be made here, money beyond the dreams of avarice, but you’ve got to have the (metaphorical) balls. Meanwhile, I’m stuck slaving away for guys who not just won’t ever get it, but are incapable of ever getting it. So here’s the Easy DIY Internet Intsy-fortune kit and bag of chips:
First thing, sock a little money away. Not much, just enough to keep them from evicting you and repossessing your car, with enough left over for food and power and coffee. You will need coffee, and lots of it. Don’t plan on sleeping much.
So, you have enough money not to starve for the next few months, what now? Easy, write the motherfucker. I have a Big Idea at least once a week. Chances are the five of you who read this with any sort of regularity do too. Maybe you are a gamer, or a writer, or an artist, or a musician, or a programmer, or maybe, like myself, you are all these things. It matters not. Take that idea and run with it. Whether it’s a game, or a web site, or a painting, or a song, or the killer app, take a serious chill-pill, sit your sorry ass down and do it.
Just remember, the reason what you do isn’t important: It’s all about the buzz. You’ve got to have the buzz. The press release is more important than the actual product. Hype is the key, my friends. All of it ain’t worth a dime without the hype. That means you have to hook up with somebody slick. Somebody to play a Jobs to your Woz. It is possible to be both Jobs and Woz, what is known in technical jargon as a Gates, but that talent is rare indeed.
Like most philosophical points of view, the buzz is a dichotomy: One must have both Jobs and Woz if one is to know the Gates-Nature of all things and bask in the eternal light of the buzz. An Idea without bullshit and a dollar will buy a cup of coffee. Bullshit without an Idea is an exercise in masturbation. Either one spells eating dog food for nothing when you finally realize you’ve failed.
The last step is much easier than the first two: The Sell Out. The plan for anything is Write It; Hype It; Sell It Out. Bobbi Sue knew all about it: Do the IPO and then take the money and run. Don’t fuck this part up. Even though it’s easiest, it is also the most important.
Pointcast is doomed because they didn’t implement it this way. Now, they are about to compete with Microsoft and Netscape. Oops, shoulda had an exit strategy.
Marc Anderseen didn’t cash out, now he’s left holding stock in a company that is about to abandon its core market in order to compete in the core market of its largest competitor. Duh, don’t go on Jeopardy, Marc. Tournament of Champions material you are not.
There is one drawback to the "Iacta Alia Est" theory of product development though: You really have to be young and stupid. When you have two kids in college and a mortgage and a car note and tons of personal debt and shit like that you feel that, in your mature wisdom, you can’t bet everything on one roll of the dice and hope it doesn’t come up craps. When you are young, stupid, and have no assets of any real value it becomes a little easier.
I’m ready to roll the dice. Who’s with me?
Rickwood Out
(With aplogies to Brock Meeks)