The credo of a tycoon of old (think JPMorgan or Vanderbilt) was to build an empire. His own empire, in his lifetime.

Tycoons of today have build their own empires (Microsoft, Google, Apple, Oracle etc.), same principle, same philosophy.

When and why did it happen that flippers took over this market's mindshare? A young entrepreneur today dreams of selling out to Yahoo/Google/Microsoft as soon as possible. Quite often even before his business is profitable.

Hey, if you have a growing business that is profitable, you should keep it for yourself. Many people with money I know (so-called 'professional investors') dream of having such a business in their possession. Such business is not listed, so you cannot buy it on the market. What you can buy on the market (what is listed) normally grows slower and is over-researched and over-valued.

But of course, if you focus on building the cash flow for yourself, and keeping the option of striking it very big at some time in the future for yourself, then the whole industry of undervalued option-buyers (VCs, angels etc.) will be left without work. So the propaganda is put to work... When is my next funding round?.. A round of what? When is your next client subscribing to your app - that should be the question.

DHH thrives on being controversial, but the point he makes here is simply a well forgotten truth about entrepreneurship. Building your business slow and taking full credit for it for yourself used to be the norm before the flipper ethics kicked-in.

No.

Why is it that racism is super untrendy, but this kind of nationalistic prejudice against foreigners is trendy? Why are Americans more deserving of a given job, just because they are American, and even if they will do an equally good job at a higher price?

These are just my notes I chose to share as the speech came to an end. I apologize if I offended you in any way.

How do I get funding? I haven't -- I was introduced to one "angel" when I was first getting started, but the draft MOU he put onto paper had almost nothing in common with what we had discussed in person, and after that experience I realized that I didn't really need funding. My costs are kept down by living in my parents' basement, using a 4 year old laptop, not hiring anyone else to help me out, and using Amazon Web Services instead of buying/renting discrete servers (although I spent the first 15 months writing code on my laptop before I got to the point of using AWS).

How do I keep myself motivated? The same way as multiple founders do, I guess -- by telling people what I'm doing and knowing that they expect that I will succeed. The fact that I turned down a six-figure job at Google to do this also helps keep me motivated -- I need to succeed here in order to make up for all the money I'm not earning at Google.

Why do I believe that this is the right way to go? I don't think it is, for most people. I'm unusual both in terms of my clarity of vision and my expertise in this particular area.

This whole "buying and selling" thing is clearly outside of eBay's area of expertise...

Wow, this typed version destroyed the power of his talk. Please wait until you can see the video (on justin.tv?); his presence is huge.

It has been the best talk by far.

Jobs don't "go overseas".

Individuals who happen to live in other countries simply provide more value in their work than individuals in this one.

So I try to keep the value of my work as high as I can.

''Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,'' says Steve Jobs, Apple's C.E.O. ''People think it's this veneer -- that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.''

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C02E7D8113BF...

That would make a great PostSecret card.

You mean, you don't...

I would worry a lot more about where you spend your time than your money.

neither github http://github.com

main reason. It uses git. Another benefit of github is you can pay for accounts that are private, so if you wanted to host proprietary code. Or things that aren't so much proprietary as personally private (backups).

also google isn't supportive of AGPL, I like the AGPL so I can't support them on this one.

if you want subversion you should go with sourceforge.

I'm not sure which vcs system google uses. (on google code; they use perforce internally)

There is also Launchpad for bazaar (bzr) repositories

Honestly just pick the one one with the vcs you want to use.

EDIT: I've rewritten this like 3 times :P sorry. Should read right now.

I would vote for 'no'; you will spend so much time around each other, with no way to really separate your own spaces, that it will make you sick and reclusive. If anything goes south, you then have more than just a business that dies -- you have to deal with tenants, and there's likely additional legal ramifications as well.

Yes, it was a very nice presentation.

There's too many kool-aid drinkers in the web 2.0 world these days, and its a true breath of fresh air to see somebody with some real business fundamentals talking. I hope his talk makes more people wake up and realize that by trying to build a solid business over time, you have a much much MUCH greater chance at success than people flipping dodgy startups.

I don't think his message was controversial at all. Instead, its a shot of common sense in a world of disinformation.

Great article. I do all my work entirely from home and up until this point I couldn't pinpoint precisely what was missing. The article uses an excellent phase I was trying to articulate: "casual serendipity". Effectively, this is about casually describing your work to random people and finding serendipitous connections to other projects or learning unexpected, but relevant information.

google code is also subversion

The article starts its ramble complaining about tech jobs, then claims tech jobs go overseas due to "stricter labor laws and environmental protection laws." I doubt India's competitive advantages revolve around child engineers dumping wasteful piles of Java into the Ganges.

Our declining currency will mitigate how many jobs go overseas as we go forward, anyway.