The Upstarts
Brian Chesky went to RISD.
Maybe you don’t live in the northeast, maybe you think the state school is good enough, but if you grew up in New England, where where you went to college is a badge of honor, you know about all the elite institutions. And the one for the artists, the left of center people you know but don’t associate with, like David Byrne, is RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design.
Hmm… We live in a fucked up country. A land of disinformation. Forget fake news, even forget the facts, we can’t even agree on the STORY! We’ve got leaders denigrating arts majors, telling everyone to go into the sciences, engineering, and then the guy who started Airbnb went to RISD?
I’m reading this new book, “The Upstarts,” you can’t buy it. It’s not coming out until the end of the month. But it was written by Brad Stone and he wrote my favorite business book of the past few years, “The Everything Store,” about Amazon, and when I saw his tweet that he had a new book, I told him to send it to me. And he did.
Funny thing about Twitter, it’s a parallel universe. All we hear is about haters, but there’s real communication going on there, a real exchange of ideas, in plain sight. That’s right, while you’re on Facebook, glorifying your lifestyle, exchanging messages with people you’d rather not spend any time with in real life, there’s a marketplace of ideas on Twitter. This is no different from the Homebrew Computer Club, where the Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, got their start. You too could join in, but you’re too cool or oblivious. Kinda like Hollywood. Did you see that Michael Lynton exited Sony to go to Snap? Maybe he was pushed, but the studios are moribund, promoting their pictures no one wants to see in the “New York Times” so they can win Oscars at a show the youth have tuned out. There’s a generation gap, make no mistake, but now the baby boomers have the short end of the stick.
So, “The Upstarts” is the story of Airbnb and Uber. And to tell you the truth, I think we’ve hit a wall in the tech world, despite what Marc Andreessen may say as his fund sinks, today’s is about politics and income inequality and the loss of jobs but did you see this week’s story about Elon Musk and his “dark factory”? Yup, his goal is to soon make Teslas purely by robots, they won’t even have to turn on the lights, the robots can work in the dark! And McKinsey is saying that robotization is coming later than sooner, but if you think those consultants have a clue about the future you probably believe the music business was prepared for Napster. Disruption comes from the outside. And grinds who got good grades so they could get overpaid gigs at McKinsey are not disruptors, they played it safe.
But these entrepreneurs did not, the creators of Airbnb and Uber.
Now not everybody can be an entrepreneur, not everybody can make it. Some just like to enjoy the fruits of the creators’ labor. But for those looking to put a dent in the universe…
Used to be they went into music. They certainly don’t now. That’s the land of the uneducated doofus looking to sell out to the corporation. These new entrepreneurs want to TOPPLE the organization! How high are you setting your sights? Maybe not high enough.
So the guy with the idea for Uber… He makes millions selling a company and moves to San Francisco and…
“A few months after eBay’s acquisition of StumbleUpon, he sent a message over Facebook to a smart, beautiful television producer named Melody McCloskey, and – after noting that they had a vague connection because they shared the blogger Om Malik as a friend on the social network – asked her out on a date.”
I’m friends with Om Malik!
Shak introduced me, the investor/consigliere at Spotify. You should read Om’s ten year anniversary analysis of the iPhone in “The New Yorker,” it’s brilliant:
And that message was sent nearly ten years ago, before you were probably on Facebook, unless you were a college student.
And because we live in the modern world I pulled out my iPhone and looked up Ms. McCloskey, AND SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL!
I’m used to lies, subterfuge, inaccuracies, but now with the internet and our mobiles we can check everything.
“Like many high-tech entrepreneurs, Camp was peculiar. McCloskey noticed that he did not particularly care about superficialities that absorbed other people. for example, he got his hair cut only sporadically, letting it grow down to his shoulders before having it cut short. He also like to design his own T-shirts featuring symbols such as a Necker cube, a line drawing that can be perceived in different ways. Then he would wear them out to dinner at nice restaurants. ‘I have no idea where he got those things,’ McCloskey says. ‘I was not thrilled by them.'”
But she became his girlfriend. Sure, Garrett Camp was rich, but he was also smart and a fountain of ideas and what truly attracts women to men…
As for his car, it was a Mercedes-Benz, but he kept it in the garage, he worried about parking and scratches and…
The point I’m making is my eyes are bugging out. Because this is me. Why do I need to get my hair cut? I am who I am irrelevant of the clothes I wear, why blow thousands on outfits that will soon be out of style?
I hate those people. Like the wanker pissing in the urinal on Friday. I had to wee, I had an appointment to make, but he was checking his iPhone as he was doing his business.
Then I had to wait for him to check his look in the mirror, adjust his designer jeans, a brand I had never heard of, while I waited to wash my hands. And then he walked into the finance office. God, if I hate these people no wonder the heartland does too, and voted for Trump.
But despite all the fealty paid to Trump by Silicon Valley, he and his cabinet, the complete Congress, are clueless as to what is happening in California, the techies run rings around them, because the politicians, the straight people, have no vision, just like two young men completely disrupted the music business with Napster, and…
Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick have dinner with McCloskey in Paris and spend the whole time hashing out the business plan for Uber. I’m too uptight to do this, happens to me all the time, I’m at a meal and everyone is looking around saying…WHO IS THIS GUY WHO IS POSSESSED?
So I shut the fuck up. Because if you don’t fit in, you’ve got no future.
But then I start asking myself, am I hanging with the right people?
Hell, the music business is all about lifestyle. Expensive wines, private flights, they don’t want to break the world, they just want to live in it!
Didn’t used to be that way, but things change.
But I don’t think I have the mentality of an entrepreneur, I grew up in the sixties, I’m more of an artist, as in conception is key and you can speak the truth and make people uncomfortable and…
I just get so excited when people speak my language.
Musicians used to do this. Before they all became complaining whiners, wanting to jet back to an evaporated past wherein they were kings of the universe.
Musicians could be kings of the universe once again. But they’d have to speak the truth in a different way, capturing the hearts of the people.
What these entrepreneurs do best is create products that everybody wants.
We used to do this in the music business, but now we’re positively niche, and happy about it. Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the Weeknd are stars who are easily ignored.
But you can’t ignore your iPhone, the enabler of these breakthroughs.
And you can’t ignore Airbnb and Uber.
Furthermore, you love them and can’t stop testifying about them!
Interesting world we live in.
P.S. Read “The Everything Store” first, then you’ll be ready for “The Upstarts” on January 31st. Learn how Bezos conquered all…
P.P.S. Now McCloskey too is an entrepreneur, she’s CEO of StyleSeat, disruption is gender neutral.
