Curt Doolittle

Source: Facebook

  • MANAGEMENT PARADOX I always try to empower my staff. Always. I assume everything

    MANAGEMENT PARADOX

    I always try to empower my staff. Always. I assume everything I know is a theory. And that all theories are open to both falsification and revision. But that in business, as in all life, the problem is that someone has to choose when opinions and preferences differ. I dont know why. But I encounter this problem in every company I start.

    I want to say “Do not confuse the difference between your marginal improvement on the theoretical structure I created, as equal to the construction of the theoretical structure. Don’t think it’s you. Yes you’re steering. I’m still navigating.”

    But if I talk like that no one understands what the hell I am saying.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 12:14:00 UTC

  • AND GOVERNMENT ABILITY TO ALTER IT: none. This poses a serious problem. To accep

    http://www.epi.org/publication/a-decade-of-flat-wages-the-key-barrier-to-shared-prosperity-and-a-rising-middle-class/INEQUALITY AND GOVERNMENT ABILITY TO ALTER IT: none.

    This poses a serious problem. To accept market outcomes as given, and then try to offset the structural imbalances embedded therein through tax and transfer policy alone, is a fundamentally limited strategy. As those outcomes become increasingly unequal, as has been the case over the last three decades, such a strategy implies yearly increases in redistribution through the tax code and transfer system, something our political system will not support even once we return to functional politics. The uniquely influential role of money in American politics limits this strategy even further.”

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 09:24:00 UTC

  • LIST OF STARTUP RULES (Dated but fun.) 1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at

    LIST OF STARTUP RULES

    (Dated but fun.)

    1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

    2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

    3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

    4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

    5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

    6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

    7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

    8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

    9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

    10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

    11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

    12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

    13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

    14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

    15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

    – Mark Fletcher

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:45:00 UTC

  • THE POWER OF PARSIMONY If you learn enough about Physics, Math, Computer Science

    THE POWER OF PARSIMONY

    If you learn enough about Physics, Math, Computer Science, Economics and Philosophy (and hopefully in that order), it becomes readily apparent that all of these disciplines create all sorts of language for very, very simple principles that are constant across all of them.

    I don’t know what we need to call that basic set of ideas. In theory that’s part of the domain philosophy, because they are all tools for helping us think cogently, and act cogently, in a given discipline.

    But I can tell you one thing: there isn’t much difference between how science is practiced, than that set of basic principles. The only exception being that science discounts subjectivity and morality, economics includes subjectivity but not morality, and philosophy includes morality, subjectivity and objectivity.

    What I like most about computer programming is that it forces us to avoid the platonism in mathematics. And as such, avoids postmodernist influences on academia and the “res publica”.

    There are only a few dozen ideas for man to learn, but an infinite set of applications of them. Unfortunately, we ask our children, and each other, to memorize an infinite number of techniques, instead of a handful of necessary causal relations.

    This foundation, if it can be articulated as a finite set of principles with infinite application, is what we have been unable to define. That is because the political impact of those definitions would be problematic.

    If you don’t believe me. Then you might just have to take a look at the history of ideas. Because that history is little more than attempts to justify claims against the property of others in order to achieve alternate ends.

    Period.

    MANS WORLD IS QUITE SIMPLE. IT”S THE LIES THAT MAKE IT COMPLICATED.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:41:00 UTC

  • THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST POWER “The more descriptive the language one chooses, the

    THE PRINCIPLE OF LEAST POWER

    “The more descriptive the language one chooses, the more one can do with the data stored in that language.” – Tim Berners-Lee

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:30:00 UTC

  • PRINCIPLES

    http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/ARCHITECTURAL PRINCIPLES

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:27:00 UTC

  • ATWOOD’S LAW “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually

    ATWOOD’S LAW

    “Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.”

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-27 06:27:00 UTC

  • NATIONALISM Higher Tribalism Returns – now that universalism is unmasked as an a

    NATIONALISM

    Higher Tribalism Returns – now that universalism is unmasked as an attempt to obtain status without producing anything. The Vision of the Anointed finally fades.

    (The boomers can’t die fast enough.)

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-26 14:57:00 UTC

  • READ (Of course, I’d aregue that we are spending our creative efforts trying to

    http://business.time.com/2013/08/26/nobelist-on-americas-missing-economic-mojo-and-how-to-get-it-back/MUST READ

    (Of course, I’d aregue that we are spending our creative efforts trying to keep the givernment away so we are reducing investment in things that are taxable and open to regulation as a means of defending ourselves from the state.

    The state is more interested in wonen snd minorities than it is in our civilizatiin and its economy. The reason is democracy and the addition of unproductive rent seekers to the voting pool.

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-26 07:40:00 UTC

  • “My theory … revolves around the role of the news media. The media are a liber

    http://themonkeycage.org/2013/08/22/a-theory-of-the-importance-of-very-serious-people-in-the-democratic-party/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+themonkeycagefeed+%28The+Monkey+Cage%29SMART

    “My theory … revolves around the role of the news media. The media are a liberal, Democratic-leaning institution. This can be seen, for example, from surveys of journalists (the last one I saw showed Democratic reporters outnumbering Republicans 2-1) or political endorsements or various other studies. It is my impression that the news media lean left but the public-relation industry leans right.

    “Anyway, my point here is that the Republican party has a lot of resources, including much of big business, military officers, and organized religion. They don’t need the news media in the way that the Democrats do. And, I suspect one reason why Very Serious People are important for Democrats is that they are respected by the media. The Republicans can put together a budget that is mocked by major newspapers and nobody cares. But if the Democrats lose the support of the New York Times, they’re in trouble. Hence the asymmetry in seriousness. One might say that the Republicans are hurt by a similar asymmetry with regard to social issues, in that they can’t ignore the support of the religious right or talk radio. Although this is a bit different: the so-called Very Serious People pull the Democrats toward the center, while social issue groups pull the Republicans to the right.

    “To put it another way, each party has a coalition of financial interests and political activists that are important in staffing the party and shaping its goals. The Democratic party’s balance has changed: in recent decades, with the decline of labor unions, various segments of industry such as high-tech have become important, also there are doctors and lawyers and newspapers. These are all groups that will tend to favor centrist, status-quo, what Krugman might call “very serious” policies.

    “I think this could/should be studied more systematically (ideally in some sort of comparative analysis with data from many countries).”

    Source date (UTC): 2013-08-26 01:46:00 UTC