First off, great post. Although it is pretty awesome to see how the community comes together when people are in need, during the storm and aftermath I couldn't help but think about our industry vs others in rebounding efforts. While most startup founders / employees I know were eager, almost rabid to get back to work, a lot of my friends in other industries were very happy to have the few days off, no questions asked.
So my question (which I've been asking myself), do you think that it's an attitude thing? A certain NEED to get back to the grind that our industry has that others don't? Or do you think we are operationally that much better at coming together?
This is such a good comment, and something I've wondered about too. I think there are three parts of the equation
1) StartUp people, especially founders, have a heightened appreciation of Time. Big organizations build in redundancy and shared responsibility. If something doesn't get done, it's not your fault and it's not the end of the world. The business goes on. In a startup, the buck stops with you, and if you don't get it done, it doesn't' happen. Time can not be wasted
2) Startup people generally love what they do. They aren't looking for a day off. Contrast that with most people. A day off is welcome.
3) The tech industry has an "us vs the world' mentality that separates it form othe rindustries. Even my friends who wanted to work--because they had deadlines, etc--were left with no recourse. Our industry wants everyone to succeed. It's empathetic. Most people understand the pain and joy of building something, so they do everything they can to help others succeed as well. That doesn't exist (in my experience) in other industries, and it creates a community that other industries don't have. I think that's part of what we saw last week.
Perhaps it could also be that the tech industry knows how important time is. Everything changes so ridiculously fast that being out of the game at all makes people start to feel nervous... other more well established industries don't have their technology change nearly as fast.
There's also the great story about Squarespace, FogCreek and Peer1 employees doing a bucket brigade of fuel up to their generators to keep things up. That's awesome commitment to their customers and business.
Whenever I read about power outages in the states and the kind of mayhem they cause I think about how different the situation here is -- Lebanon that is.
We haven't had enough power to run the entire country ever since the end of the civil war in '90 so there's a rationing scheme whereby you get power during certain times of the day depending on where you live. People have just gotten used to having generators that kick in automatically about a minute after the power goes out and using UPSs to bridge the gap.
I just bought an apartment in a Beirut suburb and one of the main advantages the owner was touting was that the building has its own generator(so you don't have to deal with a distributor as those tend to have insane prices because they know that people need the electricity anyway).
Our startup just moved in to a proper office a couple of days ago. One of the problems we are now dealing with is that the A/C in that office is too power-hungry to run on a generator and we're having split units installed so we don't have to work in a sauna-like environment for the ~6hrs/day when there's no power.
I'm actually not complaining, you get used to this stuff and it's not that much of an inconvenience once you know how to deal with it. I know this was off topic, but this is what I'm reminded off every time a story like this comes up.
That's a really interesting point. I think a big part of anything like this is how prepared you are. For example, Florida routinely gets hit with much stronger storms, but they are much better prepared. New York doesn't deal with many Hurricanes, so our infrastructure--that millions have learned to depend on--failed. To your point, it's amazing how places and people can adapt to different conditions. I'd love to hear more about running a startup in Lebanon
Great post, and couldn't agree more. I think Bloomberg and Rachel Sterne also deserve credit for their amazing rallying and general scrappiness, which enabled alot of these companies to step up with supportive offers (AirBNB & Uber stand out).
Absolutely. It was pretty amazing to see how the whole city came together, especially leaders – from Obama to Bloomberg to Governor Christie to Sterne to many others.
An important factor may be that in other industries generally all companies provide competing services, but in the tech(startup) industry most companies don't compete, and even provide complementary goods/services.
If other local tech startups succeed, it generally helps your tech startup succeed; but if other local ad agencies or pizza shops succeed, then it hurts your ad agency/pizza shop.
Yea that was really surprising to me. It's another reason I feel lucky to be in this industry. It became obvious people love what they do more than any other industry.
[+] [-] lallouz|13 years ago|reply
So my question (which I've been asking myself), do you think that it's an attitude thing? A certain NEED to get back to the grind that our industry has that others don't? Or do you think we are operationally that much better at coming together?
[+] [-] patrickambron|13 years ago|reply
1) StartUp people, especially founders, have a heightened appreciation of Time. Big organizations build in redundancy and shared responsibility. If something doesn't get done, it's not your fault and it's not the end of the world. The business goes on. In a startup, the buck stops with you, and if you don't get it done, it doesn't' happen. Time can not be wasted
2) Startup people generally love what they do. They aren't looking for a day off. Contrast that with most people. A day off is welcome.
3) The tech industry has an "us vs the world' mentality that separates it form othe rindustries. Even my friends who wanted to work--because they had deadlines, etc--were left with no recourse. Our industry wants everyone to succeed. It's empathetic. Most people understand the pain and joy of building something, so they do everything they can to help others succeed as well. That doesn't exist (in my experience) in other industries, and it creates a community that other industries don't have. I think that's part of what we saw last week.
[+] [-] MortisMortavius|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MattGrommes|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickambron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] entropy_|13 years ago|reply
We haven't had enough power to run the entire country ever since the end of the civil war in '90 so there's a rationing scheme whereby you get power during certain times of the day depending on where you live. People have just gotten used to having generators that kick in automatically about a minute after the power goes out and using UPSs to bridge the gap.
I just bought an apartment in a Beirut suburb and one of the main advantages the owner was touting was that the building has its own generator(so you don't have to deal with a distributor as those tend to have insane prices because they know that people need the electricity anyway).
Our startup just moved in to a proper office a couple of days ago. One of the problems we are now dealing with is that the A/C in that office is too power-hungry to run on a generator and we're having split units installed so we don't have to work in a sauna-like environment for the ~6hrs/day when there's no power.
I'm actually not complaining, you get used to this stuff and it's not that much of an inconvenience once you know how to deal with it. I know this was off topic, but this is what I'm reminded off every time a story like this comes up.
[+] [-] patrickambron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swohns|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickambron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PeterisP|13 years ago|reply
If other local tech startups succeed, it generally helps your tech startup succeed; but if other local ad agencies or pizza shops succeed, then it hurts your ad agency/pizza shop.
[+] [-] kl4555|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickambron|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickambron|13 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] dave_chenell|13 years ago|reply