Ben Strikes Back

“I hope Microsoft pays News Corp to keep it’s content off of Google, it’ll be like killing two old birds w/ one robots.txt file.”

Silicon Valley’s devil advocate, Jason Calacanis, may have been the first to announce the secret engagement of Microsoft and Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation through his newsletter and on This Week in Startups that sparked the debate on where the value of information comes from. The flame wars grew from there on how will consumers lose, why information should be free, that News Corp’s traffic will drop and not be missed, and both Microsoft and Google are already paying Twitter for their fire hose.

Microsoft Regional Enterprise Technologist Randy Holloway and I, who I met in St. Louis while working a startup, had our own debate on why we agree and disagree with the News Corp proposal.

I am a strong supporter of capitalism and paying for value created, but I disagree on Microsoft’s method to regain market power. I’m not sure why I’m still so opinionated about Microsoft, Paul Graham already declared “Microsoft is Dead” in 2007. I look at Microsoft now the same way I look at GE, they power trains and power plants through enterprise technology and only play where they can corner the market. Microsoft needs to innovate to reinvent themselves and not attempt to buy consumer market relevance. I have zero love for the ignorance and disinformation that New Corp represents with Fox News, MySpace, and others with the Wall Street Journal being the exception.

As a kid who grew up loving to rebuild and optimize my computers with Microsoft, having to use 8 year old Windows XP on my corporate computer reminds me of still blowing on nintendo cartridges. It’s an annoyance and no longer nostalgic, more advance technology is out there. My hassle free Mac is a relief to go home to, but I’d like to see Microsoft do something that makes me an excited kid once more.

Ballmer and Rupert can make their own bed to stifle innovation, but that doesn’t mean I have to buy it. I hope M$FT realizes with their plan that capitalism works both ways and I’ll never buy another Microsoft product again including xboxs, keyboards, and mice for not giving me the opportunity to relive my childhood excitement.

Originally, I was going to share my experience of completing the first weeks of fitness boot camp, but the connection between exercise and determination runs farther (pun intended) than that. Getting into a routine of being in the park by 6am, 4 days a week, in the cold before sunrise, is one that you can only force on yourself into by just starting, then you find out you can really do it.

I don’t know what you’ve been told, but the only times I’ve found true success in my life is when I didn’t give myself a minute to fail. Morning, day, and night is the only schedule that has worked for me. When you’ve been broken down by running 5 miles before 7am, your day can go nowhere but up. Dropping to the ground to do pushups and sit-ups anywhere becomes nothing. You tell yourself that you’re not embarrassed, you’re ready to prove yourself, and at the very minimum, you can support your own weight.

After boot camp comes the full day of work, but now your outlook has changed. Your 9 to 5, your cushy 40 hours a week has new meaning now, it’s only part of your day. By 3pm your tolerance for what’s not important drops to zero. The day is yours and if it’s not, you see the inefficiency of the status quo. The best way I’ve been able to describe my startup life is, “When you’re at a startup you want processes and when you’re at a large corporation you hate the process.”

Boot camp turns out to be the easy part, you don’t have to do think, just do. It’s outside of boot camp where I have to watch myself. Your first instinct is to say no, to ice cream, to losing your cool, but finding patience to look at the opportunity cost is where you can shine. Dashes of genius happen but often go unnoticed.

The piece I’m working on now is how to focus my energy on my own time, after the day is complete. Dinner, drinks, a date, a night of rocking out at a concert, tech schmoozing, – these are all viable options in the city of San Francisco. In fact, my last 6 months were a blur of them and it was excellent. My next adventure has a vision, a name, and a long to do list in order to lay the foundations. I know what I have to do to execute, it’s now a matter of focusing.

Hey by the way, that’s it, Heybtw.com. Much more to come on this soon. I’m as excited about this as I once was when I said to a friend, “we have to do this!” when founding my first startup, ImThere.

I don’t know what feels better, taking off my new non-broken in shoes after a long run or focusing on building something that no else in the world cares about yet, but somehow they’re connected.

“The thing about potential is that it’s always lost tomorrow, never today.” (Twitter Link)

Today you can change, be who you want to be, but tomorrow you’ll be one step behind if you don’t take your first leap today.

Everyone has wasted their potential at some period in their lives. This is not the point – what’s important is being able to recognize the potential in others and finding the determination to act on your own.

Everyday you have potential for greatness. Encouraging and challenging others to live up to their potential is what fuels me to look for strength inside myself. My no compromise attitude is often difficult to understand but it always stems from wanting others to succeed in their own regard and not focus on my struggles. It goes both ways though, the friends who challenge me and don’t put up with my bullshit are the ones those I cherish the most. If you see me not living up to my potential and joking about ever giving up, then I want to hear so, right or wrong.

I don’t want to live an average life. If that happens though, I want to be remembered as a fighter. Someone close to me once hurtfully told me that I would never succeed because I lacked a “killer instinct.” It only stung for a second, because I know I have determination from within and am surrounded by others who have stood by me when I’ve failed in the past.

I used to say that my only skill was that I wasn’t afraid of failure. The only important skill that matters to me now is that everyday I work towards my potential today to do what it takes to succeed in whatever challenges I tackle.

I think I’m already strong enough to leave the Biggest Loser fat ranch in many aspects of my life. Now it’s on to Action!

Hi Tara!