“Like Eating Glass”: Sean Parker on Airtime’s Bumpy Launch

http://allthingsd.com/20121002/like-eating-glass-sean-parker-on-airtimes-bumpy-launch-exec-departures-and-more/?mod=atdtweet

by olivercameron • 14 years ago

38 23 14 years ago

allthingsd.com

webwanderings• 14 years ago

Past first time success is no guarantee of continuous success. This reminds me of how the Youtube founders have bunked the takeover of Delicious.

ChuckMcM• 14 years ago

Past history is never a solid guide. An LP at one of the valley's venture firms once told me that the value of the track record for him was that it meant that if the stars did align on the idea and the market, then the team which had been successful in the past would likely be successful with this idea. On the other hand, if the team had not been successful in the past then there was the chance that the idea and market would be there and they would drop the ball.

Its a challenge when folks conflate their previous successful venture with an ability to deliver an idea when they won't or can't acknowledge the role of serendipity in the timing.

eurleif• 14 years ago

>Of the initial product, which connects strangers for live video chats based on their interests, Parker said, “One-to-one is never viral.”

Wait, what? ChatRoulette wasn't viral? That's not how I remember it.

earbitscom2• 14 years ago

Not only has there yet to be a feature on Airtime that is cool or unique, but there has yet to be mention of any future idea that sounds like it solves a problem. What problem is Airtime trying to solve? This guy needs PG office hours in the worst kind of way.

On top of that, he said his party was "scrappy" by comparing it to that of a company who does more in revenue every month than the $30M his company raised in total. I would hope you'd spend less than a company bringing in near a billion dollars this year. It was still a massive waste of money, was off-putting to a ton of early adopters, and was just a large amount of lipstick on a pig, just as the marketing video they made was a cheap imitation of the innovative one by Dollar Shave Club.

I'm not sure if it's appropriate to keep touting Parker's startups as industry disruptions. Given their life cycles and profitability issues, perhaps interruptions is a more appropriate term.

johnrob• 14 years ago

Lest anyone forget how hard startups are, here is some proven talent armed with tons of cash that is struggling nonetheless.

guimarin• 14 years ago

Airtime does not solve a problem today. It is wayyy to ahead of its time. When we are all in automated cars and have more discretionary time. Services like airtime will be successful. Right now we're too busy to invest the time in a product that needs to boil the whole ocean to be successful. Chatroullette was a fad, where Airtime is trying to be a communications platform like facebook/twitter. Except that there was a reason for Facebook/Twitter, and there isn't one for airtime. There will be in the future though.

omegant• 14 years ago

Why people will be more willing to speak to strangers in the future than now?. There is a need to be in contact with your friends and family, but I don't see a general urgency to meet strangers. I travel a lot for work and I am a lot of tome on my own, and still can't find the need to go talking to people I don't know.

Conecting people could be great for learning languajes though.

adastra2• 14 years ago

Here's a thought experiment: let's say you had two billion dollars, household-name level of fame, and a past history of startup success. If you wanted to start a new company, you could no doubt convince some of silicon valley's elite investors to put in money and attract a couple of the world's leading experts in whatever field you were interested in. This will be your full-time job.

For me, here's the list of industries I'd love to try and disrupt, in no particular order: clean energy or clean water, health care IT, public transportation, 3rd-world agriculture, cybersecurity, the US education system.

Or, here's some cool tech areas that I'd love to play in, maybe disrupt something, but at least it would be hugely fun: AI, flying drones, quantum computing/communications, genomics, space travel. Also, see the Yudkowsky Scale [1].

You see where I'm going with this. With all his money and all his talent, Sean Parker has decided to solve the problem of "my random video chats had too many penises in them."

Not everyone can be Elon Musk, but once you've got 2 billion dollars, damn man at least give it a try.

To be clear: I have no problem with software startups that start by solving small problems or by bringing a tiny bit of joy to people's lives. But there's also plenty of people already doing that. I just think the calculus of how you spend your time has to change when you have more capital at your disposal than 99.999% of the entrepreneurs on the planet.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4510702

earbitscom2• 14 years ago

You make a great point, and yet, given Napster and now Airtime, do we really want this guy trying to put humans safely on Mars?

kiskis• 14 years ago

true and same for dustin moskovitz. dustin with his $3.5B trying to solve what, todo lists?

but with these at least you realize that - other than their huge financial fortune - those guys are the same average guys as the rest of us.

sek• 14 years ago

That's a little bit unfair, there is no game changing task organisation app out there and it's a huge problem. Trello is the best right now in my opinion.

They focused too much on a perfect technical solution for web development.

When Moskovitz started he didn't sold his shares yet and they raised not that much money.

Parker seems a little desperate for attention in my opinion, being in the shadow of MZ is not easy i guess.

derwiki• 14 years ago

Parker is also a founding member and CEO of Causes, the largest platform for collective activism online (disclaimer: I work there).

adastra2• 14 years ago

The Causes website says he's chairman of the board, not CEO. That's a huge difference. My comment wasn't meant to denigrate Causes, which is great.

By all accounts Parker is full time at Airtime. He has $2 billion of wealth, non-trivial technical and business skill, and another 40+ years of lifespan to tackle one or more of the world's toughest problems. It doesn't exactly help silicon valley's public image when one of its most public faces does a huge hyped up launch for... chat roulette redux. After the unfortunate post-IPO performance of groupon, facebook, and zynga, the perception of silicon valley is in bad enough shape as it is.

bduerst3• 14 years ago

>health care IT

It's currently being dominated by Epic Systems, for their enterprise EMR. If you want to disrupt this industry you have to take a stab at that segment.

Coincidently, Epic is programmed in Mumps and Cache, and uses Citrix on all the client machines. It could be their Achilles heel.

SkyMarshal3• 14 years ago

>Mumps and Cache

Had to look those up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUMPS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cach%C3%A9_(software)

SkyMarshal3• 14 years ago

Sean Parker's thing is social. It's what he knows and apparently loves, and few people have had more success at it. I wouldn't begrudge him his passions

Also, technical and scientific advancement don't always come from predictable, deterministic sources. Who knows what 'social' experiments like Airtime could turn into.

k_kelly• 14 years ago

One of the things I've always wondered was would Airtime have worked if Parker had decided to cap initial investment at a few hundred thousand dollars or less. He would have failed quickly, he would have known if it was a real product, and he might have got devs willing to go for equity (not the riskiest gamble as startups go and would have bought more commitment than a million dollars up front). Anyone tying their fate to a startup would not leave after launching the product.

It always felt like Parker tried to buy success or worse, didn't even want to buy success just wanted to buy a hot startup as a lifestyle choice.

ricksta• 14 years ago

I cancelled my sign up because of this

THIS APP WILL RECEIVE: Your basic info Your email address (myemail) Your profile info: description, activities, birthday, education history, groups, hometown, interests, likes, location, questions, relationship status, religious and political views, subscribers and subscribees, website and work history Your stories: events, games activity, notes, photos, status updates and videos Friends' profile info: descriptions, activities, birthdays, education histories, groups, hometowns, interests, likes, locations, questions, relationship statuses, religious and political views, subscribers and subscribees, websites and work histories Stories shared with you: events, games activity, notes, photos, status updates and videos Your app activity from: music apps, news apps and video apps Friends' app activity from: music apps, news apps and video apps

jhermsmeyer• 14 years ago

"It will include a plethora of innovations to come that will further make it clear that big things are on the road ahead."

All Things D's writing, and hence credibility, is one butter patty away from the big dirt nap.

I've attempted to unpack that sentence and it's turtles all the way down.

“Like Eating Glass”: Sean Parker on Airtime’s Bumpy Launch

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