steven

She is alive and hearing her recollections is super cool. If you follow the link to the short documentary I mentioned in the column you will see her then and now.

Not so subtle!

No, I didn't write Fire in the Valley, but did write some other books. I appreciate that you felt Hackers was a cool read. But whether you believe me or not, the default for real journalists is NOT embellishing, but doing reporting to get to the nearest thing to truth. Not all writers do that (some "nonfiction" authors are frank about making up dialogue, and even moving the timeline) but to me and the vast majority of my peers, nonfiction means just that.

Please correct spelling--"God is a BOT" in this hed not a bit.

I have been fascinated with YC since the beginning and twice tracked batches for stories--W07 for Newsweek and W11 for Wired. So it was great to return in the Sam Altman (and large cast of others) era to see how YC has basically made the pivot from its focus on mainly helping the founders in its batches to the broader mission of spreading startups (and the mentality of founders) throughout the world. When I spoke to PG from his happy UK exile, he reminded me that he was thinking this from the start. It was also great spending time with Sam and many other partners, some of whom I've known for years. Thanks to Kat, Sharon, and all the other YC folks and founders who helped me on this.

Sorry, pasted too hastily. Is there any way to edit this? (Edit function doesn't seem to allow replacing URL.)

Ballmer says that in the NBA salaries are totally transparent. And columnists know everything that the GM does. Teamwork is judged every 24 second. This makes for a level of accountability that tech firms could use. Is he right?

It's not genius?

Good to see so many people here are agog with disbelief at this story, which understandably didn't get as much talk as the more disturbing harassment charges. I am assuming by Uber's lack of a counter narrative to the jacket story that it is accurate. To be sure I did write Uber asking if Fowler's account was correct, but they did not reply.

What is really depressing is that its only the allegedly fraudulent activity that allows the AG to sue--if Spectrum didn't lie about its speed, it would have been free to overcharge and even to keep charging for its obsolete cable modems. And from here on in, there will be LESS regulation of these monopolies.

A book excerpt is not an advert.

I wonder if the different dispositions of the companies in the first few years were simply a consequence of founders' personalities, relative market conditions, or the way the companies grew. Would Uber have been less combative if it had grown up in YC?

I wonder if Odyssey's UGC plan is starting at the wrong time--well the wave of clickbait now be a target of platforms under pressure? Or is "viruality" at any cost still the way to make a big splash on social?

Touche

Writing this story, I got a good sense of the difference between silicon valley culture and auto industry culture (at a time when carmakers perceive the threat from tech companies and are trying, sort of, to be more nimble and tech-ish). Bill Ford is a great entry point because his heart is in the environment and innovation--but his soul runs on fossil fuel motors zipping down the highway. And now Ford (the company) is trying to get into services--and to take on Uber.

Yes

It is not nuts at all. Over 20 years ago I bought a house in the Berkshires. The town I am in has no broadband, and probably won't get it for years. If I were buying a house now I would NEVER consider this place, which I otherwise love. What's more, it might be impossible to sell.

Just sayin' that we see this as first of a series of amazing stories about bugs--ones that are so vexing, with fixes so illuminating, that telling the story casts light beyond the specific problem... If you got 'em, respond to this piece on the page!

A little explanation here. We took some of the best writing on Medium and remixed passages to make a single coherent review--from 25 people. Is it as good as the pros? You folks can decide.

To me, the most fascinating detail: "There is no evidence that the article made a splash at the time. It may or may not have been widely read, but it was not especially cited or republished."

Interesting response from Harper Reed, who led Obama's 2012 online campaign.

https://medium.com/@harper/crowdsourcing-isnt-broken-5681da9...

Thanks! Now that I know that my book opened Carmack's mind, I can take credit for Doom and even some stuff in Oculus Rift!

Really, what can you do when you are erroneously (and probably maliciously) identified as the author of a looney rant and it keeps spreading on email chains?

I had the opportunity to speak to the head of this project Andrew Conrad at length.

https://medium.com/backchannel/were-hoping-to-build-the-tric... What struck me was his optimism that this was really going to happen. Usually researchers are ultra cautious about going out on a limb like that (Yes, he said there was much to do, but read the interview to get his tone.) I think that comes from working at a place like Google X that encourages the big reach.

When I got the demo on Monday, I was struck most by how Google Now technology was integrated. That's why I called my piece (on Medium/Backchannel) "Inbox, the app child of Gmail and Google Now." Now that I have the app, I'm enjoying it. Very clean.

I wrote the article. One comment about the iPhone only issue. Of course I probed this with Ray -- a communications app is really handicapped if you can't share it with all the people you want to contact. His answer was that Talko wasn't going to take a shortcut of writing one version and porting it to different systems--they wanted to get one totally right and then then work native on the others. That's why, he says, that Talko right now is totally free in beta form -- kind of a tryout period -- and that no monetization will occur until Android and Web versions work fully. He thinks that Android folks will appreciate a fast native version in a few months (my estimate) rather than a balky one now and forever.

FYI this article is adapted from my book on Google out next month. There are generally two types of book excerpts: those that reprint a discrete section or those that draw from the whole to stitch together an article reflecting the reporting. This one is the latter--when Google announced that Larry would be the CEO, Wired (which secured the serial rights) chose to focus on him. I drew on anecdotes throughout the book, as well as interviews with Larry, to produce this.

I wrote about this in Wired some time ago. Here's the link. It's also the subject of the last part--a sort of epilog--to my book Crypto.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.04/crypto_pr.html

I was at Cocks' talk, which was held, appropriately enough, at Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing and others cracked Nazi Enigma codes. It is really worth a visit if you are in London and have a day to travel. Whit Diffie also shared with me some fascinating stories about his strange relationship with James Ellis, his counterpart in the classifed shadow world.

I was there for the 30-year reunion, where my photographer recreated the original shot. (And also, despite my pleas that people wanted it as originally posed, did a bizarre setup that confused people, too.) Then I did a group interview. The tone was very upbeat and warm, though clearly there were some underlying issues. But I think that the group was simply happy to look back at an exciting time. We were all sad that Bob Wallace was missing (I knew him and really like him--he was at the first Hacker Conference!) There was a lot of laughter and good natured fun-poking. And at the time Miriam Lubow, the office manager (den mother) of the group, knew she had cancer, but had come to terms with it, and was loving the reunion. She died not long afterward. For me, it was an amazing experience to moderate the group discussion of these people coming together 30 years after they worked at an obscure startup, and were now on the campus of an historically huge and powerful corporation they helped launch.

And yes, I am under the impression that MS paid expenses for this reunion. (But I didn't confirm that explicity.)