Last night I had the good fortune of having dinner with a great group of folks from a diverse set of backgrounds. As we went around the table making introduction, each of us were asked to share one thing we’re thinking hard about right now.

As the the intro wave made it’s way around the table it eventually crashed upon the CEO of a $40B  enterprise software company. As he paused, I was prepared to hear some riff on the reinvention of the enterprise or copen source or cloud or something of the like. But then he gave an answer that surprised me.

What weighed on his mind most wasn’t his market, his competition or his customers. It was his company culture. He didn’t speak about management styles or magins, he talked about his concern for building a community of people with shared values and goals. And how to empower that community to unlock all of the potential they have on the markets and customers they were aiming to serve.

As the night went on we talked of the role technology is playing in eliminating a raft of jobs that once required human hands. The potential impact of a properly implemented Siri service alone could wipe out whole organizational functions. 

But as the talk of dire straits for humans rolled on, I couldn’t help but think back to the kind of company the $40B CEO was crafting. And it struck me that perhaps as more work gets automated, we can focus this newfound energy on building companies that are more human. 

This concept of companies as communities feels like an important and implementable one. I’m going to let it rattle around in my head a bit more from here on out. And I think startups would be well served to do the same.

MG has the canonical post on Apple’s first earnings report of the post Steve Jobs era. Read it and follow the links he includes. Cliff Notes version- the results were staggering.

As it turns out, these earnings were reported on the same day the State of the Union address was delivered. Steve’s widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, was in attendance and that was an unlikely coincidence given the following shout out:

You see, an economy built to last is one where we encourage the talent and ingenuity of every person in this country. That means women should earn equal pay for equal work. It means we should support everyone who’s willing to work; and every risk-taker and entrepreneur who aspires to become the next Steve Jobs

Politics aside, maybe that little thought on the next Steve Jobs is true.

But, maybe what the Apple earnings tell us is not that we need the next Steve Jobs but that there are potentially 1,000s of the next Steve Jobs already among us in need of the next Tim Cook.

About a year ago, while on a trip to NYC, I had back to back to back meetings at Pastis. For those who know, this isn’t that far out of the ordinary. 

What was unusual about this particular morning were the two names that kept surfacing in each of the three meetings- Wegs and Benny. Apparently these two were making waves at Techstars NYC HQ, and I was instructed to keep an eye on them.

Then I heard what they working on and lost interest in just two words- Craigslist Killer.

When we finally did connect, Techstars demo day had passed and the team of Wegs and Benny made a concious decision not to pitch at the event. Their project, Friendslist, wasn’t seeing the uptake the’d hope to see and, tho raising money for it may have been an option, they weren’t feeling it.

As we settled into sloppy bbq sandwiches on the Highline, we talked about potential pivots for friendslist, but it soon became clear they had another project that had captured their imaginations.

At a Foursquare hack event, the two had cooked up a little service that emailed Foursquare users past checkins called 4squareand7yearsago. As it turns out, I was a huge fan of the service. It was an email I looked forward to reading every morning. The email also encouraged me to engage more deeply with the supported services knowing that the trail of tweets, checkins and photos I was leaving today would be resurfaced rather than fall into oblivion at the end of some virtual wall. 

As we talked on the Highline that day it became clearer and clearer to me, and to them, that there seemed to be more going on here than just an email. 

We were witnessing a shift in how people were documenting their lives. It was digital, it was distributed, it was chaotic, and, in the moment, it felt ephemeral. But, when recombined at a future date, it was magical and moving in unanticipated ways.

Our lives are progressively playing out online and one single metaphor, be it a timeline, a clock, a journal or an email really can’t really do it justice. The data that ecompasess our lives holds within it the a range of product possibilities from an evocative daily newsletter to eternal life. 

With our investment in TImeHop, we’re hoping to explore all of the possibilities this new form of personal time travel presents. 

In the early days of Microsoft, Bill Gates and Paul Allen had a shared vision for the reach and impact of this new class of devices. Their ambition was to make these new devices so accessible that there would be “a computer on every desk and in every home”.

As their vision became reality, the world changed. New companies and entire industries descended on this new platform and rose to prominence.

A similar form of ubiquity has dripped off our desks and into our pockets.

We’re familiar with the transformation that’s happening as a result of the shift to mobile computing. But there’s a second order effect that’s beginning to trickle onto the market now, but will become a torrent soon enough.

Two examples from the headlines last week.

Nike introduced their Fuel Band- Two years of development came to light last week as Nike pulled the wraps off their latest addition to the Nike+ line. The band is a very slick little device that weds the display features of the fitbit with the styling of the Jawbone Up. One important distinction the Fuel Band has, in contrast to its two competitors, is a bluetooth connection. The resulting difference in user experience is notable.

No longer will a user have to batch upload their data to a backend webservice with an added dongle or accessory. With the Fuel Band, there can be a steady stream of realtime updates, routed through a paired device. The impact of this subtle distinction is an important one from a device design perspective as well from the user experience side.

Adafruit introduced Flora- Adafruit, long a purveyor and advocate of open source hardware introduced a new wearable computing platform and set of accessories targeted at makers, designers, hackers artists and engineers. One notable feature-  a bluetooth module. 

Don’t get me wrong bluetooth, in and of itself, is not that innovative (it’s been around a very long time). What we’re seeing is the second order effect of these new mobile computing platforms. 

In the past, if an engineer wanted to build a new device they were forced to make a difficult decision. Embed native connectivity, hello SPOT, and all of the added cost that goes along with it or rely on intermittently available, but cheap, wifi. With a device in every pocket that’s capable of routing devices and data onto the network, there is a third option.

And, I believe, last week’s news was just the tip of the iceberg for a groundswell of new devices and activity that’s to come from this new, ubiquitous, connectivity.

In the wake of this week’s online surge to combat SOPA and PIPA, the New York Times found Chris Dodd, the current head of The Motion Picture Association of America, in a particularly reflective mood yesterday.

Looking back on his decades as a beltway insider, he posited that this recent wave of online activism was unlike any he’d encountered. From the article:

But the startlingly speedy collapse of the antipiracy campaign by some of Washington’s savviest players — not just the motion picture association, but also the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Recording Industry Association of America — signaled deep changes in antipiracy lobbying in the future. By Mr. Dodd’s account, no Washington player can safely assume that a well-wired, heavily financed legislative program is safe from a sudden burst of Web-driven populism.

Mr. Dodd said that the entire industry was surprised by the intensity of the objections that arose in the last couple of weeks. “This was a whole new different game all of a sudden,” he said. “This thing was considered by many to be a slam dunk.”

“This is altogether a new effect.” He could not remember seeing “an effort that was moving with this degree of support change this dramatically” in the last four decades, he added.

Mr. Dodd is right, this is an altogether new effect- in Washington.

But, as with most overnight sensations, these network effects aren’t all that new to those of us who’ve been deeply engaged in their development. 

We, as a community, have been making lurching, halting and, occasionally, spectacular progress in developing our understanding of these networks. At times, we’ve channeled that understanding into the silly, the stupid, the surreal, and, occasionally we’ve channeled them into the spectacular.

WIth any new tool, it takes time and practice to develop the understanding and skill necessary to wield it for maximum impact. I believe we’re finally hitting that critical inflection point of understanding and empowerment.

And that, I believe, is the new effect that Mr. Dodd has noted. 

On MLK day, I decided to take my kids to the Chabot Space Center to explore and take in one of their amazing planetarium shows. As we were getting seated, our baby, who is notoriously fussy, was doing what she does. Kind of whining, kind of talking, kind of screaming. As parents do, we were trying to get her to settle down, but she wasn’t having it.

As this was going on, the couple in front of us leaned into their little boy sitting between them and whispered “oh, she’s probably tired or hungry”. Fact of the matter was, she’d just woken from a long night’s sleep and was holding a bottle. So I gently leaned forward and jokingly said, “no, she’s just a brat”. 

Shortly after the movie started, the baby officially lost it and I was up and out of the theatre. Not 10 mins later and the family who I’d whispered to passed by with their child holding hands between them. Their kid had acted up and they had to remove him from the theatre. The father and I exchanged knowing glances and smiles. 

Fact of the matter was, our kids weren’t tired or hungry and probably could have held off a bathroom break until after the show finished. We were making excuses for them. Because, if they really were just brats that might hurt their self esteem, or worse, reflect poorly on us as parents.

The Atlantic has a fantastic piece every parent should read. In it the author, a psychiatrist, outlines a new phenomenon arising in her field: young adults from terrific homes with loving parents packed full of talent were showing up in her office feeling lost, adrift, unfulfilled.

She goes on to trace these feelings to a societal shift in parenting styles. Parents who once wanted respect from their kids, now desperately want to be their BFF. And in doing so, seem to be creating unintended second order effects. From the article:

When ego-boosting parents exclaim “Great job!” not just the first time a young child puts on his shoes but every single morning he does this, the child learns to feel that everything he does is special. Likewise, if the kid participates in activities where he gets stickers for “good tries,” he never gets negative feedback on his performance. (All failures are reframed as “good tries.”) According to Twenge, indicators of self-esteem have risen consistently since the 1980s among middle-school, high-school, and college students. But, she says, what starts off as healthy self-esteem can quickly morph into an inflated view of oneself.

In early adulthood, this becomes a big problem. “People who feel like they’re unusually special end up alienating those around them,” Twenge says. “They don’t know how to work on teams as well or deal with limits. They get into the workplace and expect to be stimulated all the time, because their worlds were so structured with activities. They don’t like being told by a boss that their work might need improvement, and they feel insecure if they don’t get a constant stream of praise. They grew up in a culture where everyone gets a trophy just for participating.

The trophy metaphor continues:

At the end of the season, the league finds a way to “honor each child” with a trophy. “They’re kind of euphemistic,” the coach said of the awards, “but they’re effective.” The Spirit Award went to “the troublemaker who always talks and doesn’t pay attention, so we spun it into his being very ‘spirited,’” he said. The Most Improved Player Award went to “the kid who has not an ounce of athleticism in his body, but he tries hard.” The Coaches’ Award went to “the kids who were picking daisies, and the only thing we could think to say about them is that they showed up on time. What would that be, the Most Prompt Award? That seemed lame. So we called it the Coaches’ Award.” There’s also a Most Valuable Player Award, but the kid who deserved it three seasons in a row got it only after the first season, “because we wanted other kids to have a chance to get it.” The coach acknowledged that everyone knew who the real MVP was.

Pulling this behavior forward, I’m beginning to see this parenting style taking root in startup culture.

As investor FOMO and entrepreneurial access to capital have increased, so too has the level of entitlement to that capital. Swap the trophy for a seed round, and that’s directionally where things are headed in startupland. Everyone gets a seed round. Everyone gets to be CEO. Everyone starts a billion dollar company. Everyone can be the next Zuckerberg. 

Just as with the kids lying on psychiatrist’s couches above, eventually the founders will come into contact with the real world. But the bullies on the playground they were protected from will now be unhappy customers. The encouraging teacher will be the mismatched cofounder. The coach who shielded them from wins and losses will be the investors looking for a return on their capital. For those who entered into entrepreneurship with that feeling of entitlement, they too will beginning to feel aimless, unfulfilled and adrift (although they’ll call it “pivoting”).

Tho I believe everyone ought to approach their careers as entrepreneurs, I don’t believe that means everyone has the skills or temperament for growing and running successful startups.

Not everyone gets a seed round, despite what you’re reading on Techcrunch.

PS- pretty sure the Atlantic piece inspires this SNL skit from over the weekend.

In her final episode, Oprah was asked if there was a common thread throughout her 25 years on the air. As she reflected on decades of interactions and interviews she distilled it down to one thing all of here guests shared:

I’ve talked to nearly 30,000 people on this show, and all 30,000 had one thing in common: They all wanted validation. If I could reach through this television and sit on your sofa or sit on a stool in your kitchen right now, I would tell you that every single person you will ever meet shares that common desire. They want to know: ‘Do you see me? Do you hear me? Does what I say mean anything to you?’

Understanding that one principle, that everybody wants to be heard, has allowed me to hold the microphone for you all these years.

This morning, as I woke to the news that the aggressive push to pass the controversial SOPA bill had been suspended (even if temporarily), I was reminded of the above sentiment.

In a post highlighting this change of direction on SOPA, the Examiner notes:

The online protests about the bill were surprising and large. They ranged anywhere from calling Representatives, companies, and senators to get them to change their mind, to actively moving domain’s away from and targeting the business model of the companies that supported/lobbied for the bill. GoDaddy lost well over 100,000 domains in the space of about 10 days due to their involvement with these bills, along with other various targets. Reddit in particular has been influential in turning the tide against SOPA and PIPA, and is a good demonstration of how the Internet enables Democracy.

I’m sure there were other forces at work that helped push the White House to take a position on the bill over the weekend, but the groundswell of activity from the technology community was certainly a factor.

As I engaged on this issue, I was blown away at the tools and resources that lowered the barrier for n00bs, like me, to be heard.

With just a few clicks I was able to find and contact my representatives and let them know my position on the bill. When there was new information available on arguments for or against the bill or proposed changes to the legislation, it spread like wildfire across my various social networks. Through these social networks and community sites, collective actions were organized and mobilized- from simply changing an avatar to moving domains to real world rallys and website blackouts. 

I know that there is still much work to be done and that these grassroots tools look like toys up against the power and influence of special interest groups and their lobbying dollars, but they’re an important and impactful start.

We’ve seen the power of these tools to organize and impact change on foreign soil. And now we’re seeing it on our own shores. 

It’s true that everyone wants to be heard, and today I’m especially grateful for the technologists and activists who are building the tools that allow us to be heard from the White House to the Senate floor.

Onward.