Easily one of our most eccentric speakers with a lot to say, Ben Parr was editor at Mashable when he spoke at Startup Grind. Watch to learn more about him growing up to be an astronaut, creating the next great company, and contributing to the entrepreneurial world.
[00:00:15.5] All right everybody, let’s try this again. Ben Parr. [Applause]. [To Ben:] Now you can come up.
[00:00:30]QUESTION: [Shake hands] The shake of brothership. Welcome to the StartUp Grind hotseat -- I mean, this seat, I don’t know if you knew this, but it’s one of the most famous chairs in Silicon Valley. Did you know that?
[00:00:42.5] BEN: I did not know that.
[00:00:43] QUESTION:We’ve had guys like Tony Conrad. We had Tony last month. We had MG Siegler.
[00:00:50] BEN: MG is a nice guy.
[00:00:51] Nice guy; he had some nice things to say about you. And we’ve had…
[00:00:55] BEN: I heard they said something -- I heard I was discussed for some reason?
[00:01:00] QUESTION:Oh, at the event?
[00:01:00.5] BEN: Yeah.
[00:01:01] QUESTION:What? You don’t subscribe to it? You don’t watch it every month?
[00:01:04] BEN: Umm.
[00:01:05] QUESTION:Well, you just say you do. You missed that piece?
[00:01:08] BEN: Absolutely, but I just missed it.
[00:01:10.5] QUESTION: I think he said some good things about you. Did he not say something good about you?
[00:01:14] BEN: I don’t know. I have a great relationship with MG.
[00:01:15] Yeah, he likes you; he really likes you. I mean, I was surprised how much he likes you, not in a weird way or anything.
[00:01:25] BEN: I’ll let him know.
[00:01:26] QUESTION:Let me introduce Ben Parr. Ben is a product of the Midwest. Born and raised in a small town in Illinois, attended Northwestern, graduated in Political Science, and Human Nature?
[00:01:40] BEN: Science and Human Culture, Political Science and Business.
[00:01:45]QUESTION: I screwed that up. Ben has lived all over the world. He’s lived in Croatia. He’s lived in Thailand. What I find very unique about Ben -- Ben is actually an entrepreneur first and has been involved in a number of different entrepreneurial ventures and he also happens to be a tech writer for possibly the largest tech blog -- as per page views -- on the web. No? You dispute that?
[00:02:15] BEN: Largest independent technology news website focused on digital.
[00:02:21] I screwed that up too.
[00:02:23] BEN: I’ll explain it this way: we are more than just technology now.
[00:02:25] QUESTION:That’s true. I actually want to talk about that. We’re going to get there. So tell us about -- so you graduated from Northwestern. Did you plan to be an entrepreneur? Did you plan to be something else? Like, what were you going to do? What was your grand scheme when you graduated from college? What were you gonna do?
[00:02:44] BEN: I was going to be an astronaut, but NASA said no, hell no.
[00:02:48] They shut it down.
[00:02:49] BEN: Oh yeah, they shut me down. I cried for weeks. So, let’s see. Recapping my life -- I was born in Princeton, Illinois, and … why am I doing that? Northwestern. So, I went to Northwestern and I originally went in as an Astronomy major. Actually, I was going to go into research, into space and science and focus on getting -- I actually wrote in my essay that my goal was to build a commercial space station. That is still my final life goal. I have four of them, and that is my final one.
[00:03:27] QUESTION:Do you want to share any of the other ones?
[00:03:29] BEN: I’m sure I’ll share them throughout this entire conversation. Building a great company is also one of them.
[00:03:34] Okay, that’s a good one.
[00:03:35] BEN: But, I realized quickly that I didn’t want to be on the research end of science, I wanted to be on the management and business end of science. So, that’s where the entrepreneurship comes in. And I built Northwestern’s entrepreneurship curriculum. I became president of Northwestern’s entrepreneurship group. I created one of its first entrepreneurship competitions called “Entrepreneur Idol” actually. And we had like audience voting -- you know, the whole bit. And now, they grew it. It was like a two school thing, and now it’s like a ten or fifteen school operation with like-- they’re giving away tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. It’s nice to see people take up the mantel and keep going. But, I’m an entrepreneur for most of the entrepreneurship curriculum. That’s the direction I was going. The journalism thing is kind of a fluke, really.
[00:04:29] QUESTION:So, talk to us about that. How did you -- let’s talk about you being an entrepreneur first. So, you’ve done a number of different ventures. You worked on some Facebook apps. You worked on some start-ups. What did you learn? Tell us something you learned. Tell us about a dark day in Ben Parr’s entrepreneurial life. Do you remember a dark day? Have you had dark days?
[00:04:52] BEN: I feel like I need low, sad music, and like storm. I need rain.
[00:04:58] QUESTION:We could probably do that. Do we have that?
[00:05:01] BEN: That one works too! I guess.
[00:05:03] QUESTION:That was way sad.
[00:05:05] BEN: So, all right, a dark time story. So, when I first left Northwestern in 2008, first thing I did was I worked with a Facebook application company. I joined two of my entrepreneurial mentors in building a Facebook application company. This was during called, I guess, what you could call the boom when Facebook apps were doing very, very well. And, we were building this app called “Friend Quotes”, which took Youtube videos, Flickr photos, all those different types of media and you could turn them into these beautiful mosaics and you could create a mosaic for an event like maybe a sports game or maybe a tribute to an athlete or maybe to just commemorate a birthday party. And it was beautiful; it was easily shareable, that kind of thing. And we got some initial traction, but not all that much. And what we learned, and this is the lesson I learned, product-wise, is that your users have to get value out of the product almost instantly. If they do not get value out of the product within seconds, they’re going to jump ship and go to something else where they’re going to get the value. And that was one of the hard lessons. There were a couple of other hard lessons, but that’s probably the biggest take away that I took from that, because eventually, Facebook changed how Apps went viral and our startups did many other Facebook application startups and I moved on.
[00:06:31] QUESTION:And so, you worked on the Facebook application and then what? Tell us about the story of getting to Mashable. So, you joined Mashable in 2008. Is that right?
[00:06:42] BEN: So, I joined as a part-time writer in 2008. I had a full-time job at a Web Health company called spine-health.com. And it was, again, I joined one of my entrepreneurial mentors at that company. We were gonna try to build it into the next Web MD. And, it went fine for a while, but, eventually my mentor left, and I’m not really all that into health, and I don’t have any back pain. So, I didn’t care too much. I can tell you everything about sciatica or herniated discs though. I still remember everything.
[00:07:13]QUESTION: How about a sad music sound that we need now? That’s when we need it.
[00:07:18] BEN: The site did a lot for -- a lot of people that have a really debilitating side of diseases. But, I didn’t have that passion for it. So, I decided long before that I was going to move and I didn’t have any job or anything. I was actually looking at product jobs and startup jobs in the valley and I was gonna move no matter what. Only a few days before I moved actually, Mashable came to me and was like, “We want to have you full time as an editor”, and they offered me a job. I was like, “We’ll see how this goes!”. And here I am now.
[00:07:51] QUESTION:Yeah, so, at the time. I mean what, in terms of where it is today, what percentage would you put it at? Was it 1 percent of the amount of traffic that you get today? Was it 10 percent? I mean, how much has it grown?
[00:08:02] BEN: I’d say, it’s grown more than 10-fold at least since I‘ve joined. It’s grown exponentially. It’s been amazing. I mean, it was well less than 10 people when I joined. Now we’re sixty plus. And growing.
[00:08:16] QUESTION:And what do you think -- what was the catalyst to getting -- for Mashable to be this blog that Peter Cashmore is running or writing on to -- was there a single event that was like this is something real. This could be -- was there one event that kind of started to get on that path?
[00:08:39] BEN: I think I thought it was real at the very beginning. I mean, it’s just a steady stream. We threw our first Mashable awards over in Las Vegas, and having like -- I remember walking through the audience and like, huh, [INAUDIBLE] is here. “Hey, what’s up?” And getting more and more inbound. I remember getting a call like 3 minutes. It was, “Do you want to interview Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore in 5 minutes?” I’m like okay. It was like 7pm.
[00:09:13] QUESTION:Did you do it?
[00:09:15] BEN: Well yes, of course I did. It was a very lovely conversation.
[00:09:20] They are lovely people.
[00:09:20] BEN: Have you ever met them in person?
[00:09:22] I have not met Ashton Kutcher, you know. I haven’t so, it’s definitely on my -- you know you have your 4 things and I have my 3, and that’s one of them.
[00:09:35] BEN: Just go to Combinator Demo Day. He’s always there.
[00:09:40] QUESTION:So was Mashable always this social media site? It feels to me that one of the things that really helped Mashable was it got on the suggestive user list very, very early. And they had all this great content, but that to me, was like this big stamp of hey -- it was one of the very first new sites I recognized that was on that list, and I feel that it grew exponentially after that.
[00:10:11] BEN: The suggested user list was an interesting time. Yeah, it definitely helped us get more visibility, but. I think at the same time we have a very strong social strategy from the very beginning. We don’t just create news, we also create Evergreen content that -- useful content, tips on how to better use social tools, tips on how to get most out of social tools, out of different products, tips for entrepreneurs, tips for development. We believe in giving our readers more than just the news we want to give our readers -- different insights, different advice, different ways they can really utilize the digital world. And a lot of our readers are marketers or digital influencers and we want to give them to tools and the power to create change.
[00:11:03] QUESTION:Can you confirm that Peter Cashmore’s beard is actually real? Is that real hair or? Or is it spray-on?
[00:11:08] BEN: I have never felt Pete Cashmore’s beard on purpose to find out whether or not it was real. I will make the assumption that yes, it is real.
[00:11:19] QUESTION:Mashable has gone through this evolution right? It was this tech blog -- well, it still is. It was kind very focused on tech to begin with, and now it’s evolved.
[00:11:33] BEN: We recently launched a new design of Mashable, and it includes new navigation, we have new channels, we have social media, we have technology, we have business, we have entertainment, and we have US News and World. And you’ll see more content for all those different channels as we expand. I mean, the goal is to be a source of information for the digital world. How is digital changing all these different industries? How is digital impacting lives? How can you better utilize digital?
[00:12:06] QUESTION:Who in the room reads Mashable. Can you raise your hand?
[00:12:10] BEN: It’s find if you don’t. We’ll just take you out later. We’ll deal with you.
[00:12:15] QUESTION:If you really want to feel good about yourself, how many of you read VentureBeat? Okay, wow. That was more than I thought. So, there’s been some criticism. Jolie O’Dell had this pretty widely read review of her leaving Mashable and some of her thoughts were on that. And I think that’s been something that I’ve heard quite a bit. You know, Mashable has seemed to, for better or worse, it’s kind of gone into this phase: we talk about everything, right? We kind of talk about, I don’t what a good example is, it’s very, very broad. Have you guys experienced that? What is your take? Do you believe that this has been a very positive thing for the blog? Do you miss how it was before having been more focused? Do you -- what are your thoughts?
[00:13:]08 BEN: Our goal number one is to provide value for our readers, and our readers are interested and have always expressed interest in beyond just hard technology or social media. There’s a lot to be said about what is the impact of digital in the entertainment world. What is the impact of digital on politics? And I think, like for example in the next year, we are going to see a huge emphasis on that as the campaign rolls out. There’s -- I think, I love that Mashable can reach so many people, and has so many different and unique voices, and that we have such a diverse reader base. We have a very diverse reader base worldwide. It’s more mainstream -- it’s not focused on Silicon Valley, it’s not focused on Insider Baseball; we don’t do Insider Baseball. We focus on the news that our readers find interesting. We focus on tips and information and content that will help them better utilize digital. And, we will continue expanding as we look to grow further.
[00:14:18] QUESTION:So, it seems like especially recently in the last couple months, blogging has -- especially tech blogging -- has been all over the news. And it feels like -- blogging to me used to be this nice thing that was like fencing for sports. It’s like white gloves.
[00:14:37] BEN: I’ve never heard blogging compared to fencing.
[00:14:39] Yeah, well, you’ve never been the start of crime before. I do it all the time.
[00:14:43] BEN: Someone give me a sword, I’m kind of scared now.
[00:14:46] QUESTION:So, like, it was this gentleman’s sport, right? It was like, hey, I’ll write about my stuff, you write about your stuff, high-five! And now, it’s like, it’s like MMA right now. I mean, it’s like you’ve got VentureBeat yelling at TechCrunch. Got TechCrunch yelling at All Things D. Got Mashable just doing their thing, not worry about anyone else. I mean, what’s your take? How is blogging in the tech world evolving, and is it a good thing or is it a bad thing?
[00:15:15] BEN: Just like any other -- I think all these different publications have a place and have a different role and they all make contributions, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, all of them make great contributions, especially to the entrepreneurship world and to the technology world in general. And, Mashable, we make a different contribution to it. I think having different voices is a great thing. Yes, it can be entertaining to watch some of the little squabbles, but I think in the end, I think they are just distractions. I think the best stuff is people breaking stories, people writing really insightful information, people really analyzing maybe what Facebook did, people analyzing what Apple’s going to do, us keeping these companies on their toes because we have the ability and we have the responsibility to talk about what kind of impact will Facebook have on privacy, what kind of impact will the patent wars have on industry, and those are very important issues that we need to focus on.
[00:16:21] QUESTION:Where do you put the line -- where is the editorial integrity line with you specifically? Like, I mean Mashable, for a while was in a rumor to be in intox with AOL. This was maybe a year, year and a half ago, two years ago. Let’s say that happened, where does Mashable draw the TechCrunch line? Where’s the Ben Parr line on if you had been acquired by AOL, if you’d been acquired by Google, would you write a very critical story about Google on that blog?
[00:16:52] BEN: The Ben Parr line can be found somewhere near the equator, somewhere near in the south end of Mexico. It’s like the Bermuda Triangle.
[00:17:02] QUESTION:You’d write it in Spanish?
[00:17:04] BEN: I’d write it in an ancient language nobody knows. It’s called Kling-On. To answer your question for real, I mean, editorial integrity is important, and I think just for us. We’re not out to pick fights, so, that’s not what we do. that’s not what we’ve ever done. We focus on what our readers really want. They don’t want Insider Baseball. They want real content. They don’t want drama. So, really, the editorial line is plain and simple. What do our readers want? What’s best for our readers? And I think if publications follow that line then good things generally result. It’s the same thing -- you trust in your users. Your users are right.
[00:17:49] QUESTION:But these stories get insane amounts of page views right? I mean, like, Michael Errington‘s first…
[00:17:55] BEN: I think a story about Facebook’s big changes makes a lot more page views than a story about a technology figure that’s only known in the technology industry. Facebook is known by billions of people. Michael Errington is known by millions. There’s a big difference.
[00:18:13] QUESTION:I agree. At the same time, the interesting thing about this, and I think it’s appropriate that we have you at this time. This whole experience is one of the few things that my non-tech friends are actually interested in. You know, I’ll get the hey, what did you think about the new Facebook redesign. My mom will be like, “Have you seen these Groupon deals?” And then you get the random… my grandma is asking me about, “Did you see about Mike Errington? Did you see what he did last week?” And I’m like how do you know about this stuff? And I think like, that’s, that’s how big this has become. And, I think it’s not just TechCrunch, it’s All Things D and it’s… last night, Venture Beat’s trying to get in the mix. I think it’s great you guys don’t. The question is: they’re doing it for a reason, I would think, not just for drama. They’re doing it because it produces amazing page views.
[00:19:07] BEN: I don’t know what they’re page views are on that. They’re audiences are different. It wouldn’t generate page views for us. And I mean, well sure, some people are gonna notice that, I think it’s a fleeting thing compared to the bigger technology stories of the day. So, we focus on that. We focus on what Apple’s doing, what HP is doing, what the great startups are all building. I mean, that’s just me personally. Yes, it’s fun to look at drama, be like hehehe. But, I think it diverts focus, I really do.
[00:19:44] QUESTION:Other than yourself, name two or three important or influential bloggers or journalists that you follow, that you think do good work.
[00:19:54] BEN: I can’t name myself. Darn it! Kara Swisher comes to mind of All Things D and I have a fundamental respect for her, for her ability to analyze, her ability to say what it is. I think a lot of times journalists can be too polite, to say. In terms of they don’t ask the tough questions enough times, some people. And Kara asks the tough questions, and she asks the tough questions of entrepreneurs, she asks the tough questions of execs, she asks the tough questions of herself and her own staff. Obviously, I am in love with my own team, but I’m not gonna name any individual because they’re all great, but that’s …
[00:20:38] They’re all watching, I’m sure.
[00:20:40] BEN: They really are all great. I’m taking -- there’s a couple shining spotlights in different organizations. I think it’s just -- I think really what you see in the end is just great content greats rewarded with a lot of readers. You get a lot of readers, you get a lot of followers, you get that kind of thing. You’ll see stories broken by Nick Bilton, New York Times, MG Seigler, TechCrunch, and I think it’s best you get some very smart and very interesting contributions from those people who are willing to -- who are willing to ask tough questions.
[00:21:27] QUESTION:So here’s one of my toughest questions: this is about Facebook. One of the leading tech pundits on Facebook, I would say, very knowledgeable.
[00:21:38] BEN: By the way, very random… oh, actually you finish.
[00:21:39] Go ahead.
[00:21:40] BEN: Very random, wasn’t the first question supposed to be asked by a woman you said on Twitter? What was that about?
[00:21:44] QUESTION:Oh yeah, Kat. You wanna ask? Oh, no, it wasn’t Kat. Is Dean here? Sorry.
[00:21:51] BEN: We’ll keep going. I was curious about that.
[00:21:54] QUESTION:What you put on forms -- do you remember what you put on forms? It came from that. It said what question people would ask.
[00:22:01] BEN: Oh, that question! Oh, I thought it was… I wrote -- someone asked me on Form Spring what I wish what everyone would say to me, and I think it said I wish everyone said you would marry me? Would you marry me and then I would have the pick of the litter.
[00:22:18] QUESTION:Yeah, you said you wanted somebody to ask you every single day -- to have one person to have you every single day then you would. You would have a lot of choices. We were gonna do that, but my plan is not here, so I think what we should do probably is at the end when we actually take questions, we should probably allow, if anyone wants to -- male or female -- I suppose…
[00:22:43] BEN: We’re equal opportunity here.
[00:22:45] QUESTION:No judgment. So, you know. Feel free to ask Ben and I would imagine it won’t help with coverage because you guys aren’t swayed by those kinds of things, right?
[00:22:56] BEN: Yeah, we’re not. Although my heart will be warm and fuzzy and then I’ll be confused and scared.
[00:23:04] QUESTION:So tell us, back on this line of people wanna hear about Facebook, they wanna hear about Apple, they wanna hear about HP. Do we really want to know about what Mark Zuckerberg is eating or what he isn’t eating? Do you feel like this is something that people yearn to know? This, again, this falls in the stream of, like, of it gets great page views. Mark Zuckerberg killed a bison; that’s a great -- like, man, I gotta click on that. I have to. I have to know, did he really seriously -- in city limits, like kill a bison? That’s definitely not legal. You can’t even cut down a tree without permission from 100 people. So, you know, there are these other stories about their updates. So, I leave it to you. Do we need to know what Zuckerberg is eating for dinner. Is this a story worth reporting? You be honest; no judgements, like I said a minute ago.
[00:24:02] BEN: It’s not really about that. It’s an interesting fun title. I had to go with it. It’s more -- they care about Zuckerberg. They care about -- he is a celebrity figure now. He is this tightened figure, and people are interested in what makes him tick. And, I think the stories not he killed a bison. Really, the story is he is doing this personal, spiritual thing to only eat what he kills himself and he’s doing it for -- with good intentions. Like, not to understand what he has taken, and taking in. I think that’s interesting in terms of understanding who Mark Zuckerberg is as a person. And, I think we all -- a lot of care who Mark Zuckerberg is as a person. He’s someone a lot of us look up to. He’s someone we can learn from. And, he’s…
[00:24:57] QUESTION:And he makes a good bison burger.
[00:24:58] BEN: Well, I don’t know that. I’ve never tried one of his bison burgers.
[00:25:00] You should.
.
[00:25:02] BEN: Have you?
[00:25:03] It’s a new hot product. It’s a product extension they’re gonna do -- Facebook. Zuckerberg’s bison burgers.
[00:25:10] BEN: Someone should make a Facebook fan page on that…
[00:25:13] Copy it right here guys. Hire him guys. Hire this guy
[00:25:17] BEN: That’s a Facebook fan page waiting to be made. I’ll wait while someone goes to do that for me.
[00:25:20] QUESTION:It will be done by the end of this meeting, I’m sure. What are your thoughts on the new profile design. Have you -- were you. Is it as big of a deal as people are saying? Do you think it is fundamentally changing things? What are your thoughts?
[00:25:34] BEN: It’s a big deal in terms of, it changes how we live our lives on the Internet. Because, it is not just a string of updates, it is now an archive on everything you’ve ever done on the Internet. Imagine looking at a timeline 20 years from now, and seeing the things you did when you were 20.
[00:25:56] QUESTION:Like who you poked.
[00:22:57] BEN: Do they keep that?
[00:22:58] They do. They most certainly do, and how much you play Farmville. I’m like legitimately concerned about that particular stat.
[00:26:09] BEN: I’m interested in someone from my generation when that -- one of us eventually becomes President of the United States -- what historians are going to do when they’re looking back at it all. They’re gonna have so much information, which makes you think it’s a good thing, because that gives us a much more complete picture of these great figures. Just imagine you could look and ask what kind of life events made Steve Jobs, and these little details really do matter. I mean, yeah, maybe we really don’t need to know that he ate bison burgers on Tuesday, March 5. But, we do want to -- but, it gives us -- I don’t know if any of you, how many of you have activated the new timeline profiles? How many of you have not even seen them really yet? So, like, when you look at this thing, instead of just like profile…
[00:27:06] QUESTION:How many of you know that Michael Errington left TechCrunch?
[00:27:13] BEN: Do yourself a favor and look at the new profiles, because they -- there is a completely different way of understanding your friends. Because you go down and you can see who they friended, what kind of things they did, they kind of status updates they did. You can get lost in one of your friends timelines for hours. But, I think Facebook wants it to be this historical archive. When I saw it, they had this map feature where it maps everything you checked in. Now, I wanna check in… Like, Four Square check-ins don’t count towards Facebook check-ins. Now I really wish it did because, right now I wanna put all my Four Square check-ins into it because I want to complete that map. I want to be like, here are all the places I’ve traveled. I want to be able to look and be like I remembered when I went there. And, maybe click on that trip I went to Croatia or that trip I went to Japan. And click on that, and I can get all of the pictures that I took there, all the tags that happened there, the status updates. Imagine that kind of power. It creates a real scrapbook. It is a database of our lives.
[00:28:20] QUESTION:Yeah, it’s interesting, too that they’ve kept all this data for better or for worse. But, it now… some of it, like that piece is really cool, right? To know all those different places you’ve check in or you’ve been. That’s a really cool piece of data, to know who you friended and when. There could be some really interesting things about that, and who knows what else they have in there that they haven’t really shed. But, at the moment, it does seem pretty cool. What, in terms of mobile startups and mobile right now, what apps are you using the most? What excites you about mobile at the moment?
[00:28:54] BEN: What apps am I using on mobile? Just curious, who is an iPhone user, raise your hand. Dear Gosh… Android? Windows Phone?
[00:29:06]QUESTION: Blackberry? Where’s the Blackberry guy?
[00:29:08] BEN: Blackberry? Some other phone?
[00:29:13] QUESTION:That’s a copier. Do not hire that guy. I’m telling you, you will regret it.
[00:29:19] BEN: That’s like dinosaur phones. That’s like a fossil. So, I’m excited that in terms of the mobile apps, there’s a lot of very, very interesting applications. People are really starting to figure out what you can do with a phone. Being able to see the world through photos. Being able to pay with your phone. That just is going to happen more and more. Being able to exchange contact information through phone. Being able to turn it into your personal gaming device. There’s a lot of cool things that phones can do. Phones are going to really replace the majority of the time we spend on laptops. We are going to be in a mobile world where we will be able to do most of our work through these devices. And there’s a lot more coming. There’s a lot of different interfaces. It’s not gonna be a touch screen forever. It’s going to be much more advanced. New interfaces, interfaces where we can interact on the fly. There’s a lot that still can be done. I also am excited that there’s -- I think, there’s more competition coming. I’m an iPhone user. I love my iPhone. The iPhone, the iOS is frankly the best user interface out of all mobile phones right now. But I’ve seen -- I have a Windows phone as well and I actually think Windows phone has a very very good interface. I think Android is getting there. Android is very open and allows you to customize a lot, and I think there is more and more coming.
[00:30:49] QUESTION:Why didn’t you say anything nice about Web OS
[00:30:53] BEN: I don’t know much about the dinosaurs.
[00:30:58] QUESTION:What about -- speaking of apple, do you think 10 years from now -- Steve Jobs was the CEO in 2011. In 2021, do you think we’ll still be clamoring for Apple Products. Do you think we’ll still be lining up at stores?
[00:31:14] BEN: I have no clue about that one. The only truth I can say about that is that all empires rise and fall. There is no exception. There has never been an exception in our history. There will be a time when the sun sets on the Apple empire. I don’t know if that’s 10 years from now or 100 years from now. But, right now Apple is right where it needs to be and is not only dominating smartphone market but the tablet market is making big end roads. And the laptop market is going to definitely jump into future markets in the near future. I don’t know where it will be 10 years from now. It’s very, very, very tough to stay on top like that for very, very long.
[00:32:01] QUESTION:Do we have any questions from the audience? You can-- we have a Startup Grind app. You’re welcome to submit questions through there which I can see. But, if -- since I didn’t give the shot at the beginning, is there anyone here who has a question for Ben?
[00:32:12] BEN: Your question should come in the form of an interpretive dance.
[00:32:18] QUESTION:You have been watching our videos.
[00:32:20] BEN: Or a sing-along. Is there a will-you-marry me sing-along? I was thinking Row Row Row Your Boat.
[00:32:30] QUESTION:Yeah, go ahead and I’ll probably repeat it so we can get it on video. So how would you break up Mashable’s reading base?
[00:32:50] BEN: I can’t get into specific numbers, mostly because I don’t have the reports in front of me right now. But, it’s very -- especially for a technology focus publication, it’s very diverse. It’s both startup and corporate. You find a lot of -- there’s a lot of marketers from a lot of big agencies and there’s a lot of -- there’s a lot of PR. There’s a lot of startup founders that read us. There’s a lot of technologists. There’s a lot of developers. We’re one of the publications where our gender ratio is almost even, and you don’t find that in most technology focused publications. I’m proud of our diverse, our very diverse users and our very diverse reader base. What’s your name by the way? Everyone say their name when they ask a question. Hey Brandon, what’s up? I like the hat.
[00:33:48]QUESTION: Yeah, that’s a little. What are you guys planning? Are you guys scheming something? To overthrow the Startup Grind?
[00:33:56] BEN: They’re perfect for the interpretive dance.
[00:34:32] QUESTION:Let me ask the question again. Do you ever feel the urge to get sucked back into being a glamorous founder?
[00:34:40] BEN: If you are in the business of glamour and you want to be a startup founder you’re in the wrong business. Glamour doesn’t come to many startup founders, just as glamour doesn’t come to very many actresses or actors. The answer is yes, I love what I do. But, I also love building things and there will be a point where I go back and I go build things. And I work on things now. I can’t talk about them right now, but I work on them. I work on a couple different projects and play with cool ideas and work with some very, very smart and amazing people. And, but I think I’ll always write in some way and in some fashion. And I think I’ll always be involved in entrepreneurship in some fashion. The ratio at what it is will change over time. Unless I make a billion dollars in which case I’ll live on a boat.
[00:35:38] QUESTION:This question is from Bernie from our app. Where’s Bernie? Thanks Bernie. What’s your take on Amazon Fire’s platform that rivals Facebook and Google Plus?
[00:35:51] BEN: Amazon Fire doesn’t really rival Facebook or Google Plus in my opinion.
[00:35:56] QUESTION:As an aggregator of content and audience.
[00:35:58] BEN: As an aggregator of content… okay, that’s interesting. Jeff Davis did his best impression of Steve Jobs and he did a very good job. Very good price point, good platform; obviously not as strong, it’s not as powerful as an iPad, but what do you expect for something that is less than half the price of an iPad. But, I think really you saw that they really thought about the ecosystem. This is an Android device. But, really it doesn’t run Android. It runs Amazon. The thing is Amazon. It’s an Amazon ecosystem. They just used part of the guts from Android to build it. And they’re gonna build out this Amazon ecosystem, this Amazon interface in all the future tablets and all the future stuff they do. It’s true, they are really building a platform and they’re trying to be a media platform. They’re not trying to be a social platform, they’re trying to be a media platform. They want to be the primary consumption experience for your movies, your music, your tv shows, for all of that. And they’ve done a good job so far, but they’re also competing against Apple and in a way Facebook with the Spotify and you saw there’s a lot of media in the Facebook and a shocking amount of media. I think there is kind of a battle for attention for that.
[00:37:18] Follow-up?
[00:37:31] BEN: Oh, so let’s talk about that story. Yes, I did read it. Amazon, one of the favorite things about -- one of the smartest things Amazon did with Fire was their Silk Browser. Their browser is half on the tablet and half in the cloud. It ports all the difficult stuff, all the stuff that takes up, all the processing power to the cloud and then sends it back, which makes for a faster browser. But, that also means there’s a lot of data on Amazon servers. I don’t know what they’re going to do with that. I’m going to definitely ask them about it. But, I definitely think that, just like any other company, data is king. Data is always king. Data gives you more power. Data gives you more information and data gives you more power, more ability to make decisions, more ability to give users what they want. Are they going to be competing with Google in that way? I don’t know, that could happen. I certainly will never use -- I can’t imagine using a search engine from Amazon versus Google but you never know. The thing is about these big technology companies: they are all competing in different areas in some way. I mean, Google is -- Google’s competing with Amazon in terms of the music players, but they’re not competing in terms of Ecommerce as much, but they might be more. They ally in certain things and they become enemies in certain things. It’s a very, very complicated relationships between all these technology companies.
[00:39:03] QUESTION:Constantine. Is Facebook luring -- does Facebook know too much about us? Basically is what your asking, right? Oh, we say that here too. Trust me, Constantine. I use that almost as much as I use the fencing analogy. Yeah.
[00:40:01] BEN: Well your freedom is to say I don’t want to use Facebook and not sign up and turn off your account.
[00:40:06] QUESTION:You can’t.
[00:40:08] BEN: Your not on Facebook? And you’re the vast minority. Facebook is simply going with what users want, and they predicted correctly over the years. The trend is, and will continue to be, people will share more because people are more comfortable with it. Privacy is going to be an outdated concept in the next couple of years as more and more of our lives focus around sharing what we’re doing, making it easier to communicate back and forth. Is it troubling? Yes. But, it’s -- I frankly think of it more as an adjustment period. In 15 years, 10 years, we’re going to wonder why we shared so little, and how could we have survived with sharing so little? I think that’s the direction the world is going. Hi Tiffany.
[00:41:12] QUESTION:Can I repeat that? I’ve been screwing these up. What is your view on privacy and screening in regards to hiring?
[00:41:24] BEN: If I am a CEO, if I’m a company, I’m going to screen you for everything I can find publicly on the Web. It’s just the smart and logical thing to do. I have a responsibility to hire the best people. Privacy -- it’s not -- none of that is off limits. This is the new era. If you don’t want something -- if you don’t want something to reach the web you have two choices. You either don’t post it, or probably better: you don’t do it. And that’s the new paradigm.
[00:41:55] QUESTION:We could clap for that. Come on. I’m serious.
[00:42:01] BEN: My rule is I don’t post anything that I wouldn’t want my mother to see. But, the flipside is I’m more and more comfortable with my mother and other people seeing more of what I do. And that’s what’s going to happen generally overall. In terms of the job search, I think it’s just fine. I think frankly that employers need to figure out who they think the best candidates are, and it shows a lack of discipline if you are posting pictures of yourself drunk in a tu-tu at a bar somewhere. I’ve seen these pictures, they’re scary.
[00:42:39] QUESTION:Who are you looking at?
[00:42:42] BEN: No comment on that.
[00:42:43] Alex. You iOS users.
[00:42:48] BEN: I’ll repeat this one more time. I think privacy is an outdated concept. It is slowly, slowly seeping away. It will be something we don’t think about as much in the future.
[00:42:59] Yeah.
[00:43:01] BEN: What’s your name? Hey, what’s up? I’m doing good, you? Anyway… I am hot, yes. Thank you for noticing.
[00:43:18] QUESTION:And this is one of our weirder events that we’ve ever had. Do you want to propose? Or, because now would be the time.
[00:43:26] BEN: I’m gonna stop you right now. No! Continue. No. Repeat the question.
[00:43:58] QUESTION:So, yeah, about that. So, the question is: will employers -- will employers judge us because we can’t be who we really want to be online? Is that right? Does that sound fair?
[00:44:13] BEN: I don’t think that’s what it is. I think it’s don’t be stupid. The real truth is like if you want to be who you want to be you probably want to work with a company where you can be who you want to be. I think that’s the most important thing. Some employers aren’t going to like someone who has tattoos and has more piercing but who will fit in another culture or organization. I don’t think you need to hide who you are, but I also think a lot of people settle for the job, for a job. Or they settle for a business partner or they settle for a relationship and because of that, then they have to hide what they shared because they don’t share those same values. Yeah, I say that in a way where I know it’s very tough to get a job right now. But, that’s I guess the balance. If your not an organization where your values are the same as theirs, then yeah you’re going to have to hide some stuff. That’s how it’s always been though. The only difference is now you have a lot more opportunities to share what you’re doing.
[00:45:20] QUESTION:Yeah, I think too what you said a minute ago is totally right. You’ve gotta have this perspective of more than like what I’m doing on Friday night if you care about this. If you don’t care, then write posts on whatever you want. But, yeah, if you care what your grand kids will see about you in 40 years, I think about that all the time. Do I want my grand kids to know that I poked XYZ person? At the moment no.
[00:45:48] BEN: How old are you anyway?
[00:45:49] QUESTION:Yeah, yeah. Well, I’ve got a 12 year old grandchild. I’m worried about them. What?
[00:45:56] BEN: No, so. Are you -- did you find the fountain of youth? Because I would like some please. Or crazy pills?
[00:46:06] QUESTION:We have crazy pills that are startup. Like, no, but you’ve gotta have that perspective. Be aware of what you’re doing and writing.
[00:46:14] BEN: Everything you say is recorded for future history.
[00:46:18] QUESTION:Spencer, how many more questions do we have? Okay, three more questions. Yeah. Startup alliance.
[00:46:32] BEN: I understand why they did it. They didn’t handle it right at all. They could have handled it much better. Frankly, I think maybe it would have been nicer if they had the ability to put maybe your nickname in the middle or something like that. I think there’s a balance between their position and the position of pseudonyms. I mean Twitter is the place for having whatever pseudo name you want. Facebook is the place for full names. Google -- they’re goal is to build the real name information graph to compete with Facebook. That’s why the do the real name policy. It’s just that they could handle it better. I understand why they do the policy, though.
[00:47:16] QUESTION:Yeah. How do you look at semantic versus human created news and what’s your view on what?
[00:47:33] BEN: So, let me quickly hit pay walls. There are good pay walls and there are bad pay walls. Wall Street Journal pay wall is not terribly useful to anybody. You get -- I remember reading this comparison. There’s the comparison of the Buckingham Palace versus one of those little tiny fences in front of the garden where it says please don’t step on the grass. So, a lot more people can enjoy the grass and a lot more people -- maybe they’re willing to pay to get in. A few people might step over the line, but not that many. The Buckingham Palace -- a giant fence wall, no one goes in. They’re like, I give up, I don’t care. I consider the Buckingham Palace to be Wall Street Journals pay wall and I consider New York Times pay wall to be more like you can step on the grass. The truth of the matter is that news organizations have to find ways to make money and I understand why they put them up. But, if you don’t implement them in the right way then your traffic drops and a lot less people read your content, and more important big stories like the stories where reporters risk their lives to get the scoop. Behind a pay wall, that can’t be shared. And in a temp pay wall the stories will be allowed to be shared and you can read the first 15 stories or so for free in a given month. I think that is a flexible model and you won’t feel compelled -- like, I feel that I should pay -- and the numbers show so far that they’ve done decently well. I’m curious to see where the numbers go in the future. There is gonna be a lot of tweaking to find the right one. In terms of, what do you mean exactly by semantic? Like generated content? Machine-generated content. It’s getting more -- I’ve seen -- its shocking how some of these programs can create maybe a sports story for Little League and that. There’s a little bot that can take basic data from a little league game and turn it into a basic story with -- which reasonably well simulates a person writing the article with key information. The thing is machines cannot make those judgment calls, cannot make opinion, do not have that capability They do not have reasoning. We might have a different conversation when there’s artificial intelligence, and machines can reason. But, until then, human content needs to remain king and you need that analysis. You need that ability to dig down deeper into the numbers and into the information and find the truth. And a machine cannot do that, and a human can.
[00:50:22] Okay, last question.
[00:50:24] BEN: You get the last question. You get like a -- does he get a candy bar or something? You get a high-five.
[00:51:01] QUESTION:Where do you see lobbying in regards to privacy in the things going with web companies, specifically.
[00:51:11] BEN: So, what’s always happened in the past. It’s either big companies or a large coalition of small companies. They create an alliance. They create a group or they create a pact or they create something because individually they aren’t strong enough but collectively they may be. Is that necessary for the valley? Frankly, it probably would get better policies for the valley if they had more representation. I understand why
Facebook for example created their own pact this week. They created their own pact to go lobby in favor of social networking for policies that help social networking. Yeah, government’s not a fun game. Government…
[00:51:55] QUESTION:They’re playing a game, right?
[00:51:59] BEN: You have to play in order to get what you want. That’s just how it is. And I think you don’t have to play, but you’re better off if you find a way to play. It’s not necessary I don’t think right now for startups, but there are certain issues where if they banded together -- like startup visas come right to mind. Stronger organization to band together. You can clap.
[00:52:23] QUESTION:Yeah, yeah okay. Let’s applaud him for that. Alex. Freaking out poor employees. I mean another example is Yelp’s CEO Jeremy going to Google -- or going to in front of Congress and talking about how Google screwed them over. That’s -- what a way to fight competition right? You go for Congress and try to get them to react and get them to do something to help them out. It’s playing a game.
[00:52:54] BEN: Politics really is a game. And they got asked to go by the Justice Department to testify and to talk about that, about the Google stuff. I don’t know what else there is to say about government besides man is inefficient. I wish it could be run like a startup.
[00:53:13] Let’s give Ben a round of applause. [APPLAUSE]
END OF VIDEO