January, 2008


2
Jan 08

10 years ago today

It was 10 years ago today that Brian Roddy and I drove to Sacramento to incorporate Reactivity (Bryan Rollins, our 3rd founder, wasn’t here yet). Seems like a lifetime ago — I wondered when we did that whether we’d make it 10 years, since the vast majority of new enterprises fail much sooner. We didn’t make it all 10, but we made it more than 9, with Brian and Mike and Peter and others selling the company to Cisco a little under a year ago now.

I spent a lot of time thinking about those 10 years on my run today — it was such an important period in my life I don’t know that I’ve really been able to process it. What I do know is that starting Reactivity and working on it with Brian, Bryan, Mike and many, many others over the years is something that I’m very proud of, and I know that it’s shaped much of how I think about the world in general, and the tech biz specifically.

Anyway, nothing profound — just thought I’d note the anniversary.


2
Jan 08

huckabee and pakistan

Bah. The idea that Mike Huckabee floated last week in Iowa on Bhutto’s death, that her assassination underscores our need to strengthen our border with Mexico, is complete hogwash.

But more than that, it’s shameful — racist, uninformed, and cynical in its delivery. It’s embarrassing to me that a man with such a heinous point of view can be a front runner in any election, let alone one for our country’s top office.


2
Jan 08

Terror Presidency, by Jack Goldsmith

I don’t particularly agree with Goldsmith’s politics — he’s a very conservative lawyer who writes here about his time working in the Office of Legal Counsel in Ashcroft’s Justice Department — but I really liked reading this book. It gives a thorough analysis of Goldsmith’s work related to much of the 9/11-related opinions, and his eventual overturning of the infamous terror-memo. Goldsmith doesn’t have any particular ethical objection to torture — in fact, he supports it — but he has strong objections to how we’re going about it. In particular, he argued with Gonzales and Cheney et al that the executive branch of our government should have worked with Congress to pass laws which would explicitly make what we’re doing in Guantanamo and elsewhere legal. He objects to the overreach of the Executive branch and the needless use/usurpation of power that they’ve exhibited over the past several years.

What this book did for me was to help me understand what’s happening in our government today, and to separate the issues of what I believe is ethical (and how America & Americans should behave) from what is lawful under our Constitution and laws. And it reinforced to me that future generations will look back at these two terms and bemoan the fundamental weakening of our governmental system by the Bush Administration. The disdain it has for checks and balances, the love of secrecy, and the conviction that fighting to keep Americans safe means that they shouldn’t have to be accountable to those same citizens they’re trying to secure.

It also was great to read a long, well-reasoned, complete argument for something, even though I don’t believe in the fundamental basis for that argument. Reminded me that we’re living in a sound bite oriented world, and we need to try not to be.

Recommended for anyone who’s interested in how the legal aspects of our present government work, although the politics will be tough for blue staters.


2
Jan 08

Born Standing Up, by Steve Martin

I bought this book Christmas Day, as my first Kindle-only content (as an aside, it’s wonderful to be able to think to yourself “I’d really like to read X”, press a button or two, and have the book delivered to you). Took me just a day to read it — it’s a short book, but also a fun one. It doesn’t cover the period of Martin’s life that’s most familiar to me (and folks my age, I presume) — it goes from his childhood through the late 70s when he finished doing his standup and focused on movies instead. I guess it’s easy to dismiss Martin today as a little past his power years, but this book reminded me of so much that I love about his comedy, and so much of what he did that had tremendous, broad impact (aside from making The Jerk, one of the best movies of all time). One of the things that’s great about the book is that it goes through his early years that he spent in Southern California — getting a magic set, working at Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland — trying lots and lots of material and keeping track of what worked and didn’t. He’s clearly an intellectual, hard-working comedian, and blazed new trails in absurdist comedy. We also caught his honoring at Lincoln Center a couple of weeks ago — the clips of his stand up days and time hosting SNL are still completely drop-down funny.


2
Jan 08

Spook Country, by William Gibson

Eh, fine. Probably not one I’d recommend. A passable prose effort from Gibson, but without any of the interesting invention.