This evening Jason Calacanis sent out an email to the people subscribed explaining Mahalo’s layoffs. Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch decided to republish the email even though it states not to twice within it. Didn’t take long before people started attacking Erick.
Update: Erick Schonfeld has posted an update stating why he is leaving it up.
There is a lot of discussion, even outrage, in the comments and elsewhere about my decision to post this email, against the express wishes of its author and his subsequent request that it be taken down. We are not going to do that.
Like it or not, this document is news. Its author, Jason Calacanis, is the CEO of Mahalo, which announced a layoff yesterday. (He is also a TechCrunch partner apart from Mahalo in that we put on the TechCrunch50 conference togeher). At the time I posted this on Wednesday at 9:45 PM ET, the Mahalo layoffs were being discussed so vigorously that the topic was at the top of Techmeme. Although Calacanis had already written a blog post on the subject, he went into much more detail about why he felt he needed to go through the layoffs and how he went about doing so in the email. He also updated in the email how many people are still employed at Mahalo (30 full-time, 50 freelancers) in response to some reports.
The email went out to nearly 9,000 people. It was not a private email. And Jason Calacanis is not aprivate individual. He is the CEO of a high-profile startup and an Internet celebrity in his own right.
More importantly, the email shed light on an event that had happened earlier that day and that many media outlets were reporting on and speculating about. Here was a document from the CEO himself outlining his inner thinking on what had just happened. It was news.
There is no copyright issue here and there is no issue of me personally breaching an agreement. Nothing is off the record unless a reporter agrees that it is off the record prior to receiving information. I made no such agreement and Calacanis cannot unilaterally impose such restrictions simply by writing “Do Not Reprint” at the top of his email. Although I respect his desire in general to control who sees his email newsletters, in this case the news value of the document outweighs his personal wishes.
Beyond the layoffs at Mahalo, which are tiny in the grand scheme of things (six people), the email speaks to something that is happening across the startup economy. Every startup CEO is at least thinking about the need to cut back right now, if not going through the same ordeal that Calacanis had to go through. Others can learn from his experience. He actually has some good advice. Read the email. The fact that he was able to minimize the number of layoffs to only six people and how he did that is far more interesting than whether or not TechCrunch should have published the email in the first place.
The new Apple ads aim to point out that Microsoft is spending more money on advertising then they are on fixing Vista. Check em out and see what you think.
Over the past two days I’ve been messing around and trying to install FreeBSD on my extra computer. First I downloaded the 3 disc and began my install. I have to say the install itself was not that bad, but the probably is I want to run a KDE because I don’t know command lines very well. So that is where most of my time has been spent. Trying to load the KDE. See from the FreeBSD site they only offer the 3 disc iso’s and no DVD iso. Plus the way its setup it does not load everything from one CD first then ask for the second. No it wants you to switch like every other install. See this is where the problem comes in. My PC sits under my desk, so each disk swap I have to bend down and switch em. After about 20 switches I just closed it out and figured I’d wait until the next day to try again.
So here I am today, going through right now and trying again. Except today I decided to do the install through FTP, therefore no disk swapping although much slower. All this so I can have a pretty GUI to use instead of working in command lines. Wish me luck!
Maybe this wasn’t my best choice to learn and use UNIX based systems. I think next I may just try OpenBSD or DesktopBSD.
The Republicans put together this ad and sent it out yesterday before the bailout bill was voted on. The Republicans were hoping that the bill would pass with a majority of Democrat votes so they could use this to pin the blame on them. Now they have this ad out there saying the government bailed out Wall Street and that the Democrats are at fault. Funny stuff. First an ad stating McCain won the Debate 14 hours before it was to happen and now this.
The even funnier part is that McCain and the Republicans are blaming the Democrats now for the bill not passing.
Looking for an extra couch or table, but don’t have extra money and you want to also help save Earth? Maybe you should check out The Freecycle Network. Freecycle allows you to offer up and/or receive items from people who are done using them. Say you have an extra entertainment center that you plan to throw out, but you figure someone may have a use for it instead of it ending up in a dump somewhere. You list it on your Freecycle group and you will soon receive an offer from someone willing to take it off your hands. From the Freecycle.org:
Welcome! The Freecycle Network™ is made up of 4,609 groups with 5,843,000 members across the globe. It’s a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all about reuse and keeping good stuff out of landfills. Each local group is moderated by a local volunteer (them’s good people). Membership is free.
As stated, Freecycle cost nothing to use and everything listed is free. You are not allowed to charge people for the items you want to give away. Instead of adding to the endless trash we throw away each year, you are helping the environment by extending the life of your items. Here is an example of the listings you will see when you sign up. Note that you will also receive these listings in an email daily (sometimes multiple times per day depending on the number of items listed).
Check out www.freecycle.org today and sign up for a group in your area. Help the World by keeping an item that you or someone else may find of use out of the dump.
Here is an email sent by Jason Calacanis to the people who are registered to receive his newsletter. This was posted on TechCrunch and Silicon Alley Insider earlier today before it was removed at some point, as noted by Loic Le Meur. Below is the full email from the TechCrunch article.
. Although Calacanis had already written a blog post on the subject, he went into much more detail about why he felt he needed to go through the layoffs and how he went about doing so in the email. He also updated in the email how many people are still employed at Mahalo (30 full-time, 50 freelancers) in response to some reports.
