Karm City

Baltimore woes

I’d like to preface this by saying I think the Baltimore Tech community is entering uncharted waters. There’s no denying it. I’m not claiming “the sky is falling,” just that we’re entering a time where anything could happen and it’d be prudent to tread carefully.

Over the past few years, it felt like the tech community in Baltimore was really growing into something magical. Lots of grassroots events, lots of passion, and consistent attendance at the Beehive co-working space were indicators.

But now, the community is on a knife’s edge and could just as quickly plummet. The few people who were effecting change in the city have moved on, or lost interest because of the bureaucracy, or personal issues. For the tech community to truly thrive in Baltimore, it needs the city’s support.

The loudest voices made their requests known, but none have borne fruit. Baltimore’s leadership is slower and just as corrupt. As an example, New York City planned and will launch their bike share system of 10,000 bikes before Baltimore will launch its 300-bike system. What’s worse, people who care deeply about the city and making it a better place to live are apparently snubbed by the city specifically because of how outspoken they are.

Example: Baltimore’s new Chief Digital Officer position. It was publicly known that Mike Brenner, a huge champion of the local tech community, pinged the city’s CIO, Rico Singleton, about the position and heard nothing back.

In a live chat with Singleton and three (inexplicably anonymous) CDO candidates, I asked why Mike Brenner wasn’t included in the running. Singleton responded, “Mike Brenner never submitted a resume and I was not aware of his interest.”

I replied, “If the ultimate goal is to find the best person for the job, why does it matter if he submitted a resume or not?”

The response from Singleton, “B/c if someone doesn’t submit a resume for a job, then the company doesn’t know of their interest. Mike never once told me he was interested and he never submitted a resume as the instructions indicated to get himself in for consideration.”

He didn’t really answer the question, but I’ll bite. We know this isn’t true. Over the past year, Brenner has been outspoken about the need for a CDO in Baltimore, and his interest in the position itself. He (literally) wrote the job description for the position. He even reached out to Singleton’s staff to indicate he was interested.

Regardless, my point still stands: if the goal is to find the best person for the job, it’s silly to not tap Mike’s shoulder. Even if Mike said, “don’t even think about asking me if I want to do it,” I’d be working my ass off to convince him. He’d be perfect for the job.

The mark of a good leader is one who can bring in someone with a different opinion without feeling threatened, or insecure. Differing viewpoints help catalyze change and move things forward. A perfect example of this is Obama choosing Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State, despite them being fierce opponents during the primary.

Either way, the ultimate goal of both parties is the shared: to make Baltimore better and attract more people to move here.

Continuing to keep Baltimore leadership behind a curtain of politics and loyalty stifles the growth that the city desperately needs. The community is lucky to have people like Mike Brenner, who will more than likely make greater strides by not teaming up with the city. For that, we can be thankful.

Debt

I don’t understand this perception of success when a company raises capital. Announcing a raise usually results in comments like, “congratulations!” and “you did it!” What they should be saying is “good luck.”

Let’s call it what it is: debt. Debt is not ideal, and I think the perception among tech startups is that when you raise capital, you’ve “made it.” Don’t get me wrong, raising debt means you get to scale faster, hire those crucial employees and see if your business idea really has merit; that’s a good thing. But really, you’re on step 1 of 100. When you raise a round, it means you’d better not mess it up.

Here’s an example: Let’s say a company recently announced a $30mm Series C. They made it! They’re killing it! Not exactly. They’re still cash flow negative and raised a down round, giving up more equity at a lower valuation, so they could stay afloat and survive just a bit longer. As an entrepreneur, that’s a terrible situation to be in. But this is just a hypothetical situation, right? Some recent news stories prove otherwise.

In short, raising capital does not mean that you’re done, that you made it, that you’re successful. Our perceptions should align with that.

Isaacson is just like Gladwell

What a disappointing book. Walter Isaacson, the author of Steve Jobs’ biography, reminds me of Malcolm Gladwell. He introduces a very simple point, then spends hundreds of pages reiterating the same point with different examples. In this case, Steve’s hot/cold attitude.

There are also some other embarrassing paragraphs that made me squirm, like this one, about design being prioritized over engineering:
“On occasion this could backfire, such as when Jobs and Ive [Apple’s head designer] insisted on using a solid piece of brushed aluminum for the edge of the iPhone 4 even when the engineers worried that it would compromise the antenna.”

…what? So a flaw that all phones inherently have was a design ‘backfire’? Sounds like someone’s using sensationalist media as their fact checker. He had access to the men behind the iPhone, and that’s his backfire example?

To summarize the entire book: reality distortion field, cold, distant, technology, art, a player, b player, bozo, hero.

Very little content came from Steve Jobs himself. Isaacson had all the time in the world to interview early Apple employees, investors, board members and competitors. He dedicated the majority of his book to their opinions of Jobs. Almost nothing is attributable to Steve himself, who had a finite time to share his thoughts.

What’s sad is Jobs isn’t around to offer the same access to an author who could do it right.