Erich Stauffer

Tag: Jason

  • Jason and I Visited Madison, Wisconsin in November of 2019

    In this vlog, I meet up with fellow YouTuber, Calvin Cobb the Boi (0:37), who shows us a syck jump on his mountain bike. His dad, Jason Cobb (also a fellow YouTuber), and I then got coffee at Starbucks (0:58) and then drove to the University of Wisconsin, Madison (1:11) where we see parkour (1:31) being practiced.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM_V0ccp_dI

    We then visit the shores of Lake Mendota where Jason learned to sail (2:21) and where the Wisconsin Hoofers were wading in cold water (2:38) in front of the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus Union (2:21). We went inside (3:05) to rest for a bit before continuing on to the WU-Madison Campus Bookstore (3:22).

    We ate lunch at a Thai food restaurant called, Monsoon Siam (3:28) where we had an appetizer of sun-dried beef and drunken noodles (pad kee mao). For an afternoon pick-me-up, we visited the coffee shop, Ancora Coffee, where I got an Americano (4:09) and Jason got a normal cup of coffee.

    Finally, we stopped by Costco (4:39) and Kwik Trip (5:27) on the way home.

  • Bulldozers: 5 Serial Entrepreneurs That Only Know How to Push Things Forward, Make Meaning, and Change the World

    Bulldozers, a term coined by Jason A. Cobb in January 2011, refers to employees who do one thing and one thing only: push things forward – and if their company doesn’t let them, they leave, but continue pushing forward.  Employers need to learn to recognize bulldozers and fuel them, not throw stumps in their way (stumps don’t stop bulldozers anyway, they just make them leave faster).

    Let’s take a look at five bulldozers – employees who pushed forward, right on out of their former company:

    1. Ian Rogers – left Yahoo! to form his own business when Yahoo! failed to heed his advice.
    2. Joshua Schachter – left Yahoo! after they failed to upgrade (and eventually killed) Delicious.
    3. Lars Rasmussen – left Google for Facebook after Google killed Wave he helped develop.
    4. Jyri Engeström – left Google to “make meaning” after Google dropped support for Jaiku.
    5. Dennis Crowley – left Google to form Foursquare after Google killed Dogdeball for Latitude.

    Ian Rogers, the former General Manager of Yahoo! Music, left to form Topspin Media, a company that makes marketing software for music artists to maximize their fanbase and brand exposure.

    Rogers bucked the industry trend to ‘shove bad products down consumers’ throats’ like in October 2007 when he addressed a number of music executives. He explained that consumers aren’t willing to adopt inferior products (namely subscription music services) saying, “I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. I will tell Yahoo! to give the money they were going to give me to build awesome media applications to Yahoo! Mail or Answers or some other deserving endeavor. I personally don’t have any more time to give and can’t bear to see any more money spent on pathetic attempts for control instead of building consumer value. Life’s too short. I want to delight consumers, not bum them out.”

    This fits the model we’ve seen with serial entrepreneurs, which seems to also apply to bulldozers: they want to change the world for good and won’t put up with the bad ‘cause ‘life’s too short’.

    Joshua Schachter, created Delicious (a social bookmarking site), GeoURL, Tasty Labs and was co-creator of Memepool. Schachter released the first version of Delicious (then called del.icio.us) in September 2003. The service actually coined the term ‘social bookmarking’ and featured tagging, a system he developed for organizing links. On March 29, 2005, Schachter announced he would work full-time on Delicious. On December 9, 2005, Yahoo! acquired Delicious for an undisclosed sum, but according to Business 2.0, was close to $30 million – with Schachter’s share being worth approximately $15 million. Prior to working full-time on Delicious, Schachter was an analyst in Morgan Stanley’s Equity Trading Lab. He created GeoURL in 2002 and ran it until 2004.

    Schachter left Yahoo! in 2008 after Yahoo! refused to move forward on Delicious development and began working for Google from January 2009 to June 2010. In November 2010, Schachter acquired startup funding from Union Square Ventures for Tasty Labs. Yahoo! announced plans on December 16, 2010 to shut down Delicious, but as of January 26, 2011 is in talks with Kevin Rose of Digg about Digg possibly taking over Delicious.  Rose asked Schachter if he would be interested in working on it, but Schachter was too busy with Tasty Labs.

    At Tasty Labs, Schachter is joined by co-founders Nick Nguyen and Paul Rademacher. Rademacher is a former Google and Dreamworks engineer who will be heading up engineering for Tasty Labs. Nguyen previously worked with Schachter at Delicious and just recently left Mozilla to serve as VP of product for Tasty Labs, which plans to put “the useful back into social software,” according to their website. Since then, Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Andreesen (a serial entrepreneur) and Ben Horowitz’s venture capital firm, has also invested. Schachter says about Tasty Labs, “I’ll grow it organically,” said, noting that the company is called “Labs,” and not a specific product. “This could end up being multiple applications.”

    Of course it will. That’s what you do.  You’re a serial entrepreneur and a bulldozer.  No one is going to stop you from making things useful.

    Lars Rasmussen, co-creator of Google Maps and Google Wave, announced on October 29, 2010 that he had left Google, and was moving to San Francisco to work for Facebook.

    In 2003, Lars and his brother, Jens, with Australians Noel Gordon and Stephen Ma, co-founded Where 2 Technologies, a mapping-related start-up in Sydney, Australia. This company was bought by Google in October 2004, to create the popular, free, browser-based software, Google Maps. The four of them were subsequently employed by Google in the engineering team at the company’s Australian office in Sydney.

    In October 2010 Rasmussen was hired by Facebook to create a “Modern Messaging System” after Google killed Wave just under a year after publishing it.  Facebook’s new messaging system, which combines wall posts, email, and SMS (text) messages, was codenamed “Titan”, and rolled out on November 15, 2010.  As of January 26, 2011, Facebook Messaging is still invitation only.

    Rasmussen said about his move to Facebook, “Obviously they’ve already changed the world and yet there seems to be so much more to be done there. And I think that it’s the right place for me to be.” Once again we see this desire to “change the world” as a key characteristic of serial entrepreneurs and bulldozers.

    Jyri Engeström, co-created Jaiku, a Twitter-like service, which was sold to Google in 2007 when it was the leading European microblogging service. After the acquisition, Engeström continued to maintain Jaiku but Google focused his efforts on creating systems that power Google Buzz and related products. The original Jaiku code base was ported to Google App Engine and released as Jaiku Engine, a free open source microblogging platform, but in January of 2009 Google announced it was no longer going to support the platform, although the site would live on.

    A sociologist by training, he has also developed the term social objects – a label for “things that people socialize around,” including text, images, videos, and other shareable Web content.

    Prior to Jaiku, Engeström worked as Senior Product Manager of Internet Handhelds at Nokia. At Google he was responsible for mobile applications including Mobile Calendar and the Gmail Mobile client, while also spearheading Google’s efforts in social media, starting up Google Buzz, Google Profiles, and Google Latitude. He left Google in October 2009 to become an angel investor and start his own new company, Pingpin, but is also active in the following companies: Appsfire, Betrabrand, Mobclix, Superfeedr, Xiha, Sofanatics, and Thinglink (his wife’s business).

    Engeström wrote on Twitter in October of 2009 that the reason he left Google was in order to “make meaning” out of another project, which is another characteristic sign of a bulldozer.

    Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Dodgeball and FourSquare, both location-based social networking services. Dodgeball was sold to Google in 2005, which discontinued it in 2009 in favor of Google Latitude (partly thanks to fellow bulldozer, Jyri Engeström). Crowley co-founded Dodgeball with fellow student Alex Rainert in 2003 while attending New York University. Both were hired by Google in Dodgeball’s acquisition in 2005 and both left in April 2007, Crowley and Rainert left Google, with Crowley describing their experience there as “incredibly frustrating”.

    In January 2009 Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering at Google, announced that the company would “discontinue Dodgeball.com in the next couple of months, after which this service will no longer be available.” Dodgeball was shut down in February 2009 and succeeded by Google Latitude.

    After leaving Google, Crowley, with the help of Naveen Selvadurai, created a service similar to Dodgeball and Google Latitude, which became known as Foursquare.  While Dodgeball was available in limited cities (Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego, Phoenix, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, New Orleans, Miami, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Madison, Minneapolis–St. Paul and Denver), Foursquare is available everywhere. Crowley later hired Rainert as Chief Product Officer (head of products) in 2010.

    Rainert, a co-founder of Dodgeball, is also quite the bulldozer and is quoted as saying, “We’ve found that people with judgment trump rockstars. You need people who can make decisions. You hire smart people because they want to make an impact, but everyone can’t weigh in on everything because then you’ll never get anything done.  Our employees have had to learn not to take things personally; things just need to keep going.” That’s another perfect example of a bulldozer: “make an impact” and “keep going [forward]”.

  • 80′s Toy The Original Roller Racer Flying Turtle

    I have been searching for the name of this triangle-shaped, red seated toy that has a handlebar underneath that you move back and forth to go forward with, but because it existed prior to the Internet, I haven’t been able to find it – until now*.

    I was searching for things like, “80s racer red sit toy handbars”, “red sit scooter”, and “red triangle scooter”, but I couldn’t find anything. I knew it was red and sort of a triangular shape. It had handlebars that were attached to the front but curved around to the sides and you put your feet up on the front part of the handlebars while holding the grips that were off to the side. To make it go, you just had to wiggle the handlebar back and forth. I never owned one, but remember seeing the commercials on TV growing up. I later found out they were made by the Mason Corporation and named Roller Racers or Flying Turtles. I’ve also heard them referred to as The Rabbit.

    The Original Roller Racer

    It’s called a “Roller Racer” and Amazon defines it as a scooter. I suppose it is, but it’s not like any other stand-up scooter. You sit very close to the ground and instead of using your feet to push you forward, you have to move the handle bars back and forth, kind of like a snake.

    One Amazon commenter said it was good for preschool children with disabilities because even, “Kids with splints or whose legs are too short can ride with their feet on the T-bar connecting the handlebars and, again, enjoy a great ride.”

    According to Wikipedia, the Roller Racer was originally sold by WHAM-O brand name, but is now sold by the Mason Corporation and is available on Amazon.

    EDIT: I’ve recently setup a whole new website for these ride-on toy scooters with one post dedicated to Roller Racers and Flying Turtles.

    (more…)

  • Driving by the Future – Without Ever Knowing It

    I’m in Kokomo, IN this week, at a branch just off of US 31. I drove by this branch on the way to Niles, MI back in 1999 on the way to Michiana Christian Service Camp. The camp cook often visited a past family member at the graveyard just down the street from my home at the time in Franklin, IN. The son of the camp director left at the end of the summer to attend Milligan College in Tennessee. The next year, I’d leave Kentucky Christian College for Milligan College with my friend, Ben. By then, the camp director’s son had left.

    Michiana Christian Summer Camp

    While at Milligan College (read about my time at Milligan College here), I visited friends from Kentucky Christian College now attending Ball State University in Muncie, IN, Jason and Derek. The next semester I moved to Muncie and roomed with Jason and Derek in Jason’s home. I tried applying for a job at First Merchants Bank, but they were closed on Martin Luther King Day. I opened a free checking account at Old National Bank. Two months later Jason got a job there and married Krista. Derek and I had to move out into our own apartment. In June of 2001 I drove through Tipton, IN on my way to meet my brother in Lafayette, IN. He worked for Purdue University. That same month Derek began working for Old National too. The next month, I met my future wife in Tipton and also began working for Old National.

    That August I began school at Ball State. By mid-semester, Derek met his future wife, Shannon. In December Jason, Derek, and I were given the choice to be laid off or transferred to Indianapolis. Our plant was closing down in Muncie. Jason left Old National for First Merchants Bank. Derek stayed in Muncie and got laid off. I stayed with Old National and moved to Indianapolis, transferring to IUPUI. There I worked with my roommate from Milligan, Ben. I also met Jake, who left to attend Purdue. I visited Jake a year later in Lafayette. He had just met a girl the night before, who he later married.

    Ben left Old National in 2004 after a lawn mower accident cut off part of one of his fingers. Derek later moved to Indianapolis with his wife, Shannon, and began teaching. He works part-time for Old National in the evenings. In June of 2007 I left Old National Bank and in June of 2008 I began working for First Merchants Bank with Jason, which brings me back to why I’m sitting in a branch in Kokomo on the edge of US 31, where I passed 9 years prior, on my way to Michigan.

  • Review of a Self-Help Dropout

    It’s as if Chris Hardwick asked WIRED, “Is there anything I can do to re-inspire confidence in your magazine with Jason Cobb?  He’s been reading your magazine since your covers featured tight-fisted EFF logos, even before Marc Andreesen launched Netscape. He’s the rebellious teenage hacker whose grown up to work in an office everyday, but still yearns for the fancifulness that only WIRED can bring.  Let me bring it to him.  Let me be the one.”  And so, we get “Diary of a Self-Help Dropout” by Chris Hardwick, freelance writer, comedian, and musician.

    Its a review of three self-help books including Allen’s Getting things Done, a feature favorite and life changer for Jason Cobb and millions of others around the globe.  I busted out laughing on page 75 when he summarized Allen’s system for prioritization, “Explode my individual tasks into a philosophical framework incorporating my life’s ultimate purpose.  Oh, OK. That’s all I have to do.”  I’ve often felt the same way.  One more quote that just reeks of Jason is on page 77 when Hardwick says of menial tasks, “You might as well write a check to ‘Failure’.”  I think that if Jason just gives this issue a chance he might come to love WIRED again.

    Best “Crash” Ever?

    Jan 2009’s WIRED magazine sees more bells and whistles than ever before.  There are more things going on, each page filled with sub-boxes, clues to guide you through the choose-your-own adventure that editor Chris Anderson wants every issue to be.  The first article to stick out to me was by Scott Brown on page 66 entitled “Best Crash Ever.” What caught my eye was a reference to “The Great Facebook Panic!”. Okay, Scott, you have my attention.  Go on.  He does.  The premise of the story is to imagine what the new depression, which starts in 2008 will look like now that we are in the digital age, but around half-way through the article, something started sounding familiar.  The dystopian mix of technology and hard-times sounded like a sequel to Snow Crash and then it hit me.  Why not have a sequel to Snow Crash set in today’s “metaverse” and economic slowdown. When the only thing we are good at as a nation is programming and pizza delivery, it pays to have tight wheels, friends you can trust, and a fast connection – even if it means living in a U-Stor-It.

    I emailed Scott Brown this message:

    Great story in the Jan 2009 issue.  Wondered if “Crash” was a wink to Stephenson’s Snow Crash? I didn’t think about this until about half-way through when I realized how your article could be construed as a premise for a sequel to Neal’s epic.

    And he replied a little over a month later:

    Oh dude. I wish!

  • Road Trip to Columbus with Jason

    Geek Road Trip

    Columbus Ohio Coffee Shop

    There were a lot of men, most sitting alone with their notebooks, in this coffee shop in downtown Columbus. Jason got a cappacino and I got a vanilla latte. It was pretty dang good, the best I’ve had in a while.

    Best Buds

    Columbus at night–on the move. Jason is getting mad about me being on the phone. Wife is mad that I went at all.