Farming vs. Mining

Will Shipley:

The problem with mining in the software business is that it doesn’t work. It creates broken, useless companies.

Founders and angel investors usually don’t particularly care if the companies they created live or die after they sell out, because they’ve gotten their money and moved on. There’s no stigma to having a company you founded fail after you leave it. In fact, again, it’s a badge of honor: “Bob Smith founded Flopper.com, sold it for $46MM, then got out before it tanked! Genius!”

The most amazing thing about getting to go to TED was discovering that all the people I admire are farmers. The doctors and DNA-researchers and dancers and chocolate-makers and oceanographers and cosmologists and investors all have one thing in common: they are total nerds. They work on the thing they love literally all the time. You can’t talk to them without talking about their passion.

(discovered via @dhh)