Archive for the ‘Startups’ Category

March 11, 2013 (4 weeks ago)

Rackspace loves startups

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[Thanks to @bombtune for sen­ding me this photo of one of my Racks­pace car­toons, spot­ted in the wild at SXSW Inte­rac­tive.]

February 4, 2013

The gapingvoid Tapestry

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Screen Shot 2013-02-04 at 2.56.50 PM

Tapestry, a won­der­ful little picture-storytelling app from NYC did a lovely job of cap­tu­ring the backs­tory of my “I don’t have friends” piece, one of my all-time favorites.…

[To read the entire ori­gi­nal backs­tory, go here.]

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January 31, 2013

Start-up Blues

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I drew this car­toon because a recent story in the news made me sad:

A lively and popu­lar figure of the start-up scene, Jody Sher­man com­mi­ted suicide.

I didn’t know the guy, but we had mutual friends, like Jason Cala­ca­nis and Tony Hsieh.

Jason sum­med it up well: “And it seems like folks are not ready to talk about that issue just yet. Which I can understand.”

This is the second star­tup sui­cide in a month, after poor ol’ Aaron Swartz. We are gene­ti­cally pro­gram­med to have our our tiny brains fried by the sui­cide of some­body we care about; wri­ting about it well is impos­sibe at the best of times. But here are some of my own mea­gre, insuf­fi­cient thoughts:

1. My dee­pest con­do­len­ces to Jody’s family, ese­cialy his wife and chil­dren. The sorrow must be horri­ble, simply horri­ble. I am so sorry, truly.

2. Once we’ve made our millions, reti­red and got­ten old and dec­re­pit, hey, then DEATH is not so scary an idea, but when one is still in one’s prime… Most of us doing the start-up thing are still in our prime, so natually DEATH is ama­zingly strange and alien to us.

3. The start-up life, for all the time we spend glo­rif­ying it, is a very tough road. Again, Jason says it well:

Perhaps we owe it to these three ama­zing humans to exa­mine if the pres­su­res of being a foun­der, the pres­sure of our community’s relent­less pur­suit of great­ness, in some way con­tri­bu­ted to their deaths?

I’ve always belie­ved that being a foun­der is an unhealthy pur­suit at times, and few have disa­greed — cer­tainly not those who have done it. Read any bio­graphy of a suc­cess­ful foun­der and you’ll find colla­te­ral damage around — and cer­tainly in — those individuals.

Star­tups are a full-contact sport. This is a good time for all of us to pause and think about why we’re doing this. And the impact it’s having on us and the peo­ple around us.

4. Me and my friends in the sart-up scene aren’t spring chic­kens any­more, for the most part. We’re the old guard now. And as Karma catches up with us and the hard choi­ces we made, our deaths are going to start get­ting a lot more common.

5. As I’m fond of saying, anything worth doing will cost you your life, even­tually. Best make sure it’s worth it, make sure it’s something your dee­pest self actually wants.

6. Yes, your dee­pest self, not just your glib, sexy, bullshit self.

7. This is it. Fight like hell. Godbless.

September 19, 2012

Art for Pirates!

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Apro­pos to the “Brin­ging Art To Busi­ness” kick I’m currently on, here’s a fun t-shirt we pro­du­ced for Roger Shank’s real estate com­pany and “Talk Like A Pirate Day”. [Backs­tory here.]

If you want me to design a t-shirt for your busi­ness, feel free to drop me a line and we can talk about it. Email: gaping­void at gmail dot com.

Thanks to roger for a great oppor­tu­nity. I had fun!

March 2, 2011

“alea iacta est.”

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[My latest car­toon. Down­load the prin­ta­ble ver­sion here etc.]

Dear Racks­pace,

You being my client and all, I thought now would be a good time to let you know my current thinking:

You love star­tups. You live and breathe making them happy. You live and breathe trying to be help­ful to them. You live and breathe “Fanatical”.

Sure, other com­pa­nies offer the same kind of hos­ting that you do– Ama­zon being the best known example.

But it’s your par­ti­cu­lar brand of “Fana­ti­cal” that per­mea­tes your cul­ture… THAT is what makes you uni­que; THAT is what your com­pe­ti­tors DON’T have; THAT is your sec­ret weapon.

And the minute you lose that, of course, is the minute you start to die.

Not every­body rea­ding this is going to believe what I’ve just said. Some will remain skep­ti­cal, both inside and outside your com­pany. Frankly, I don’t care. I’ve been wor­king with y’all long enough to know that I’m spea­king the truth.

“We Love Star­tups.” That is your man­tra. That is your line in the sand.

And now you’re going to have to live it. Now that the line has been drawn, I’m never going to allow you to take those words back. Nor will anyone else. Ever. Nor should you.

“We Love Star­tups.” That is what the star­tup com­mu­nity must know about Racks­pace. They must know it AND believe it. All of them. That is the mission.

Alea iacta est.

[PS: Note to Rac­kers: If your boss will let you, feel free to use the car­toon in your email sig­na­ture. Spread the love etc.]

[See more Racks­pace car­toons here.]

February 28, 2011

“we love startups”

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[Down­load the prin­ta­ble ver­sion here etc.]

For the past cou­ple of months, I’ve been trying to cap­ture the Racks­pace essence in a sin­gle, 550-pixel-wide cartoon.

So what is THE ONE THING they need to let the world know? Above all else?

My opi­nion? That they love startups.

Hence the car­toon above.

Bada. Bing.

October 18, 2010

“how do do you amplify a start-up culture inside a big company?”

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[Down­load the prin­ta­ble ver­sion here.]

A cou­ple of days ago my buddy, Robert Sco­ble (him­self a Racks­pace emplo­yee) twit­te­red the ques­tion, “How do do you amplify a start-up cul­ture inside a big company?”

A damn good ques­tion, Robert. I thought it would make a good piece of art, hence the car­toon above. More spe­ci­fi­cally, I thought it would make a good image to go on the back of  a Racks­pace busi­ness card.

Racks­pace is a big com­pany (3,000 emplo­yees), but not big enough where they can no lon­ger remem­ber when they were a small com­pany. So maybe it’s bet­ter to start a con­ver­sa­tion (which is what han­ding out a busi­ness card does, ideally) with a per­ti­nent ques­tion, rather than the usual “Here’s why you should buy our stuff” shpeel…