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ArsDigita Founder Responds to Closing
An anonymous reader sent in: "Net celebrity and ArsDigita founder Eve Andersson has written a brief history of the firm, documenting its downfall from her point of view. Fascinating reading, and yet another example of how a good thing can go so wrong."
Someone else gets hurt.
Eve really did write a beautiful article, and I thank her for writting it. She did, however, try to wipe her hands clean of all responsibilty. Not to say she is responsible, but ArsDigita's death was not due to just the capitalists that sealed its fate, but the capitalists within.
ArsDigita was one of the few net companies actually developing a useful product that people wanted. It should have weathered the dot-com bombs, but it fell into a cycle of greed. Rather than making modest earnings, they wanted to get richer faster. It was easy to ignore the fact they were making tons of money, and doing a good job. They had the potential to make more, and being good young american capitalists they went for the opportunity.
A web developer no matter how talented is not actually worth 7 million dollars. This is not to say they aren't "the best" or any other such nonsense, but rather 7 million dollars is a HUGE amount of money.
Think of ID games. They keep their number smalls, their business controlled and make solid, strong, modest, earnings for the most desired product of its kind. They are extremly successful and will continue to be because they hold similar ideals to ArsDigita.
ArsDigita, however, let it be controlled by big fish who offered to front more money. More money, more profit, everyone's happy? No, because everyone was trying to get rich quickly. Sure you were trying to make a good product, but you were so bedazzeled by the money that ArsDigita's creative control was lost. If you invite sharks into your pool, expect to get bit.
Eve I'm sorry you got screwed. You did your job well, but no matter getting rich quick means someone else is paying for it. Your company tried to raise too much capital, too fast. You got your ass kicked by the best, but we're all alittle wiser for it.
Oh well, I invite you to join my world. A soon to be college graduate looking at a very tight job market because a few dot-commers wanted little red sports cars.
Welcome,
Rob
Wow. I've been on the product team at ArsDigita for almost three years now. From my perspective, there are a gazillion egregious inaccuracies in the article. Anyway, I just wanted to say that Eve/Philip/etc. represent only one side of the story, and that there are many other sides to the story as well.
I have tremendous respect for a lot of people at ArsDigita. Her story is absolutely insulting to the people who have worked so hard to ship something, and it has certainly caused any remaining goodwill I have towards her (because I do think she IS a nice person) evaporate. Her indictment of Richard Buck and Michael Yoon is completely unfounded and complete bullshit. One stunning example is that Richard Buck is a poor manager because he was not able to "motivate the product team to work more than 40 hours/week." I find this to be disgusting and utter nonsense. One, just because you don't drive your employees like slaves doesn't mean you suck. Two, Eve was never at the office, so how could she know how long we worked? She was too busy working on her VoiceXML book that she told no one about!
Yes.
This rant, though I'm sure it's full of truth, does manage to excuse the founders of responsibility.
It sounds like their company was doing well enough to fund its own growth, albeit at a slower pace.
They could get richer faster, just not as richer as faster as they'd like.
Of course, they might now still be around as the economy recovers. Might still be in a position to make big scores that are available in the wake of all the companies that joined them in the merry rush to VC money and are not longer around to compete.
But no.