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Open-Source Hardware Hacker Ladyada Awarded Entrepreneur of the Year
ptorrone writes "Limor 'Ladyada' Fried of open-source hardware company Adafruit Industries was awarded Entrepreneur of the Year by Entrepreneur Magazine. From the article: 'Recognizable by her signature vivid-pink locks, Fried (or Ladyada, as she is known on the internet) is one of the dominant forces behind the maker movement--a legion of do-it-yourself-minded folks who create cool things by tweaking everyday technology. Last year New York City-based Adafruit did a booming $10 million trade in sales of DIY open-source electronic hardware kits.'"
I've wondered what she was doing ever since she released Spoke POV years ago. I'm relieved to see that not all of her ideas were stolen.
Congratulations to her. She does run a truly innovative company that is based on actual production making actual profit. More companies should start doing that. You can't eat "projected revenue", drive it, or wear it against the cold.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Ever make ten million in revenue?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
/obligatory snide comment
And did your work result in $10M worth of sales or provide employment to others? This award was for being an entrepreneur; it sounds like what you have is a hobby, while this award recipient managed to bring technical knowledge and business sense together to create a viable business.
Ignorant Motherfuckers will lead us to the Idiocracy utopia!
What's your point exactly? You get a write off by law for charitable donations. One year I gave 10K in donations and still paid $170K in taxes. How is the write off avoiding taxes given it is codified in law? Had I not donated my taxes would only have been slightly higher.
Really, what is your point? I don't get it. How much have you paid in taxes and given to charity? What is your monthly payroll?
Still waiting for the microtouch to be in stock.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/11/10/18/201200/microtouch-8-bit-open-source-media-device
It's been "coming soon" for a year now...
What's your point exactly? You get a write off by law for charitable donations. One year I gave 10K in donations and still paid $170K in taxes. How is the write off avoiding taxes given it is codified in law? Had I not donated my taxes would only have been slightly higher.
Really, what is your point? I don't get it. How much have you paid in taxes and given to charity? What is your monthly payroll?
His point is that he's a giant douche
Great for her! I knew her back when she was 14, protesting the Scientology abuse of the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology. She organized the printing and sale of T-shirts with lots of secret Scientology code words, like "Xenu", the name of the cult's secret galactic conqueror demon, and various criminal actions of the cult such as "Operation Snow White".
The T-shirt company actually tried to rip her off and keep the money without making the shirts. It took work, but rather than wasting all the money on lawyers, Ladyada and her dad arranged for her dad to pretend to be ready to order thousands of printed shirts, showed up in the company president's office, and her dad said "you have to deal with *her*". Having a punked out teenager who's smarter and much more coherent than you in your office, with her very angry father as backup, seems to have brought the T-shirt maker to his senses. I have 2 of those shirts,, and sent several to Dennis Erlich, a former cultmember who was a very vocal critic of the cult and a credible counter to the cult's attempts to whitewash away the crimes discussed in the old newsgroup.
Ladyada was a shining example of political protest at its best: sharp, knew her material, and kept her concerns about actual abuse and criminal activity while staying completely legal. I'm thrilled to see she's as sharp commercially as she was politically. I like to think that the lessons we learned about handling abuse and censorship contributed to early handing of spam, astro-turfing, and even the recent Arab Spring by preserving the role of electronic communications as effective, uncensorable expressions of speech and knowledge. They were a vaccine against cult and government abuse, and Ladyada was one of the sharpest syringes we had to administer that vaccine.
Please All you nay sayers how you cant sell open source or make money off it... PLEASE, tell me how she is a failure...
Open Sells. Open is Profitable. This is a fact.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yeah right... Your mom said your pizza bagel bites are ready in the oven, and to clean up the basement it smells like armpits, feet, and Romano cheese down there.
I'm astonished that she has managed to turn a healthy profit on the dead-and-buried DIY electronic kit industry. After Heathkit and the likes went out of business, I thought it was all over for the kit businesses. But yet we also still have Velleman, Ramsey, and Sparkfun.
Ladyada created the brilliant x0xb0x - a faithful recreation of the Roland TB-303 synthesiser and sequencer, but with MIDI and a flashable firmware. It's a a brilliant device, and acknowledged that what made the 303 so good was the combination of synthesiser and sequencer. All previous clones had imitated the sound generation aspects alone.
I've had opportunity to deal with Limor directly (why I'm posting as AC, as I am truly a coward) I like what she's doing in terms of her company, but personally, she's got a very closed "My way is better than yours" and "I make more money than you so you're wrong" attitude, which is very much different than many other open source folks I've dealt with. Maybe that is an effective personality trait in a CEO... I never want to have to deal directly with her again. If that is the way she also works with her employees, it must be a soul-sucking, denigrating place to work- you'll fit in as long as you join her cult of personality.
Is this /. or forbe$ ? Since when did we care if someone has managed to monetise what we do for free, as a hobby, because we enjoy the intellectual challenge, not because we are money grubbing bitches who probably walked over other peoples backs.to get there anyway. Since when was being a monetiser automatically deserving of respect? If you subscribe to the stereotypical American role model of someone who makes the most money, preferably if they got some other poor chumps to do the work for them, then I'll offer the suggestion that this isn't the right website for you.
It's not a motorcycle, it's a chopper. Whose chopper is thees? Zed. Who's Zed? Zed's dead, baby. Zed's dead.
I'm very glad to see this company thriving. I thought after Radio Shack shitcanned its line of electronics kits, that future generations might not experience the joys of learning and assembling electronics projects. Here's to wishing her much success in the future!