rocket.ly

Originally posted at borderstylo.com.

When I was but a fledgling entrepreneur, like most fledgling entrepreneurs, I became frustrated with the process of trying to raise money for my fledgling venture. Now, this was during the "dot-bomb" era, and so raising money was supposed to be easy. We also had an increasingly vocal contingent of curmudgeons, wondering why we couldn't just earn our money like everyone else, with hard work and everyday construction materials. We were pioneers, forging a new economy from bits and bytes and assembling entire companies by applying mass production to "value chains" where "capital formation" was no different than tightening bolts on a combustion engine!

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To those of you who shared your stories about leaving, or took the time to clarify some of the reasons for doing so, thank you. Obviously, I am hardly alone in making the decision to quit, or at least seriously consider it. It has been nothing short of inspiring to read your comments and realize how many of you cared enough to take action, whether it was actually deleting your account or simply taking the time to share your thoughts.

I thought I'd try to respond to some of the more common objections ...

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After some reflection, I've decided to delete my account on Facebook. I'd like to encourage you to do the same. This is part altruism and part selfish. The altruism part is that I think Facebook, as a company, is unethical. The selfish part is that I'd like my own social network to migrate away from Facebook so that I'm not missing anything. In any event, here's my "Top Ten" reasons for why you should join me and many others and delete your account.

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It is easy to be a cynic. It is easy to say, the hell with it, and give up. But nothing really interesting ever gets done that way. And certainly part of what I love about TED -- and Mindshare and other events like it -- is that it celebrates perseverance. Some people don't get that. Was it cheesy as hell when Melissa Etheridge joined Muslim rock star Salman Ahmad, singing ring the bells of change, and everone was literally ringing these little bells? Hell, yeah it was. But when you back it up with an organizational behavior case study on building the Large Hadron Collider or a talk by a guy restoring sight to the blind, well, you know what?

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I grew up in Detroit, but I've got no love for American automakers. I think bailing them out is a waste of money. I want them to die and for Detroit to move on and find an industry who treats them better.

Why do I hate them? Because they don't innovate.

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