this american won’t-o be reading that book I tell you what

Change in Headline

sort of related I remember Nick Denton at the height of prospective glitzy success (just moved into big fancy office etc) asked about Gawker’s pivots vs rivals, he replied something to the effect of not having any interest in “noble failure” which lol, managed to avoid that result I guess

and worse, whatever got changed never worked out anyway, short or long run. I mean sometimes they got bought and made bank, or at least salavaged a little dignity, but more typically through circumstantial luck. and they still got transformed into another interchangable Business Person type, at best

but it was sad to see a founder start out idealistic and driven by principle get pressured by investors and/or lateral C-level hires turn into a Gollum version of their previous selves, cannibalizing their old personality to fit the new business model, which was always a cheap copy of the old one

always depressing in retrospect, of course not unexpected. and after all it’s not wrong per se to want your business to be succesful! if you’ve poured all your time and energy into something and it’s not working you tend to grasp for something, anything that will justify what you’ve expended