Paul and Rich talk to entrepreneur-turned-activist Anil Dash about the early days of the web, access and inclusivity, and the ethical responsibilities of the people who build digital technologies. Plus we try to settle how much you should tip on a New York City cab ride — no matter what the interface.
courtesy the freakin internet
Anil describes himself as an “entrepreneur, activist and advocate working to make technology and the tech industry more humane, inclusive and ethical.” He helped start Six Apart (RIP), the company that made Movable Type. He’s gone on to cofound Makerba.se and Activate, and advises sites like Medium and DonorsChoose. Over the last several years he’s shifted the majority of his focus to social activism, working to make tech more inclusive and accessible to all.
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Paul and Rich know Anil and have for years; Paul has worked with and for Anil. Anil advised on of Rich’s startups. Our world is small and insular. We welcome and accept all feedback.
From the podcast:
Paul: Anil Dash [is a, uh] “re-ruptor.”
Anil: Boy, that’s a branding triumph.
Anil: “Everything prior to 2003 or so of the internet was just getting set up…what changes then is we realized that all we had been doing prior to that was clearing our throats and getting read to talk to each other. Right? The internet was for people to communicate.”
Paul: [Talking about modern social networks like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and saying that they] also won’t acknowledge new users. There’s no FAQ capacity.
Anil: No, no, there’s no onboarding.
Paul: There used to be the sense that, like, you joined a community, you’d read the rules.
Rich: Yeah, but there’s sort of a separate goal, right, which is lower the barriers as much as possible. Get you on Instagram in like 0.3 seconds.
Anil: Everything has to be friction-less.
Rich: Exactly.
Paul: Friction-less.
Anil: And friction’s really good. It’s really good. Like, having barriers up, it makes people behave better, it makes them want to do better, and you see, if you’re like, we just want to reduce any kind of obstacle to anybody showing up with no sense of norms or values about what this place is, you get what we have.
Tonight! One night only! March 15 @ Postlight: Come see the man who killed Clippy and fixed the Internet
Dean Hachamovitch is one of the most influential human beings who ever served time in the software industry. He served as Corporate Vice President of Internet Explorer at Microsoft — and oversaw the launch of IE9. Under Dean’s management, Microsoft helped millions of people experience a secure, private, responsive, cross-platform, and standards-based Web.
That responsibility was earned: Before IE, starting in 1990, Dean led the development of several versions of Word and Office on both Windows and Mac. AutoCorrect? Dean. Automated formatting? Dean. Clippy? NOT Dean. His team was the one that killed Clippy in 2007. RIP.
Dean is a modest person and does not enjoy being promoted, but the truth is he’s had as much of an impact on culture and software as nearly anyone alive. He has graciously agreed to speak about his work at Microsoft, building software at a huge, global scale before anyone knew what that meant — and, if we are very lucky, he might do his Ballmer impersonation.
