Rafe's Radar

MindSumo: The X Prize of hiring

Rafe Needleman — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 17:24:39 PST

New challenge-based recruiting site will help you find smart kids to solve your vexing problems.

Reporters' Roundtable: Failure is always an option

Rafe Needleman — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 11:56:12 PST

This week's failure to communicate, from Path, was hardly a unique event. Companies--especially fast-moving startups--screw up all the time. The issue is how they react to their errors. Can Path recover, as Facebook and Google have from their privacy flaps, or will this flub hurt the company over the long term?

And how can you prepare for your own inevitable, and public, failures, if you're running your own company?

I have two guests today well-versed in the art of failure and graceful recovery:

Brooke Hammerling, founder of Brew Media Relations, and
Owen Thomas, the founding editor of The Daily Dot

Subscribe to the Roundtable:
iTunes: MP3 | 320x180 | 640x360
Podcast RSS: MP3 | 320x180 | 640x360

…

Originally posted at Reporters' Roundtable Podcast

Startup Secret 33: It's a long game

Rafe Needleman — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:01:00 PST

Does LinkedIn have a strategic weakness? BranchOut's CEO thinks it does, and is basing his whole company on it.

Navigation app Waze gets limited voice controls

Rafe Needleman — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:00:00 PST

The free, crowd-source navigation and traffic app Waze layers in rudimentary voice controls.

Path's Dave Morin: No, really, I don't lie about this stuff

Rafe Needleman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:22:59 PST

Does a 2010 e-mail from Path's CEO show how the company betrayed users' trust?

Path and the disclosure dilemma

Rafe Needleman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:19:06 PST

Path underdisclosed what it was doing with your address book; Pinterest didn't alert users it was making money from their links. Well, what did you expect? And was it so bad?

Path CEO: We are sorry, and we've deleted your address book data

Rafe Needleman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:32:25 PST

Path aims to regain users' trust with an apology and a mass deletion of data it got without permission.

Startup Secret 32: Doers over thinkers

Rafe Needleman — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 08:05:00 PST

The startup CEO has to do everything, but there's one thing especially that only the CEO can do. Consultants ideally have recent operational experience very relevant to your needs.

VC turns office into Apollo museum

Rafe Needleman — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:00:00 PST

Another venture capitalist with a penchant for collecting old technology: Steve Jurvetson of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. His focus? Gear from NASA's Apollo era.

Startup Secret 31: Always be closing

Rafe Needleman — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:02:00 PST

The startup CEO has to do everything, but there's one thing especially that only the CEO can do.