Poll: Best speaker at Startup School 2008?

The great thing about this event was not only the quality of speakers, but the wide range of topics they spoke on. I thoroughly enjoyed pretty much all of them.

Overall it was an excellent event. Except that one annoying guy who kept asking the speakers "questions" that ended up being rather ridiculous advice.

I still bet you all end up working on building the next facebook despite, as I write this, DHH has the most votes. LOL

The guy with those motivation comments was badass. In these long preceding years, all the general advice that could be given has been given. Now, the only words remaining that can really help are those that make people act.

Where else could you find so many speakers expousing diametrically opposed ideas while all being correct?

DHH by far and that isn't to say the others weren't good, just that his was stellar by comparison. In other years PG might have won -- nothing wrong with it, it was pretty good, just that DHH was stellar.

Some of the top points for me (my interpretations):

1) Rails - first version was 1000 lines. You don't have to make something gargantuan that solves every problem as a first version!

2) Rails was a means to an end, something used in the process of making something REAL. It wouldn't work as a day job, it would be horrible to just work on a framework all the time.

3) If you only HAVE 2 hours a day, working on it is something to look forward to (my inference), whereas if you have all day every day you procrastinate. Don't expect yourself to work on it all the time, it's not realistic.

4) Reverse terror alerts -- SO much coverage given to the one in a million success stories that we subjectively feel it's much more likely than it is. We are brainwashed with overexposure. The odds are much better of building a small business, and of course there's nothing preventing you from selling that anyway. I suppose it's like flipping a house -- make it someplace nice and live in it and you can enjoy it, and that doesn't stop you from selling it later if you want. If you are focused on flipping it then it becomes kind of an albatross because you're too attached to a low-probability outcome that depends on other people, which makes you a bit desperate and unable to enjoy the process, which just becomes an interminable wait.

5) Calling the shots, running at your own pace -- not having to "yes, massa" and do what your investors tell you.

6) Having a bunch of small customers vs. one huge one means you don't have to placate some fussy demanding customer or risk losing the account and all your income. If a small customer isn't worth it, you can refund and let them go.