Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012 • Hacker News Board

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#11

Post by jamesbritt » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 9:33 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #8

jamesbritt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "same stuff"? Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.

Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap. Everyone sold the tools, kits and parts already. All that had been achieved is the application of hype and turning a bunch of prepackaged modules into a way of excusing the user from having to know what the hell they are doing. It's turned engineering into painting by numbers…

It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

I think you're grossly undervaluing that.

Painting by numbers, as goofy as it seems, allows relatively non-skilled people to create approximations of art. For some, that's enough. For others, that taste of making a painting motivates them to want to do more. Just getting people to pick up a paint brush and mess around with some paints can be an amazing trigger.

The social aspect may help people see that, having assembled some basic Arduino thing, they could make it do a few other cool things, and other people like themselves (i.e. non-geeks) have done it, and will show them how.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#12

Post by eaurouge » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 9:50 PM UTC

jamesbritt wrote: post #6

meaty wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

What do you mean by "same stuff"? Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.

Yes, hobbyist electronic kits were available, both in the US and the UK, in the 90s.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#13

Post by danilocampos » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

You're embarrassed by a successful entrepreneur?

Can you explain to me what is embarrassing to you?

Is it the making money part?

Is it the understanding a market and serving it part?

Is it the education and knowledge sharing to better energize and expand the market part?

Is it the persistence, perseverance and timing part?

Is it the creation of a legion of folks who never would have participated had they not been given the encouragement and clear marketplace part?

Is it the successful marketing part?

Or is it some other part that I have failed to mention? We live in a world where people made billions selling tobacco, blood diamonds, sub-prime mortgages and Justin Bieber albums. But even without those, I can see very little embarrassing about an entrepreneur channeling passion into advocacy and sales of products customers clearly value.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#14

Post by stbtrax » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 9:53 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think more embarrassing are characters like Bre Pettis, who take an open source project(reprap) commercialize it, and then proceed to not open source their derived works.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#15

Post by tptacek » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 10:02 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

I think the same thing about Google. We all have 'grep', don't we? Ooooh, look at the big company, running grep on 1,000,000 computers. Give me 1,000,000 computers and I'll run grep on them too! Don't any of you people remember Archie? Google is just Archie with a bunch of movement crap.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#16

Post by MichaelAO » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 10:02 PM UTC

Well done! I've enjoyed putting together a few of the kits from Adafruit. My favorite (not the most technically challenging) is definitely the "tv-b-gone". Taking that thing into a bar in my college town has provided a lot of laughs. There maybe some room to be critical towards the fan fare of the maker movement, but all in all it's a positive step towards individuals becoming interested in science/technology.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#17

Post by tptacek » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 10:03 PM UTC

weld wrote: post #3

I first met Ada at the Boston 2600 meetup in Harvard Sq in 1992. I think she was 14. Deth Veggie from Cult of the Dead Cow introduced her to me. He said he could tell she was going to amount to something big. Heh. Congrats Ada!

You've got me beat by 3 years. I think I met her for the first time at Pumpcon. She's also one of the nicest people. I tell my daughter about her all the time (it's no use, she still wants to be an author instead of an engineer).

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#18

Post by danilocampos » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 10:03 PM UTC

meaty wrote: post #8

jamesbritt wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "same stuff"? Were you selling kits and tools to people who might not have previously thought of themselves as makers, making it super easy to jump in and get started? This is what I think she's got the attention for.

Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap. Everyone sold the tools, kits and parts already. All that had been achieved is the application of hype and turning a bunch of prepackaged modules into a way of excusing the user from having to know what the hell they are doing. It's turned engineering into painting by numbers…

> Yeah I actually designed two kits for maplin in the 90s before they started shipping velleman shit and containers full of Chinese plastic crap.

Sounds like you're actually embarrassed that she succeeded where you did not.

> It's turned engineering into painting by numbers powered by social hype.

Like the iPad is "just" a big iPhone.

Most people who benefit from these sorts of products don't have a firm grasp of math and engineering to start with. Our education sucks in the US. Giving them a helping hand is a terrific way to swell the ranks of STEM professionals and introduce people to solving problems they would never have considered otherwise.

To shit on this is the most deplorable, counterproductive elitism.

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#19

Post by georgemcbay » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 10:06 PM UTC

weld wrote: post #3

I first met Ada at the Boston 2600 meetup in Harvard Sq in 1992. I think she was 14. Deth Veggie from Cult of the Dead Cow introduced her to me. He said he could tell she was going to amount to something big. Heh. Congrats Ada!

'Sup weldpond?

I first met her IRL at a Boston 2600 meeting too, at the Cambridgeside Galleria. IIRC she was being escorted around by Rogue Agent and Sarah Gordon.

Already knew her on irc +hack/#hack back from when she was 'lem0n', which Deth Veggie still calls her (he still calls me by one of my old handles too).

(I used a bunch of handles back then, on irc mostly gfm or geo)

Re: Adafruit CEO Limor Fried named Entrepreneur magazine Entrepreneur of 2012

#20

Post by meaty » Mon, Dec 17, 2012, 10:07 PM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #13

meaty wrote: post #5

Am I the only one who finds the 'maker movement' slightly embarrassing. There are plenty of us before Limor who did the same stuff without the fanfare and movement crap. This isn't a flame - I'm just surprised that the application of spin managed to produce such a ton of noise.

You're embarrassed by a successful entrepreneur? Can you explain to me what is embarrassing to you? Is it the making money part? Is it the understanding a market and serving it part? Is it the education and knowledge sharing to better energize and expand the market part? Is it the persistence, perseverance and timing part? Is it the creation of a legion of folks who never would have participated had they not been giv…

Yes I will.

I find it embarrassing in the same way as I find computer science portrayals in movies embarrassing. Hax0r the planet etc...

Making money - selling overpriced modules and branded crap for way more than marginal profit (compared to say RS/Farnell/Digikey) and shipping an identity rather than tools to solve problems.

Understanding the market - actually they created a new market full of flashing LED cube machines and crap which actually performs no useful function other than to make other participants in the marketed identity look cool. About the most intelligent use for all of this I've seen (which isn't served elsewhere) is a computer controlled cannabis farm and that isn't exactly going to serve the intelligence of the person who built it well [1]

Education - there is very little going on there. Every person I've seen jump into this comes crawling to me for advice but then shits a brick the moment something more complicated than a 4 banger calculator is pulled. You know what a complex number is right? What do you mean you don't understand why that 10 ohm 1/4W resistor smoked across a 12v source - do you know what Ohms law is? The answer is usually "no - we just googled and copied the picture".

Persistence, perseverance, timing? None are relevant.

Marketing - the bugbear of the whole thing. They created an identity which actually serves the participants badly.

Actually you just nailed it - it is equivalent to selling Justin Bieber albums.

[1] Sub-rant - the hacks I've seen people use including twist-n-tape mains cables are going to kill someone one day...