It's lame to pretend the reactions of potential clients aren't important. Even if there is a jealousy factor, a good founder would take it into account and act accordingly.
"But isn't xobni just an outlook plugin?"
Clearly people have that idea in their head. Now what is xobni going to do about it?
Many of the people who're objecting - at least on these TechCrunch and FeedBurner stories - would never have bought it anyway. It's better to concentrate on the folks who will buy it (I assume they're out there, though I'm not one of them...) and make something that they'll use, love, and tell people about.
"Drowning in Email?
Find Email & Attachments Instantly"
"Xobni is the Outlook plug-in that helps you organize your flooded inbox"
It looks to me like they're focused on reaching people who have a problem to solve, and aren't concerned about being viewed as "just an outlook plugin."
In my case, you missed the part where my employer's stock value dropped to $2 and the whole company was sold at wholesale to a group across the street.
If I gotta be connected to those kinds of risks, I want more control and more freedom.
And then you missed the part where your years of career development enabled you to walk the other direction down the street and pick up a job almost immediately making approximately the same amount of money, continuing to contribute to your IRAs.
BigCo's fail too, but no amount of dissembling is going to make BigCo tech careers as risky as startup tech careers.
The job market here in NYC for financial techies is not as you described. You clearly believe too much in startup tech centers because the risks involved with finance are as risky as start up tech careers. Riskier in some. Not as risky in others.
Why do you think Bernanke and Paulson had to get involved when Bear collapsed..?
I'm going to respond to this by pointing out that my company's offices are at 44 Wall and in the Loop in Chicago. I'm not a financial techie; I just get paid by them.
Fair enough. The job market is really screwy right now for financial techies. I'm on linkedin and my phone rang like crazy the day Bear collapsed. It's been ringing with people from UBS looking for staff. I've been told people are running out of UBS like crazy. The computer security market will probably get a boost from this actually. JPM's security has been boosted as they take over Bear's stuff and attrition potential isn't clear.
Come to think of it... you might want to cold-call JPM and see if they need help!
I'm sorry for being snarky about the NY-FI market. I can see why it's scary right now. I was reacting to the "irrational faith in startup tech centers". Startup tech centers are a scam. It's 2008! You're building web technology! You really think your location matters?! UR DOIN IT WRONG.
From one new yorker to another, you've got that right! I live here because I love the city. I work in financial tech because I like the excitement of working as fast as possible to solve problems. I also dig the bonuses. :)
I agree with michael_dorfman's comment below and think it's unfair to call him a troll... Not everyone will be positive and taking that into account is important.
He doesn't seem to be taking into account new markets that might soon exist. We had TV's, space travel, the Internet, Y Combinator and wireless communication in the 1900's alone!
