Techie Talks

Erik Hanberg’s visit to our class was very interesting. He gave us insight on what it’s like to be an entrepreneur in the age of the internet. Erik talked a lot about how he created income for himself through his various interests. He currently self-publishes a wide range of novels. Erik does through tools at his disposal the internet. He hires people to edit his writing, create book covers, and give him audience feedback. I thought this was extremely cool that he could do it all on his own. This reminded me how much the internet has truly changed this. It has given people the freedom to pursue many opportunities within their interests. It also gives people more accessibility than they had before.  People can do so many more things independently. Like become their own publishers. Erik also described all the steps he took to get his name out there as a budding author. He talked about buying email addresses and sending them information about one of his book he did not yet write. On ...

The internet’s whole entire dynamic changed with the introduction and adoption of the Mosaic browser. New internet companies sprung up in massive droves. Investors started to speculate on what the companies were actually worth. This speculation caused a crash that impacted the whole industry. The dot.com crash was a direct result of too much investment, too quickly. Many companies were valued for way more than they were actually worth. This created a culture of over-investment. That investment caused companies to put too much faith into a new industry. There was no guarantee that internet companies would actually do well and continue to do consistently well. But since the internet was so new, no one questioned it. Companies got lots of capital before they could prove how profitable they would be.  Once the “bubble burst,” everyone lost everything. Companies could no longer keep themselves afloat. The bust hit everyone extremely hard. People lost their jobs and livelihoods. A lot ...

This film gave me an interesting insight to what it’s like to build a start-up. It showed the company at its really low points and high points. I enjoyed that it didn’t just focus on their success but their failures as well. Specifically,  This showed me more of a realistic perspective of startups. In my mind, start-ups seemed more simple to create. I knew there were longer hours than a regular 9-5 job. But, I did not know how much work actually went into raising funds to get your company off the ground. Additionally, I enjoyed that the film shows a completely different perspective than the usual Silicon Valley start-up. It showed a diverse team (with an exception for gender) who all seemed to be important parts of the team. The film also showed me how difficult things can be with partners of the company. Things got really nasty between all founding members. You could really see the difference between those who truly believed in the company and who was money hungry. The ones who c...

The film had such a unique framing device. It uses a documentary style that seems real at first and then twists into science fiction. This made it so much more interesting for me. It made it interesting because I didn’t expect this twist at all. I assumed it would be an educational video about the history of the internet. The film was so much more in-depth than that. It gave an early shocking prediction of what news on the internet would look like.  Surprisingly, it was kind of accurate. Online news truly has taken over the journalism industry. Google and other tech companies have killed the print news industry. There are more people who read the news on electronic devices than watch it or read newspaper. Many companies made the news so much more accessible. People can now find exactly what kind of the news they want and not have to deal with the spectrum of news that comes with newspapers. They can also create their own news. It’s pretty acceptable to not fact check or have any j...