Friday, March 12, 2010
Google grows even more obnoxious
This anyway is the takeaway from a speech that Dr. Strangelove gave in Abu Dhabi. Fortune reported on it but of course didn’t have the balls to flat-out say that Schmidt & Co. are totally egomaniacal sociopaths drunk with their own power. No, for that bit of truth-telling we needed Valleywag/Gawker, which took the same material and put a better headline on it: “Six Delusions of Google’s Arrogant Leaders.”
It’s familiar stuff. Like, when people complain about Google invading their privacy, it’s not Google’s fault, it’s that the poor end users are confused, or stupid, or both. Like, Google isn’t about making money, yet the proof of Google’s virtue is how much money it’s making, and how well its stock price is doing, ie, the fucks on Wall Street are now the world’s best moral compass.
Best part is that apparently Eric claimed Google had figured out how to predict the stock market but had decided against doing it because “we decided it was illegal.” I’m not sure what exactly they had planned, so who can say on the legality part, but let’s just ponder this for a second. Google’s top brass believes they are so smart that they could predict the stock market, if they chose to do so.
Really? Seriously? What else could Google do? Change the weather? Communicate with the dead? Choose winners at the race track? I used to think Larry Ellison was the craziest, self-adoringest buffoon I’d ever met. But Eric, congratulations. You now have nudged into the lead. Even Microsoft was never this awful. And that’s saying something.
China to Google: Drop dead
Minister of Information Technology says Google must obey the laws or leave, and China doesn’t give a crap because they’ll be just fine without Google. (Especially since they apparently can waltz into Google’s servers whenever they want, steal Google’s algorithms, and create Google clones.) Now, I’m no fan of censorship, except when I’m the one doing it, in which case I’m all for it, but I must say I am loving this — seeing someone, finally, who isn’t afraid of Google and will just tell them, straight up, that they are totally full of shit and should just go fuck themselves. Smell the glove, Eric Schmidt. Smell it.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Do not believe reports about multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0
Much has been made about some blog report claiming we’re about to add multitasking to our iPhone OS. It’s all sourced to “people with a proven track record of predicting Apple’s technological advances.” Supposedly the way we’re going to do that is that “Apple plans to deliver a multi-tasking manager that leverages interface technology already bundled with its Mac OS X operating system.” A few thoughts:
1. Do you have any fucking idea what that last sentence means? Because I don’t. Does it sound like the kind of thing our engineers might make up some night when they’re all getting drunk and then “leak” to some person with a “proven track record” of not being able to keep a fucking secret?
2. Did anyone else notice that after claiming we are going to add multitasking to the OS, the article goes on to explain all the very very very good reasons why we don’t have multitasking there now? Like, games are better. Battery life is better. And, my favorite: “The iPhone OS is intended to create mobile devices that are easy to use, not just small versions of the complex PC model of the 1990s.” Which is true. Extremely true. And somehow now we’ve changed our minds about that?
3. Do you fucking people have nothing better to do with your lives than worry what we may or may not do with some future version of iPhone? Really? This is what you sit around doing? Sneaking around trying to pry out weird bits of information about what might happen in the next version of an operating system for a phone? And then debating them on blogs and comment strings and calling each other names and trying to claim bragging rights for being the best at predicting future Apple features? Listen to me: You need to get a life. Find some woods, and go for a walk. Go to the gym. Read a good book. Go volunteer at a food bank or homeless shelter. Go join a protest about health care. But sweet mother of Jesus stop worrying about your fucking iPhone, okay? Repeat after me: It’s just a phone. Regain some perspective, you big weenie losers.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Now unemployed, My Little Pony decides to dish
Jonathan Schwartz has lots of free time on his hands since he got promoted out of Sun after the Oracle takeover. So what’s he doing? Blogging, of course, with a blog titled, “What I Couldn’t Say,” which I guess means he’s now going to tell us all the stuff he couldn’t tell us when he was CEO of Sun and writing a CEO blog. But wait. Wasn’t the whole point of that CEO blog to be completely open and transparent? Only now we find out he was — gasp — holding out on us? Well, as they say in court shows on TV, can you really trust the word of an admitted liar?
Of course not. But anyway I’m sure some people will accept as fact Jonathan’s made-up story about me calling him and threatening to sue Sun over some user interface they were working on but never actually delivered. (In other words, a typical Sun project.) The truth is, I have no recollection of this conversation with Jonathan. None. It simply never happened. But hey, it’s a great story.
And I’m sure people will bring it up when they’re discussing our lawsuit against HTC, and they’ll try to paint us as a bunch of bad guys in suits who go around threatening people and bullying smaller rivals. A child could tell you that’s not true, just by looking at our ads. We’re the good guys. Listen to that happy music. See the happy, smiling people. That’s who we are. That’s what we’re all about.
So shut the fuck up, Jonathan Schwartz, or I swear to God I will sue your skinny ass for libel.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Yelp still keeping it classy

Longtime readers will know that this blog has a wonderful history with the online blackmail racket known as Yelp. You can see our whole tag string here, and enjoy the run-ins we had with various Yelptards, such as Butt Plug Girl and her angry boyfriend, who were upset about many things, including a bad lap dance in Las Vegas; Pube Face; Big Mama Gummy Bear; and of course, Bike Helmet Girl, who later almost became my lover. I’ve especially always had a warm spot in my heart for Yelp founder Jeremy Stoppelman (photo above), who I said “appears to be just the kind of sociopathic nouveau riche lady killer that I’ve always admired.”
Well, it turns out I had no idea how much of an evil fucker this guy actually is.
Nor did I really understand the true nature of his business, which is, I have to admit, kind of brilliant. Because now it’s coming out, in a lawsuit that just got filed against Yelp, that what Yelp has done is harnessed the angry energy of its Yelptard army to create a pretty awesome little shakedown racket. Works like this. Sub-normal IQ Yelptards visit your restaurant, or dry cleaner, or whatever. They go home and write mean, unfair, borderline libelous things about your business. This of course drives away business.
But in comes Jeremy Stoppelman to save you — all you need to do is buy ads from Yelp, and they’ll let you put a really nice positive review (say, by you or one of your friends) at the top of the list, so that’s what people see first. There’s also some belief that if you pay up, maybe some of the bad stuff gets erased altogether, though I guess Yelp swears that this never, ever, ever happens, swear to God, cross my heart and hope to die, because we’re really super honest Web 2.0 guys who just to make the world a better place and have really loads of integrity because trust is the foundation of our business and if our customers don’t trust us then they will just go to another site and our competition is only a click away, so we actually have created a system in which we’re disincentivized from doing any that’s even remotely scuzzy and if people don’t believe that it’s probably just because they’re olds who don’t really understand how the Web works and we just need to invest more effort into educating them.
In other words, it’s the Google defense. All of these dirtbags — Zynga, now Yelp — have read that bullshit from Google so many times that they’ve just internalized it and can say it in their sleep.
Truth is, they’re all venture funded, and they’re all run by scammers who, if the Web did not exist, would most likely be selling either cars or drugs, or both. The truth about their business model is that it’s not built on trust, but quite the opposite. The real incentive is for these guys to “do every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues,” as Mark Pincus of Zynga was caught on tape admitting.
I call it the Zynga moment, and every Web company, even Google, has it — it’s when you start out saying there’s all these scumbaggy things we’ll never do because they’re just too evil, but then when Plan A doesn’t generate any revenue, and Plans B and C fail too, well, your investors hold a come-to-Jesus meeting and here comes your Zynga moment, when you realize that you’re just going to have to give in and start doing all those things you said you’d never do. If you’re Zynga, or Yelp, you’re doing this to stay alive, and you rationalize it by saying that (a) your investors made you do it; or (b) even if you sell a little bit of your soul that’s just so you can stay in business and accomplish the really, really important and transformative things that were the original goal of the company. If you’re Google, you’re doing it not to stay alive, but because you realize that your core business model, as wonderful as it is, can only take you so far, and if you want to achieve any kind of growth, well, it’s time to start fucking people over.
FWIW, the best indication that Yelp is a mess is the fact that not long ago, Bono’s investment company, Elevation Partners, said it would invest up to $100 million into the company. I don’t mean to be a dick, but Elevation’s other big investments have been in Forbes magazine, which may or may not still be in business, and Palm, which is in business but won’t be for long. Not saying Yelp is doomed or anything, because let’s face it, blackmail is a hell of a business. But Elevation does not have a record of backing winners. They’re bottom feeders, and if they back you it probably means that someday, down the road, they’re going to take you apart and sell you for scrap.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Michael Wolff has become obsessed with me, and it’s starting to get scary
Seriously, the guy writes about me every day now, plus he’s been calling my office over and over insisting on speaking to me, and then he’s sending email to my personal email account, and I’m thinking about getting a restraining order. See his latest hornball note here. Wolff says I’m suing HTC because I feel threatened. He says the lawsuit is a sign that the iPhone isn’t doing well enough, that “Apple’s margins are apparently not large enough to sustain a competitive onslaught.” Money quote:
It’s a Steve thing. Not just a temper tantrum. But an operatic one. It’s Steve Jobs’ signature: pride and paranoia. Behind it, too, is the motivation of all great competitors—they really don’t want to compete, they want the market for themselves.
Michael Wolff, you scare me more than Ray Kurzweil, and that’s saying something. Please, please, for the love of all things holy, go find yourself an intern to sexually harass, and leave me alone.
We are launching a multi-front war to prove that Google is evil, and The Onion is helping out
Our legal teams will file lawsuits against Google’s phone partners to slow down the spread of Android. Meanwhile our special ops teams will be helping create articles like this one in the Onion, in which Google offers frighteningly specific apologies to people whose privacy it has invaded.
From Eric Schmidt: “Whether you’re Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are.”
From Sergey: “I’d like nothing more than to apologize in person to everyone we’ve let down, but as you can see, many of our users are rarely home at this hour,” said Google cofounder and president Sergey Brin, pointing to several Google Map street-view shots of empty bedroom and living room windows on a projection screen behind him. “And, if last night’s searches are any indication, Boston’s Robert Hornick is probably out shopping right now for the spaghetti and clam sauce he’ll be cooking tonight. Either that, or hunting down that blond coworker of his, Samantha, whose Picasa photos he stares at every night,” Brin added.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
We’re not litigious — we just like to sue people
Everyone is going nuts because we just sued HTC for violating several hundred of our patents, including our patent for the 12-box keypad (1-9 plus * and #) which we introduced on the iPhone and are now seeing copied everywhere, and our patent on the “audible tone to indicate an incoming call on a telephonic communication device,” which also is just showing up everywhere.
Naturally there’s a risk when you start suing people that people will view you as a kind of bully, but we’re trying to make clear that we are just attempting to defend our rights and protect the innovation and invention that we’ve spent years innovating on inside our incredibly innovative invention labs. Gizmodo says the patents we’ve got are “incredible!” and that HTC had no idea we were going to sue them. AllThingsD provides complete copies of court documents which I recommend you go read, from front to back, right away. TechCrunch says that the suit is actually an attack on Google and Android, which is true. It’s war, people.
Meanwhile someone really seems to have it in for Dr. Eric Schmidt these days and is dishing up loads of embarrassing crap about him, like this photo in which he looks, well, sort of not really human. And then someone else dug up an obscure Web post where a former employee calls Schmidt a “smug little prick.” You’d almost think that, I don’t know, some spurned ex-lover decided to get a little revenge or something.




