Experience

Nobody likes an expert, everybody believes they can go it alone.

Get a cold today and the last thing someone will do is say to go to the doctor. They'll tell you about zinc and vitamins and all kinds of rubbish because it makes them feel powerful. There's more junk science than ever, because the people who didn't pay attention in school don't like the fact that others did and are more informed than they are.

Furthermore, we live in an information age, and if you're willing to do the research, to read, it's amazing what's out there. Kind of like this e-mail I got this afternoon:

"From: Dave Fulton
Subject: RE: John Hamm, CEO of Pono, Calls

Couldn't agree more....the original key creator and designer of the iPod echoes your sentiment regarding crowd funding hardware start ups @ 1:40 mark. He claims you really don't make money until the 3rd version of anything you build. They guy is super interesting...google just recently bought his company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYj5X_dE2U8

Cheers
Dave"

And then there's tomorrow's "Wall Street Journal," which went live on the west coast at 9 PM:

"Venture Money Flows Into Hardware Startups - From Jawbone to Roku, U.S. Investors Pump $848 Million Into Consumer-Electronics Makers": http://on.wsj.com/1fURUlq

Read about the woman who raised 92k on Kickstarter for a bike light and found herself in way over her head.

You want to know why Doug Morris and Lucian Grainge have jobs?

EXPERIENCE!

And you hate that. You hate that someone is on top and you're not.

But the truth is Mr. Morris and Mr. Grainge know what's a hit, better than most, and they know how much to spend and how to market. Do they make mistakes? Of course, but everybody who comes in from the outside and says they're going to institute discipline into music and get it right loses, whether it be Andy Lack or Guy Hands.

I don't hate Neil Young, I love a great deal of his music. But in this crazy world where we revere people for their fame as opposed to their smarts I find it necessary to point out the truth, which no one seems to like, because it screws with their hero worship and their ignorance.

We live in an era of intelligence and technology. Somehow too many musicians don't know this. That the only way they can win is to be anti, to speak truth to power as opposed to trying to compete with the big boys, like everybody in Hollywood investing in tech, what a laugh, as if to become a hedge fund manager all you've got to do is hang out your shingle.

Those bank guys know something. They learned it through years of dedication. Did you practice your instrument to get ahead or are you so busy networking online that you think it's irrelevant?

Neil Young's paid a lot of dues in music, almost none in tech, and it's gonna come back to haunt him, the odds are long for Pono.

But I don't care. Buy his device, hope it ships and hope it's good. I want you to be happy.

But please stop ignoring the rules. Start being blinded by science instead of hype. Forget the cult of personality and get down to the cold hard truth.

But that would require you to realize where you are on the totem pole...

Turns out most wealth in America today is not inherited, it's been made anew by the present generations. Sure, they may have had advantages, good schooling and generous parents, and a modicum of luck, but they're pulling further and further away as we in entertainment focus on nitwits like Justin Bieber who are not only uneducated, but have nothing to say.

Once upon a time musicians were different. They learned in the best schools in the world. They knew you didn't cozy up to the corporation, but questioned it.

But now you can't question anybody, certainly not anybody famous.

That's what we're all looking for, crumbs from the famous entertainers, believing that Facebook pic from the show will burnish our image and make us happy.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Wake up!


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