It might make sense--a pizza shop owner who couldn't afford to rent in a highly-trafficked area may have similar problems bringing customers to his storefront (stores don't usually pop up and have instant success).
Plus, a brick-and-mortar store owner has higher fixed costs.
Reading your post and considering it further, I guess his message is less about starting up than about how to survive a day job and continue to grow as a human being by doing interesting work at night.
Blub work on a startup at night could be another path away from employment that isn't really addressed in the presentation (though it's very difficult to pull off, IMO).
Thanks for posting this; the part at 40:00 actually motivated me to view the rest, which I recommend to anybody working in a corporate job.
Hopefully this summary does justice to the remainder (but IMO it's worth watching):
40:00 Essentially he says you're not defined by your job. Your outside projects represent your self-expression and the corporation doesn't get a piece of that.
42:00: Most companies treat programmers like factory workers. In that case, act like one: do a professional job and punch out at the end of the day.
43:30: "If the company makes money off the sweat off your back, you get a chunk. If you don't get a chunk then you give them what they absolutely ask for, keep it to a minimum, be friendly, be very professional, do your stuff, make sure it's well-written, but don't go out of your way to give them your latest, greatest research or your idea or whatever."
44:00: Work on weird and cool stuff at home to stay sharp. If all you do is corporate coding, all you'll ever be is a drone.
45:00: When you're coding at home, "you're making poetry people can play with." But you don't want to do this for a company that doesn't care. "Who wants to make another document management system, time tracker or accounting system? There is money in that, but unless you're making the money too, it's not really fair."
47:30: Don't fear change. At home, take chances and learn new stuff. But at work, just give them what they want because they'll make changes whether you like them or not. It's just a job.
50:00: If you're concerned about being outed, consider creating an online identity (like "_why").
51:30: Don't do Blub at home; do something completely different, break the rules and code for fun. At work, don't think too much, don't be different and just get it done.
52:40: Outside work, make sure you're not someone's "resource" to be "utilized." Run with like-minded folks.
54:00: Embrace your geekiness, get out there and do it now.
55:00+: Questions and answers. This was good too, but somebody else will have to take over the transcription. ;)
I think they're working on it and this is more of a preview (though I don't know for sure).
My first impression was that the feature list next to the logo needs a different font. In general it seems like a nice improvement over the old site's visual design.
"JF: While the lack of a free plan lead to increased paid signups, we decided we’d bring it back because we’d be missing out on a lot of upgrades from free -> pay. That’s a lucrative pay path for us."
"Hawkins says fear of failure is a big issue for his adult students: "We don't want to be seen as incompetent or struggling with a task, because we are so competent in so many areas of our life. We do so many things well, so to start with something we don't do well is a real challenge.""
I think they do some of those things now, with ads on the floor, blinky-lighted coupon dispensers, end-caps (?) and so on. I suppose it could get uglier, though. ;)
I also think they've become savvier about promoting their generic brands.
I think it's best if you just go without expectations and see if it's to your liking--that's really the only way to know for sure. You might be pleasantly surprised.
I went to a group meeting similar to the one you mentioned at its inception and was really bored, but it has to depend on the people, the presentations, and you.
Are you sure you didn't receive a series of e-mails warning about the upcoming renewal? That's what I always get from GoDaddy for each of my domains, prior to the auto-renewal.
For example, I received one at the end of November notifying me that one of my domains will auto-renew at the end of February 2009.
I just checked and have another from a few days ago notifying me of an auto-renewal for a different domain in March 2009.
It's a good pointer to the recent sales figure releases, but it doesn't seem like the author ever gets around to revealing how to reach the top of the App Store.