Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reilly
Tim O'Reillyis the founder of O'Reilly Media. He popularized the terms open source and Web 2.0...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth6 June 1954
CountryIreland
business model work wrote
My original business model - I actually wrote this down - was 'interesting work for interesting people.'
everybody figure invite party people speakers wants
Conferences are really like parties, and an A-list party is one where A-list people are in attendance. You figure out who are the really important people to invite and get them to show up as speakers or as guests. Then everybody wants to be there. If you don't know who the important people are, you shouldn't be doing a conference.
clear database decide license nuance offer people recently speech talked technology
Why did Google, for example, recently decide to offer free 411 service? I haven't talked to people at Google, but it's pretty clear to me why. It's because of speech recognition. It has nothing to do with 411 service: it has to do with getting a database of voices, so they don't have to license speech technology from Nuance or someone else.
basically guys happening people statement
The fact that there's all these really messed-up people on the Internet is not a statement about the Internet. It is a statement about those people and what they do, and we need to basically say that you guys are doing something unacceptable and not generalise it into a comment about 'this is what's happening to the blogosphere.'
believe human motive share
I believe that the human motive to share is very powerful. The human motive to profit is also very powerful, and I think that the profit motive and the sharing motive are not exclusive.
common flavor imitators marginal products social technology
I have to say there are a lot of me-too products and companies. Yet another social network, of the 15th flavor - that's common in every new technology revolution. There are imitators who have marginal improvements.
bored draw guess love money people silicon technology valley weaknesses
I guess I would just say that in general, one of my weaknesses is that I love everything. There's too much of everything to keep up with it all. I get bored with Silicon Valley technology a lot. I've always had much more of a draw to the people who are doing things for love than the people who are doing things for money.
certainly personally seven six thousand
I personally own six or seven thousand books, so I - and I certainly don't want to see them go away.
became companies dominant grew microsoft model oracle
Proprietary software grew up, starting really in the 1980s, as an alternative and that became the dominant model with the rise of companies like Microsoft and Oracle and the like.
appetites deeply defined influenced rather virtue
I've been deeply influenced by Aristotle's idea that virtue is a habit, something you practice and get better at, rather than something that comes naturally. 'The control of the appetites by right reason,' is how he defined it.
amazon authority consumer data definitive ebay google information market products relatively secondary sets source
Amazon is now the definitive source for data about whole sets of products - fungible consumer products. EBay is the authoritative source for the secondary market of those products. Google is the authority for information about facts, but they're relatively undifferentiated.
bit building change government hard large
It's hard to make something as large as a government change. It's a little bit like building the transcontinental railroad.
experience publishers recreate saying
I see publishers bemoaning their fate and saying that this is the end of publishing. No! Publishers will recreate themselves. Some of that comes from my experience as a print publisher.
control fit lead life pattern work
I wanted more control of my life. I wanted work to fit in, not to dominate; to support, not to lead the pattern of my life.