Jason Nazar’s Blog

Tonight was the Vice Presidential Debate for the 2008 Presidential Ticket between Senator Joseph Biden and Govenor Sarah Palin. Their performance aside, here are the Top 15 Presidential Debate Moments of the television recording era.

Top 15 Presidential Debate Moments - Get more Docstoc Buzz

A collection of Hollywood A-Listers show up to say Don’t Vote in reverse psychology 101 For my money, the best PSA I’ve ever seen (even slightly beats out “this is your brain on drugs”).

Common Excuses Why People Don’t Vote

Common Excuses Why People Don’t Vote - Get more Docstoc Buzz

Sarah Palin Swimsuit Contest? Yep, this could very well be the next President of the United States of America (oh jee gosh golly well). Here are Sarah Palin Swimsuit Photos.

I recently came across Andy Baio and his blog Waxy. You can see the full video of Sarah Palin in her Ms. Alaska swimsuit contest here.

On a related note, my best friend Ben Gleib recently wrote a letter to Senator Obama on how to handle the financial crisis (oddly enough he was in an orange one piece swimsuit when he wrote it as well). Here were his thoughts on how leadership can get us out of our current crisis.

Senator Obama, Please Lead Us Now - Get more Docstoc Buzz

Congress came to an agreement on the bailout plan over the weekend. Treasury Secretary Paulson and the Bush administration were pushing hard for a government mortgage bailout, where the Treasury would buy billions of dollars of bad mortgage debt in order to provide more solvency and liquidity for our country’s financial institutions.

Here is the bailout bill text

Bailout Plan - Get more Legal Forms

While something needs to be done to prevent massive turmoil in our financial markets, this is the wrong solution. This is simply delaying a larger financial crisis. Historical, the economy has never become stronger as government encroaches more into the private sector.

I wrote about my thoughts here on the national financial crisis:

The financial crisis in the US is going to get worse, much worse. The current crisis is largely due to the fact that there has been too much liquidity in the market. Basically the cost of money has been too cheap for too long, and that has lead to the overvaluing of assets and a mass speculation that perpetual growth is a replacement for sound business principles.

More simply, EVERYONE got greedy because they had access to so much money that didn’t have to get paid back for a long time, and when it did have to get paid back it was at historically low interest rates. This fueled a much larger underlying issue our country has been facing for the last 3 decades, the dollar is not longer tied to the gold standard. This means that the government literally prints more money as it “needs it”.

The largest danger to the US is not terrorism, its our economic policy, and we are all unfortunately in for a rough time ahead. I’ve only heard one public figure speak with any clarity, moral authority, and common sense. Ron Paul may not be on the presidential ticket anymore, but he is a lone voice in a sea of morons, cowards, lemmings, and apathetic bystanders.

I’ll write much more on the issue but for now, this is the most important video I can share and our friend Ron explains it much better than I can.

Digg put on a mixer last night in San Francisco for some CEOs and Heads of BD.  The event was organized by my friend Matt Van Horn, who did a fantastic job of bringing together an amazing collection of folks from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Dow Jones, Twitter, Linkedin, Motorola, and Docstoc.  (so proud of your progress Matt) 

The event, which was planned weeks ago, ironically fell on the same day as digg’s funding press release. You can see the embed to the press release below.  

I had so many great conversations, and wanted to share a few here.  

Raanan Bar Cohen of WordPress told me how he’s running a team of 40 people all over the world remotely and how they do 20-30 code releases A DAY!!! (Alon, we have a lot of catching up to do)

Jay Adelson of Digg joked about VCs who may have been wearing jeans for the first time to meetings with Web 2.0 companies

Richard Jalichandra of Technorati is a badass, incredibly smart and thoughtful fellow and may be my CEO idol of the week

Oren Katzeff of Demand Media and Cracked was just stoked that there was another straggler from Los Angeles (hello new Santa Monica neighbor) 

Kevin Rose of Digg was as humble and “ah sucks” welcoming as he always is

Kate Thorp of RealGirlsMedia eats a LOT of In&Out

Norman Liang of Photobucket misses Peter Pham (you can’t have him back, he’s ours now)

Damon Berger of Revision3 tried to set me up with one of the waitresses (i generally never trust flirting when it comes before a tip)

Cathy Brooks of Seesmic works for Seesmic, who knew?  (you always make me laugh, even when I disagree with your Lindsay Lohan girl on girl philosophy)

Debbie Landa of DealmakerMedia was not at the event, but I am going to give her MAJOR shit if she does NOT take my idea for her video and do an 80’s Jane Fonda work out spoof

Trip Adler of Scribd and I always joke about what people think of seeing us hanging together at mixers, and sincerely compliment each other while we simultaneously try and pump each other for info

Ryan Cunningham of Jumpcut said he liked docstoc so he is my new best friend for life

Freddy Mini of NetVibes has a cool French Accent.  I wanted to try and imitate him, for him, and thankfully had the good sense not to

MC Hammer of, well, MC Hammer had a great idea about improving voter participation in national elections.  ”Make it a mandatory leave day for employees, and when you bring proof of voting, to your employer it won’t count as a sick day”  

 

Digg Funding Press Release - Get more Business Plans
 

A few weeks back I grabbed a drink with Sean Whitely, the VP of Operations for Slingshot Labs. He gave me some great advice on establishing “Core Values” for employees. His were: 1) We Get it Done 2) We Ask Questions 3)We Like Our Job 4) We Over Communicate 5) We Prove Ourselves Everyday

This got me thinking, what should the core values for our company be? And being a HUGE comic buff, I asked everyone on our team to pick which superhero they would be, and we went around the room and everyone had to explain why they picked that hero (the hilarity from that meeting will be a follow-up post).

I took this as the opportunity to frame our mission and values within the metaphor of an epic adventure. So here is the list of our core values, based on 10 Lessons Startups Can Learn From Superheros. (substitute “Superheros” for “Your StartUp Company”)

Superheroes Never Give Up

Like Batman, you have to keep pressing on to the very last breath. Challenges are overcome by wholeheartedly committing to unrelenting persistence.

Superheroes Always Get the Job Done

There are no excuses if you don’t save the girl from the burning house. There are just results, not reasons, you either save the day or you don’t. Gray area is for Kafka not comic heros.

Superheroes Are the Best at What They Do

Flash is the fastest and we all know it. . If you’re the back end developer, you are the best developer in the world, and everyone on your team knows it. Let great talent excel in areas where their superpowers are most needed.

Superheroes Are Crystal Clear of their Purpose

Captain Marvel may be a cheeseball, but he knows what he stands for. Startups die when they are not clear on their mission.

Superheroes Are NOT Flawless

Superheros have flaws, every member of your team will also. The goal is not perfection, it’s the pursuit of perfection.

Superheroes Do Not Seek Glory…But They Get it Anyway

Don’t do it because you want the attention.
If you do it right, you’ll get it anyway

Superheroes Help Others

Superheroes help people by solving problems. Startups should be obsessed NOT with themselves, but with how they are going to help other people and solve their issues.

Superheroes Can Do it By Themselves But Are More Powerful in Teams

You always have to have each other’s back. Its you vs. the world and brining together your own team of superheroes, and the mutual respect, loyalty, and camaraderie of that team is vital.

Superheroes’ True Strength Comes From Their Character

No matter how super you think you are, you’re strength comes from your character not your talent. Be courageous, be respectful, be honorable, be selfless.

Superheroes Accomplish Huge Feats

The same effort it takes to start a lemonade stand or college club, is the same raw effort it takes to change the world. Your goal is not to build a product or get traffic… Your goal is to accomplish the most amazing feat imaginable. Make the Product, Save the World.

So this will likely be the last week that the Docstoc Family spends in our “Beverly Hills” office.  We are unbelievably excited for the move, and personally these kind of changes are usually accompanied with twinge of sadness for me.  

Docstoc’s “first” office was my living room, and a group of folks that would meet every tuesday night over Chinese food while I ranted on. (So much thanks to folks like Matt, Marc, Ryan, Cindy, and Lisa who all spent countless nights at my place). 

By July 2007, I had maxed out my personal credit cards and taken out student loans to try and get the first version of docstoc out.  Alon and I were working on closing our Angel Round, but so far the only checks we had committed were from a law school professor of mine and a good friend from my JD/MBA program.  

I was spending every night on craigslist looking for some kind of office we could move into, and I found this ad for a little space on the edges of Beverly Hills for 2K a month.  The first month’s rent and desposit alone was 1/5 of the money we had left.  

But sometimes you just get a feeling its time to take a leap.  I jumped on signing the lease, and docstoc began to feel very real, and there was no turning back.  

We’ve spent that last year at our cramped home here on Olympic Blvd, and its been some of the happiest, and most challenging, days of my life.  What seemed like a ton space when we first moved in, now seems like a broom closet.  We literally have folks piled in each of the three rooms sitting on top of each other, you can barely back up your chair without bumping into someone else.  

I tried my best to give these pep talks to our team about how no one else who ever works at docstoc will know what it was like to be in this first startup office together, and have that camaraderie, and how it was so romantic.  That wore thin in the last few months.  

So we’re moving on up, to the WEST side.  Our new home will be by the beach, in Santa Monica, 2 blocks away from the 3rd street promenade, and one block west of Google on Arizona and 5th street.  

I hope many friends come by our new home, its an amazing location to build the company.  And please indulge me if I take you for a drink and tell you all my favorite stories about the early days working insanely late nights, in a cramped office, with Alon, Andrew, Ilya, and Kat (and everyone else) before docstoc moved offices.  

Reception as you walk in, complete with fish tank

Waiting Area

Back Corridor 

Conference Room

What may be our temporary game room

From the back of the office facing the front overlooking 3rd street promenade

Kitchen Area

Did I mention we have our our showers 

Oh, and a 3rd story roof deck all to ourselves overlooking all of santa monica, the blue building is our new neighbor, Google

Last year we launched docstoc at the first ever TechCrunch40 conference.  It’s been a crazy year, a growing team, close to one million publicly shared documents, and two rounds of financing later we are back here again as guests watching the show this year.

Here is the TechCrunch50 Program 

TechCruch50 Program - Get more Information Technology

I’ll be giving updates throughout the conference and leaving notes of some cool things going on, just keep check out the post, more to come….

For More Coverage Check out TechCrunch and Sean

Day 1

Ashton Kusher launches his new site BlahGirls