Caretaker Bob

I have discovered, in twenty years of moving around the ball park,
that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to
the price of the seats.

Bill Veeck, Chicago White Sox owner

Irreconcilable differences…

Sometimes it’s no-one’s fault, things just didn’t work out.

Sadly, I have to announce today that I’m divorcing Twitter @bobyoung from @caretakerbob.   I tried to stay united for the sake of my sanity, but have finally come to terms with reality.

The interesting lesson here is while for many people a single twitter account can work despite their varied interests, for others those interests are so unrelated they become distractions for their followers.

Most of those who share my enthusiasm for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats (www.ticats.ca) do not have as much interest in my passion for technology and the future of content (www.lulu.com).   While my friends who share my interest in the future of technology don’t generally care much for Canadian football,

So as of this afternoon, @caretakerbob will be exclusively focused on all things Canadian Football related, and @bobyoung will focus on technology, the future of content publishing on the Internet.

Of course this does not mean that I don’t have friends who share both interests and if you are one of them just follow both @bobyoung and @caretakerbob.

Cheers,   Bob.

(The timing of this divorce is being driven by tonight (June 13, ‘12) being the unofficial opening of the Canadian Football league season, with a 7pm pre-season game between the Tiger-Cats and the Toronto Argonauts, about which I will be tweeting sufficiently frequently my tech friends will be tempted to hit the un-follow button.)

We’re number 1!

Ok, so it is a little early in the season to start celebrating, given the season does not start for another month and three weeks (but who is counting), but for the first time in a decade the bookies are taking the Tiger-Cats seriously:

http://www.oddsshark.com/cfl/sportsbooks-release-grey-cup-odds

www.ticats.ca

Sigh.

We (those of us against NC Amendment One change to the state Constitution) were beaten badly last night.   We can only assume most of our fellow North Carolinians saw it as a poll on the idea that marriage is a good thing, as opposed to what it was, namely an attempt to withhold the right to marry from others. Whatever you think of the definition of marriage, Constitutions are for protecting the rights of minorities, not for withholding rights from minorities.   While I normally respect the result of democratic elections, not in this case.

If you agree please join the effort to have this mistake repealed:

https://www.change.org/petitions/1-million-against-amendment-1

Freedom+tolerance+education=prosperity

It is sometimes hard to tell which are the chickens and which are the eggs when considering Tolerance, Freedom, Education, and Economic Prosperity.  Although looking at the history of the most successful economies it is obvious that the most creative societies are the most successful over the long term.  And the most creative ones (whether by accident or design) are the best educated, most free, and most tolerant of new ideas and of change.

Fred Wilson, a brilliant VC in NYC, weighs in:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/05/tolerance-and-prosperity.html

North Carolina is so much better than this.

I love North Carolina.  I am a North Carolinian by choice, not by birth.  I chose North Carolina because of its Quaker values of faith, tolerance, and freedom.  North Carolina and the people of North Carolina have been very, very good to me and my family.

We have achieved amazing business success and made lifelong friendships and raised a wonderful family.  All while enjoying the great weather, spectacular beaches, majestic mountains, world class universities, the South’s best pulled pork, and the nation’s best college basketball teams. 

We chose North Carolina because of its welcoming culture and people.  20 years ago we packed up and did, what our friends in Connecticut referred to as, “a reverse Beverly Hillbillies”.   But the joke was on them.   We have not only enjoyed 20 years of much better weather, but unimaginable business success with first Red Hat Inc, and now Lulu.com. 

Now my adopted state has chosen to turn its back on its tradition of welcoming immigrants, and of tolerance and freedom to all its citizens, with a proposed amendment to the NC State Constitution no less, that hangs a great banner across the entrances to the state saying to a whole bunch of American citizens: You are not welcome here. 

This Amendment One, and for more information just google “NC Amendment One”, is against the spirit of what makes North Carolina great.  It is against everything North Carolina stands for.   North Carolina stands for freedom for all its citizens, young and old, black and white, handicapped and able bodied, gay and straight, married and unmarried.   

Let me confess my ulterior motive to blogging on this topic:  I build technology companies.  That’s my profession.   Building a successful technology company requires recruiting the best and the brightest young people our great nation graduates from its best schools.  Amendment One is the single worst thing the North Carolina legislature could have done to alienate this generation of bright talented young Americans from wanting to invest their careers and raise their families in North Carolina, and here’s why: 

This generation of Americans is just plain better than my generation.   They are more tolerant, more freedom loving, more intelligent and more creative than us old geezers.  Trust me, I know this.  I get to work with them every day.  They have more energy and enthusiasm than any prior generation of Americans.  They care more about making the world a better place than any previous generation of Americans ever have.  All we (all of us born before 1970) have to do to make the world and America a better place is to avoid stopping them. 

This proposed amendment to our state constitution is specifically telling them we don’t want their friends and fellow Americans to come here.   We need these talented, intelligent young Americans to come to North Carolina to help our technology industries succeed, but they have choices.   They can go to states with mottos like “Live Free or Die” instead of states that attempt to tell them how to live their lives, such as this Amendment One does.  And trust me, these bright young Americans can and will chose to join my competitors in Seattle, or San Jose, or New York.  

If you love North Carolina too, on May 8th please join me and run, don’t walk to your polling place to vote for the North Carolina you want.  Let your friends, family and neighbors know this is not some unimportant primary election. Let’s tell the world North Carolina is still the welcoming and tolerant and freedom loving place that drew me and my family here 20 years ago.  Vote NO to Amendment One. 

Your fellow Tar Heel,  Bob Young.  

Bob Young, born 1954, Hamilton Ontario Canada.  Founder of several tech companies, the most famous of which is North Carolina’s Red Hat Inc.  Currently founder/CEO of Raleigh NC-based Lulu.com. North Carolinian by residency and choice.

Read NC Amendment One in full here