Who doesn’t want a little advice about saving time, saving money, and avoiding unpleasantness on the bus? Here’s a selection of the 1000 highly opinionated, highly idiosyncratic guidelines in Rules of Thumb: A Life Manual – Brilliant Guestimates, Shortcuts, and a Few Shots in the Dark by Tom Parker.
- To measure water for cooking rice, rest the tip of your index finger on top of the rice and add enough water to reach the first visible joint. This works for any size pot.
- For every day you spend in the hospital, plan on one week to recuperate.
- To avoid lunatics on public buses, sit in the middle. The friendly lunatics sit as close to the driver as they can, and the unfriendly ones sit as far away as they can.
- All putts break towards the water, even on greens that appear perfectly flat. That’s because all greens are contoured for drainage.
- An extension cord should be as thick as the cord you plug into it.
- Any cop will tell you that in a bar fight, the shorter of the two men probably started it.
- If you ask a negative question, you will get a negative answer.
- For a minimum level of financial security, your net worth (the cash value of all your assets) minus all your debts should equal one year’s income.
- Keep white wine in your fridge and take it out 30 minutes before serving. Keep red wine out of the fridge and put it in 15 minutes before serving.
- If you’re playing cards in any gambling game for over 20 minutes and haven’t figured out who the patsy is, it’s you.
- As a manager, expect 80 percent of your work to be done by 20 percent of your staff. Also, expect 90 percent of your headaches/ problems to come from 10 percent of your staff.
- You are wealthy enough to give some money to worthy causes when you can buy all the groceries you need.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
What do squash champion Nicol David, shuttler Lee Chong Wei, cartoonist Lat and shoemaker Jimmy Choo have in common? -by Chan Li Jin
Apart from hailing from Penang, these four have also topped the charts in the inaugural Reader’s Digest Trust poll conducted recently in Malaysia. Together with Dr Jemilah Mahmood, founder and former president of MERCY Malaysia, these top five people have similar traits that warrant public adoration: perseverance, simplicity, honesty and down-to-earth grit.
Above all, they are all self-made success stories that have put Malaysia on the world map.
This is just one of the things we found out from our Trust survey. For the first time ever, we have conducted a nationwide survey asking people to rate 50 influential Malaysian personalities on their trustworthiness on a scale of one (“Not trusted at all”) to ten (“Trust completely”). The list was presented in random order.
We then calculated an average score for each person and ranked them in order of perceived trustworthiness.
The list of people was chosen based on their public profiles; all are often in the public eye and are considered leaders in their respective fields.
The list is by no means exhaustive and is expected to be a general overview rather than a spotlight on specific individual achievements.
The top trusted people have managed to carve a name out of nothing. Plus, they have maintained humble and down-to-earth profiles despite becoming household names, evading excessive publicity (and scandals) and the temptation to make fast bucks via product endorsements. Where human credibility is concerned, popularity does not necessarily spell public trust.
“Popularity is pop,” says Paul Jambunathan, Consultant Clinical Psychologist of Sunway Medical Centre and Monash University Malaysia. “Trust is built on a slow and measured disclosure of thoughts, ideas, feelings and acceptance. The more consistent you are with what people believe you to be, the more likely they will accept and trust you,” he says.
Poll aside, do we trust people more if we know them personally? Yes and no, says Associate Professor Dominic Lau, Lecturer and Head of Applied Research at UCSI University. “People trust you when they believe what you offer has value to them. If it doesn’t strike a chord, even your closest friends will doubt your best of intentions.”
Take fengshui master Lillian Too (# 48), for instance, who ended up closer to the bottom of the list. Loud in voice and louder still in dressing and style, her aggressive marketing-skewed talks, TV appearances and books have done little to improve public respect.
Compare this to, say, Chef Wan (# 10), whose success is seen to be due to his passion for cooking and dogged determination. As a 35-year-old male survey respondent commented, “You can’t lie when it comes to taste.”
According to Puan Sri T. Ampikaipakan, a corporate trainer and consultant, trust is an instinct we acquire at birth. “This is why first impressions are so important,” she says. “Babies have absolute trust in their primary caregivers for the first seven months. After the eighth month, they start crying when carried by strangers because they’ve developed preference for the people they trust most.”
She adds that the same vulnerability of trust applies in relationships, the family, workplace and the world in general. “You may do a hundred things right and no-one will even think about how trustworthy you are. But do one thing wrong, or leave one promise unfulfilled, and you would lose the total trust forever.”
That’s where transparency comes in. Puan Sri T. Ampikaipakan explains: “People are watching and judging you all the time. Where necessary, always keep others informed of the big picture, so that they can understand the circumstances when you cannot fulfil a certain promise. Then you won’t be seen to be breaking their trust.”
It’s all about being accountable, whether to the country, company, team or self. Let’s see who ranks highly on the trust meter, and who needs more work.
Ability to Deliver
What does it take to be a cut above the rest? Patience, persistence, perhaps even long-drawn suffering and sacrifices, says Dominic Lau.
Indeed, many in our poll have some form of battle scars to prove their mettle: Jimmy Choo’s business tussles, Afdlin Shauki’s body image problems, Michelle Yeoh’s rise up the movie world from Hong Kong to Hollywood.
Obviously the longer you are in an industry, the better you get. “No matter what you do, people will trust you more if you can deliver,” says Lau. “They don’t define trust as ‘time-tested’ for nothing.”
That’s good news for parents who are sometimes disappointed when their children don’t end up in professions like pilots, teachers or doctors, the top three trusted professions in our poll. Blue-collar professionals such as farmers (# 11), electricians (# 18) and musicians (# 21) also command substantial trust, provided they are good in what they do.
Inspirational Factor
It’s easy to place your trust in people who have accomplished awe-inspiring feats, such as MERCY Malaysia founder Dr Jemilah Mahmood (# 2), who has travelled to war-torn and disaster-struck areas to provide humanitarian aid. The same goes for Datin Paduka Sharifah Mazlina (# 10), the first Asian woman to trek to the North and South Poles.
In an interview with The Star newspaper in July 2009, Dr Jemilah said: “Malaysians had become such ‘materialistic’ people; the world around us is suffering and we claim to be caring people . . . when we measure success and development by material wealth and tall buildings. We need role models, to know that the little that we do has made a difference to someone else’s life. These things are worth more than anything money can buy.”
Family Ties
Ever wondered why job application forms require you to fill in the names and occupations of your parents and siblings? That’s because our family background has a bearing upon our character and value system, says Lee Wee Min, Executive Director of Focus On The Family Malaysia.
“Values need to be taught at the formative years as they are learnt at a subconscious level. Once a child reaches pre-adolescence, they are exposed to the distractions and delusions from the media and peers. If they’ve got a strong foundation, nothing can shake their value system,” says Lee.
A good example is world squash champion and Malaysia’s sporting darling, Nicol David. Her mother is a teacher, her father is an engineer and both her sisters are national squash players. In an email interview with Reader’s Digest, David attributes her success to her family’s strict upbringing and the support of the people surrounding her.
Emotional Engagement
According to Paul Jambunathan, trust can exist only with one vital ingredient: respect. This means that for people to trust you, you respect them for who they are, not what you expect them to be.
This is echoed by consultant rheumatologist Dr Amir Zain, who shares that he develops trust among his patients by engaging in honest and effective communication. “The more a patient finds out about his illness, the better I can communicate with him.”
The same applies to people in the entertainment industry, such as award-winning producer and actor Afdlin Shauki (# 9) and award-winning actress Adibah Noor (# 6). Their baby-faced appearance has emotional appeal, notes plastic surgeon Dr Eileen Fong.
“In almost every movie or cartoon, the good guys always have clean, clear skin, bright eyes, full cheeks, cherubic upturned smiling lips, small pert nose and eyebrows that are correctly located away from the eyes. In contrast, the ‘she-devil’ and ‘Mr Sinister’ is always portrayed by people with shifty eyes, hollow cheeks, thin lips, scarred face, crooked nose and vixen eyebrows,” she says.
The New Media
We now live in a dangerous new age of mobile connection and viral marketing where one can gain fame or infamy at a click. This is an additional reason for reputation management, so that public figures will always have their right foot forward.
“The trend for reputation management is still new here, although it is widely practised in other parts of the world,” says Baxter Jolly, Managing Director of PR company Weber Shandwick Worldwide. It’s like having an insurance against bad press. Just one bout of negative reporting will destroy all you’ve ever worked for, such as Ning Baizura’s (# 46) doctored nude photos, which were circulated through the internet.
The fear is that new media can cause public apathy. The more we hear about crime rates, lack of transparency and other social problems via SMS, blogs and other online sources, the more jaded the public becomes.
Impression Management
An important and yet often overlooked aspect of gaining trust is impression management, says image consultant and trainer, Dolly Kee, Managing Director of Image Power. Based on what people know about you, they would already have developed certain expectations on how you should dress, look and talk. “An image is formed by totalling what they see, hear and feel, so it’s an entire package,” she says.
This said, we can safely conclude that the more comfortable you are in your own skin, the more you can get people to trust and accept you. “People don’t like pretenders. You must like and trust yourself first before you can get others to trust you,” says Kee.
Malaysia's Most Trusted 2010
Individuals
1. Nicol David (squash world champion)
2. Dr Jemilah Mahmood (founder of Mercy Malaysia)
3. Lee Chong Wei (badminton Olympic silver medalist, Beijing Games)
4. Lat aka Mohd Nor Khalid (cartoonist)
5. Jimmy Choo (shoe designer)
6. Adibah Noor (singer/actress)
7. Michelle Yeoh (Hollwood actor)
8. Jins Shamsuddin (veteran actor)
9. Afdlin Shauki (aka Chief Kodok, actor/comedian)
10. Chef Wan (chef)
11. Paduka Sharifah Mazlina (adventurer, first Malaysian woman Antarctic Solo Expeditor)
12. Misbun Sidek (badminton coach)
13. Ivy Josiah (executive Director, Women's Aid Organisation)
14. Marina Mahathir (AIDS advocate)
15. Aznil Nawawi (actor/compere)
16. M Nasir (singer)
17. Zang Toi (designer)
18. Rashid Sidek (badminton player)
19. Jailani Sidek (badminton world champion)
20. Gurmit Singh K.S. (executive director of the Centre for Environment)
21. Amy Mastura (singer)
22. Sheila Majid (singer)
23. Siti Nurhaliza (singer)
24. Shebby Singh (former football coach, football presenter)
25. Razif Sidek (badminton player)
26. Jaclyn Victor (Malaysian Idol)
27. Maya Karin (actress, television personality and singer)
28. Ahmad Idham (movie director)
29. Harith Iskandar (comedian, actor)
30. Erma Fatima (actor)
31. Ramli Ibrahim (choreographer)
32. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor (astronaut)
33. Irene Fernandez (migrant worker activist)
34. Kee Thuan Chye (dramatist, poet and journalist)
35. Aziz M. Osman (director)
36. Tiara Jacquelina (actress/producer)
37. Alex Yoong (race car driver)
38. Asha Gill (television personality)
39. Fish Leong (singer)
40. Soo Kui Jien (tv presenter)
41. Mano Maniam (Fulbright scholar/actor)
42. Deanna Yusoff (actress)
43. Sharifah Amani (actress)
44. Reshmonu (singer)
45. Angelica Lee (actress)
46. Ning Baizura (singer)
47. Ella aka Norzila binti Haji Aminuddin (singer)
48. Lillian Too (feng shui master)
49. Awie Singer (actor)
50. Azwan Ali (TV host)
Profession
1. Pilot
2. Teacher
3. Doctor
4. Paramedic
5. Firefighter
6. Surgeon
7. Scientist
8. Dentist
9. Pharmacist
10. Nurse
Above all, they are all self-made success stories that have put Malaysia on the world map.
This is just one of the things we found out from our Trust survey. For the first time ever, we have conducted a nationwide survey asking people to rate 50 influential Malaysian personalities on their trustworthiness on a scale of one (“Not trusted at all”) to ten (“Trust completely”). The list was presented in random order.
We then calculated an average score for each person and ranked them in order of perceived trustworthiness.
The list of people was chosen based on their public profiles; all are often in the public eye and are considered leaders in their respective fields.
The list is by no means exhaustive and is expected to be a general overview rather than a spotlight on specific individual achievements.
The top trusted people have managed to carve a name out of nothing. Plus, they have maintained humble and down-to-earth profiles despite becoming household names, evading excessive publicity (and scandals) and the temptation to make fast bucks via product endorsements. Where human credibility is concerned, popularity does not necessarily spell public trust.
“Popularity is pop,” says Paul Jambunathan, Consultant Clinical Psychologist of Sunway Medical Centre and Monash University Malaysia. “Trust is built on a slow and measured disclosure of thoughts, ideas, feelings and acceptance. The more consistent you are with what people believe you to be, the more likely they will accept and trust you,” he says.
Poll aside, do we trust people more if we know them personally? Yes and no, says Associate Professor Dominic Lau, Lecturer and Head of Applied Research at UCSI University. “People trust you when they believe what you offer has value to them. If it doesn’t strike a chord, even your closest friends will doubt your best of intentions.”
Take fengshui master Lillian Too (# 48), for instance, who ended up closer to the bottom of the list. Loud in voice and louder still in dressing and style, her aggressive marketing-skewed talks, TV appearances and books have done little to improve public respect.
Compare this to, say, Chef Wan (# 10), whose success is seen to be due to his passion for cooking and dogged determination. As a 35-year-old male survey respondent commented, “You can’t lie when it comes to taste.”
According to Puan Sri T. Ampikaipakan, a corporate trainer and consultant, trust is an instinct we acquire at birth. “This is why first impressions are so important,” she says. “Babies have absolute trust in their primary caregivers for the first seven months. After the eighth month, they start crying when carried by strangers because they’ve developed preference for the people they trust most.”
She adds that the same vulnerability of trust applies in relationships, the family, workplace and the world in general. “You may do a hundred things right and no-one will even think about how trustworthy you are. But do one thing wrong, or leave one promise unfulfilled, and you would lose the total trust forever.”
That’s where transparency comes in. Puan Sri T. Ampikaipakan explains: “People are watching and judging you all the time. Where necessary, always keep others informed of the big picture, so that they can understand the circumstances when you cannot fulfil a certain promise. Then you won’t be seen to be breaking their trust.”
It’s all about being accountable, whether to the country, company, team or self. Let’s see who ranks highly on the trust meter, and who needs more work.
Ability to Deliver
What does it take to be a cut above the rest? Patience, persistence, perhaps even long-drawn suffering and sacrifices, says Dominic Lau.
Indeed, many in our poll have some form of battle scars to prove their mettle: Jimmy Choo’s business tussles, Afdlin Shauki’s body image problems, Michelle Yeoh’s rise up the movie world from Hong Kong to Hollywood.
Obviously the longer you are in an industry, the better you get. “No matter what you do, people will trust you more if you can deliver,” says Lau. “They don’t define trust as ‘time-tested’ for nothing.”
That’s good news for parents who are sometimes disappointed when their children don’t end up in professions like pilots, teachers or doctors, the top three trusted professions in our poll. Blue-collar professionals such as farmers (# 11), electricians (# 18) and musicians (# 21) also command substantial trust, provided they are good in what they do.
Inspirational Factor
It’s easy to place your trust in people who have accomplished awe-inspiring feats, such as MERCY Malaysia founder Dr Jemilah Mahmood (# 2), who has travelled to war-torn and disaster-struck areas to provide humanitarian aid. The same goes for Datin Paduka Sharifah Mazlina (# 10), the first Asian woman to trek to the North and South Poles.
In an interview with The Star newspaper in July 2009, Dr Jemilah said: “Malaysians had become such ‘materialistic’ people; the world around us is suffering and we claim to be caring people . . . when we measure success and development by material wealth and tall buildings. We need role models, to know that the little that we do has made a difference to someone else’s life. These things are worth more than anything money can buy.”
Family Ties
Ever wondered why job application forms require you to fill in the names and occupations of your parents and siblings? That’s because our family background has a bearing upon our character and value system, says Lee Wee Min, Executive Director of Focus On The Family Malaysia.
“Values need to be taught at the formative years as they are learnt at a subconscious level. Once a child reaches pre-adolescence, they are exposed to the distractions and delusions from the media and peers. If they’ve got a strong foundation, nothing can shake their value system,” says Lee.
A good example is world squash champion and Malaysia’s sporting darling, Nicol David. Her mother is a teacher, her father is an engineer and both her sisters are national squash players. In an email interview with Reader’s Digest, David attributes her success to her family’s strict upbringing and the support of the people surrounding her.
Emotional Engagement
According to Paul Jambunathan, trust can exist only with one vital ingredient: respect. This means that for people to trust you, you respect them for who they are, not what you expect them to be.
This is echoed by consultant rheumatologist Dr Amir Zain, who shares that he develops trust among his patients by engaging in honest and effective communication. “The more a patient finds out about his illness, the better I can communicate with him.”
The same applies to people in the entertainment industry, such as award-winning producer and actor Afdlin Shauki (# 9) and award-winning actress Adibah Noor (# 6). Their baby-faced appearance has emotional appeal, notes plastic surgeon Dr Eileen Fong.
“In almost every movie or cartoon, the good guys always have clean, clear skin, bright eyes, full cheeks, cherubic upturned smiling lips, small pert nose and eyebrows that are correctly located away from the eyes. In contrast, the ‘she-devil’ and ‘Mr Sinister’ is always portrayed by people with shifty eyes, hollow cheeks, thin lips, scarred face, crooked nose and vixen eyebrows,” she says.
The New Media
We now live in a dangerous new age of mobile connection and viral marketing where one can gain fame or infamy at a click. This is an additional reason for reputation management, so that public figures will always have their right foot forward.
“The trend for reputation management is still new here, although it is widely practised in other parts of the world,” says Baxter Jolly, Managing Director of PR company Weber Shandwick Worldwide. It’s like having an insurance against bad press. Just one bout of negative reporting will destroy all you’ve ever worked for, such as Ning Baizura’s (# 46) doctored nude photos, which were circulated through the internet.
The fear is that new media can cause public apathy. The more we hear about crime rates, lack of transparency and other social problems via SMS, blogs and other online sources, the more jaded the public becomes.
Impression Management
An important and yet often overlooked aspect of gaining trust is impression management, says image consultant and trainer, Dolly Kee, Managing Director of Image Power. Based on what people know about you, they would already have developed certain expectations on how you should dress, look and talk. “An image is formed by totalling what they see, hear and feel, so it’s an entire package,” she says.
This said, we can safely conclude that the more comfortable you are in your own skin, the more you can get people to trust and accept you. “People don’t like pretenders. You must like and trust yourself first before you can get others to trust you,” says Kee.
Malaysia's Most Trusted 2010
Individuals
1. Nicol David (squash world champion)
2. Dr Jemilah Mahmood (founder of Mercy Malaysia)
3. Lee Chong Wei (badminton Olympic silver medalist, Beijing Games)
4. Lat aka Mohd Nor Khalid (cartoonist)
5. Jimmy Choo (shoe designer)
6. Adibah Noor (singer/actress)
7. Michelle Yeoh (Hollwood actor)
8. Jins Shamsuddin (veteran actor)
9. Afdlin Shauki (aka Chief Kodok, actor/comedian)
10. Chef Wan (chef)
11. Paduka Sharifah Mazlina (adventurer, first Malaysian woman Antarctic Solo Expeditor)
12. Misbun Sidek (badminton coach)
13. Ivy Josiah (executive Director, Women's Aid Organisation)
14. Marina Mahathir (AIDS advocate)
15. Aznil Nawawi (actor/compere)
16. M Nasir (singer)
17. Zang Toi (designer)
18. Rashid Sidek (badminton player)
19. Jailani Sidek (badminton world champion)
20. Gurmit Singh K.S. (executive director of the Centre for Environment)
21. Amy Mastura (singer)
22. Sheila Majid (singer)
23. Siti Nurhaliza (singer)
24. Shebby Singh (former football coach, football presenter)
25. Razif Sidek (badminton player)
26. Jaclyn Victor (Malaysian Idol)
27. Maya Karin (actress, television personality and singer)
28. Ahmad Idham (movie director)
29. Harith Iskandar (comedian, actor)
30. Erma Fatima (actor)
31. Ramli Ibrahim (choreographer)
32. Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor (astronaut)
33. Irene Fernandez (migrant worker activist)
34. Kee Thuan Chye (dramatist, poet and journalist)
35. Aziz M. Osman (director)
36. Tiara Jacquelina (actress/producer)
37. Alex Yoong (race car driver)
38. Asha Gill (television personality)
39. Fish Leong (singer)
40. Soo Kui Jien (tv presenter)
41. Mano Maniam (Fulbright scholar/actor)
42. Deanna Yusoff (actress)
43. Sharifah Amani (actress)
44. Reshmonu (singer)
45. Angelica Lee (actress)
46. Ning Baizura (singer)
47. Ella aka Norzila binti Haji Aminuddin (singer)
48. Lillian Too (feng shui master)
49. Awie Singer (actor)
50. Azwan Ali (TV host)
Profession
1. Pilot
2. Teacher
3. Doctor
4. Paramedic
5. Firefighter
6. Surgeon
7. Scientist
8. Dentist
9. Pharmacist
10. Nurse
Dreamers: The Digg Idea
For two months after he launched digg.com, Kevin Rose didn't need an alarm clock. "By 6 a.m., I was up and on the computer," he recalls. "It was the sheer fear of not knowing what was on my own home page."
Here's why: Seasoned editors do not deliberate over Digg's front page. It's strictly a popularity contest. Users post news stories and images—found anywhere from the websites of big newspapers to small blogs—and with the click of a button, other users either "digg" the items (meaning they like them) or "bury" them (meaning they don't). On a given day, you can find breaking news about Iraq next to such headlines as "Bacon Flavored Jelly Beans!" and "Another Road Sign Warns of Zombies." "Sometimes you'll look at two headlines and say, No sane editor would ever put these next to each other," says Rose, 32. "That's part of the charm."
Today, the site gets 35 million different visitors a month. One link from Digg's home page can produce a tsunami of traffic that can turn a Web newcomer into a real player—or crash an ill-equipped smaller site. And investors are banking on the idea's value; just last September, Digg secured $28.7 million in new venture-capital funding. Many believe Digg is worth much more: Last summer, Google was reportedly in talks to buy it for $200 million. (Neither company will comment.)
Rose says a big cash-in was never part of his plan. When he started Digg, he thought, "If this can pay my rent and I can chill in my apartment and drink my tea and have an awesome little office, that'd be more than I could ask for." It's the kind of dream you'd expect from a Web wunderkind. As a child in Las Vegas, Rose was "the most unpopular kid in school," who at age eight spent hours on his family's Commodore 64, typing code to summon an animated balloon. In the early '90s, he persuaded his parents to buy him his own computer, which he used to talk tech with other "nerds" in chat rooms.
Rose's passion sometimes took precedence over schoolwork, prompting his mother to confiscate his keyboard when bad report cards arrived. "I drilled a hole in my desk and put a chain through it so she couldn't take it again," Rose says. At 15, he was repairing computers. By 19, he had a computer-support job at the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site while he was going to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And by 21, he'd dropped out and moved to Silicon Valley.
Rose came up with the idea for Digg in 2004 while hosting a cable news show about tech trends. Social networking sites like Facebook had just taken off, drawing users who could post photos, links, and video and then talk about them. Rose created a site that would take that approach to news. It debuted in November 2004. "It was an experiment," he says. "I wanted to see what kind of news would surface and whether it would be of good quality." But when the number of people visiting Digg reached a few thousand a month—enough to garner ads—Rose quit his day job. By 2005, Digg's monthly traffic had hit 200,000, and he'd hired a CEO and a staff and raised $2.8 million. Today, Digg is among the most-visited sites in the United States.
Like many sites, Digg hasn't yet figured out how to transform its traffic into profit. Nonetheless, it continues to evolve. Digg now recommends stories to users based on other stories they like. It also lets them vote on questions they want to ask politicians and celebrities.
In the meantime, Rose is sleeping through the night. He still checks the home page every morning when he gets up. But he makes a cup of tea first, then sits back to enjoy the mutiny.
Getting Ahead with Kevin Rose
Q. Is starting an Internet business as easy as it seems?
A. Oh, absolutely. Back in 2000, just to get a site off the ground, you had to buy expensive servers. There weren't as many freelance developers. Now you can get a rented server for $100 or less per month and hire a freelance coder for 10 to 12 bucks an hour and get off the ground for a few thousand dollars.
Q. What's your advice for someone who wants to launch a site?
A. People spend too much time planning and trying to get everything perfect before they launch. You're never going to know what users think until you get a site into their hands. Get something out there, find out what the community thinks, then refine and rerelease, refine and rerelease. You're going to get a lot of things wrong, and that's okay. You can always kill anything you don't like. Other than that, hold off as long as possible before taking investments, because the longer you wait, the higher your valuation and the less of your company you'll have to give away.
Q. Are you ever off the computer?
A. It's easy to get lost in the computer; I probably spend 12 to 14 hours a day on it. But on the weekends, I need to unplug. As I get older, I realize I can't live online. It's going to burn me out or kill me. I also just got glasses for the first time in my life.
Q. What's the best business advice you've ever gotten?
A. You don't have to work for other people; you can do your own thing and it can work out. Also, do something you love. In my family, we've each followed our passions in life. That's the most important thing.
Q. Are there certain entrepreneurs or businesspeople who've inspired you?
A. Growing up, it was Bill Gates for sure. And of course, Steve Jobs. I love the fact that he pays extreme attention to detail in his products. There's something about opening an Apple product and everything from the lettering on the manual to the way it's packaged is perfect—that means a lot.
Here's why: Seasoned editors do not deliberate over Digg's front page. It's strictly a popularity contest. Users post news stories and images—found anywhere from the websites of big newspapers to small blogs—and with the click of a button, other users either "digg" the items (meaning they like them) or "bury" them (meaning they don't). On a given day, you can find breaking news about Iraq next to such headlines as "Bacon Flavored Jelly Beans!" and "Another Road Sign Warns of Zombies." "Sometimes you'll look at two headlines and say, No sane editor would ever put these next to each other," says Rose, 32. "That's part of the charm."
Today, the site gets 35 million different visitors a month. One link from Digg's home page can produce a tsunami of traffic that can turn a Web newcomer into a real player—or crash an ill-equipped smaller site. And investors are banking on the idea's value; just last September, Digg secured $28.7 million in new venture-capital funding. Many believe Digg is worth much more: Last summer, Google was reportedly in talks to buy it for $200 million. (Neither company will comment.)
Rose says a big cash-in was never part of his plan. When he started Digg, he thought, "If this can pay my rent and I can chill in my apartment and drink my tea and have an awesome little office, that'd be more than I could ask for." It's the kind of dream you'd expect from a Web wunderkind. As a child in Las Vegas, Rose was "the most unpopular kid in school," who at age eight spent hours on his family's Commodore 64, typing code to summon an animated balloon. In the early '90s, he persuaded his parents to buy him his own computer, which he used to talk tech with other "nerds" in chat rooms.
Rose's passion sometimes took precedence over schoolwork, prompting his mother to confiscate his keyboard when bad report cards arrived. "I drilled a hole in my desk and put a chain through it so she couldn't take it again," Rose says. At 15, he was repairing computers. By 19, he had a computer-support job at the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site while he was going to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. And by 21, he'd dropped out and moved to Silicon Valley.
Rose came up with the idea for Digg in 2004 while hosting a cable news show about tech trends. Social networking sites like Facebook had just taken off, drawing users who could post photos, links, and video and then talk about them. Rose created a site that would take that approach to news. It debuted in November 2004. "It was an experiment," he says. "I wanted to see what kind of news would surface and whether it would be of good quality." But when the number of people visiting Digg reached a few thousand a month—enough to garner ads—Rose quit his day job. By 2005, Digg's monthly traffic had hit 200,000, and he'd hired a CEO and a staff and raised $2.8 million. Today, Digg is among the most-visited sites in the United States.
Like many sites, Digg hasn't yet figured out how to transform its traffic into profit. Nonetheless, it continues to evolve. Digg now recommends stories to users based on other stories they like. It also lets them vote on questions they want to ask politicians and celebrities.
In the meantime, Rose is sleeping through the night. He still checks the home page every morning when he gets up. But he makes a cup of tea first, then sits back to enjoy the mutiny.
Getting Ahead with Kevin Rose
Q. Is starting an Internet business as easy as it seems?
A. Oh, absolutely. Back in 2000, just to get a site off the ground, you had to buy expensive servers. There weren't as many freelance developers. Now you can get a rented server for $100 or less per month and hire a freelance coder for 10 to 12 bucks an hour and get off the ground for a few thousand dollars.
Q. What's your advice for someone who wants to launch a site?
A. People spend too much time planning and trying to get everything perfect before they launch. You're never going to know what users think until you get a site into their hands. Get something out there, find out what the community thinks, then refine and rerelease, refine and rerelease. You're going to get a lot of things wrong, and that's okay. You can always kill anything you don't like. Other than that, hold off as long as possible before taking investments, because the longer you wait, the higher your valuation and the less of your company you'll have to give away.
Q. Are you ever off the computer?
A. It's easy to get lost in the computer; I probably spend 12 to 14 hours a day on it. But on the weekends, I need to unplug. As I get older, I realize I can't live online. It's going to burn me out or kill me. I also just got glasses for the first time in my life.
Q. What's the best business advice you've ever gotten?
A. You don't have to work for other people; you can do your own thing and it can work out. Also, do something you love. In my family, we've each followed our passions in life. That's the most important thing.
Q. Are there certain entrepreneurs or businesspeople who've inspired you?
A. Growing up, it was Bill Gates for sure. And of course, Steve Jobs. I love the fact that he pays extreme attention to detail in his products. There's something about opening an Apple product and everything from the lettering on the manual to the way it's packaged is perfect—that means a lot.
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