One of the tempests in a tea cup that came out of Gnomedex this year was Dave Winer’s outburst during Jason Calacanis’ talk. I said it then and I’ll say it now, Dave was out of line. All the comments could have been saved for the QnA period. Regardless, the spat spilled out into the halls, Twitter, and the blogosphere generally. Not such a great thing over what was really just bad manners. I think that both Jason and Dave have been pretty gentlemanly about the whole thing, today Dave officially, and publicly, apologized to Jason and Jason accepted. Saying this in his Twitter stream:
one thing i learned as a ceo, apologize easily and often. my grandfather, a businessman, taught me this. “pay for your sins,” he said he explained that no matter what you’re going to pay. the longer you wait the more it costs.
Dave gave all of us some advice to remember. Maybe even print out to hang above our desks. When you screw up, come clean and try to make it right. I particularly liked Brian Solis’ comments in his post:
According to Dave?s post, ?I gave it some thought, and I decided to apologize to Jason for interrupting his speech at Gnomedex. I wish I hadn?t done it. It?ll never happen again. That?s a promise.?
What?s important to realize is that Dave is only apologizing for the way in which he shared his thoughts. He is not apologizing for his opinion, nor should he. Source: Dave Winer Apologizes to Jason Calacanis– bub.blicio.us
This gets to the heart of the matter, it wasn’t what was said, it was how. Big difference. Now what could be an extension of this is now it seems that Dave isn’t a part of the TechCrunch20 any longer:
Despite those words that scream ?you?re done with TechCrunch20, buddy,? Calacanis later stated via Twitter that Winer ?resigned.? Perhaps the two had an off-line meeting regarding Winer’s TechCrunch20 status, but the aftermath of the public spat puts a fine point on Silicon Valley politics and the TechCrunch20 event in particular. The tacit message now writ large: Publicly criticize the business ventures of the event?s organizers–get dropped from the event. Source: Wired
Dave says this in his own post:
On Saturday I resigned as an advisor to the TechCrunch 20 conference, but I’m not going to stop giving them advice. I think Jason should present Mahalo there, and let the reviewers take him apart. It’ll be good for him and for his company, and maybe if he finds a good proposition, good for us too
Well I think we just have to take it a face value. Maybe Dave just wasn’t comfortable being a part of it after this debacle. I just hope we can put this to bed now.
