Steve Wozniak: Edward Snowden Is A 'Hero'

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Steve Wozniak called whistleblower Edward Snowden a "hero," lauding the former National Security Agency contractor for exposing the government's classified Internet surveillance program.

“[Snowden's] a hero to my beliefs about how the Constitution should work," the Apple co-founder told The Daily Beast's Lloyd Grove this week. "[He's] a hero because this came from his heart. And I really believe he was giving up his whole life because he just felt so deeply about honesty, about spying on Americans, and he wanted to tell us.”

The Woz went on to say that he's troubled by the idea that the technology he has helped develop is now being utilized to encroach on the privacy of ordinary citizens. "I don’t think the NSA has done one thing valuable for us, in this whole PRISM regard, that couldn’t have been done by following the Constitution and doing it the old way," he said, referring to the NSA program by its code name.

Visit The Daily Beast for the full interview.

Wozniak hasn't been shy about expressing his disappointment with the NSA and its surveillance programs. Just last week, he compared the agency with Cold War-era Russia, telling Spanish tech news site FayerWayer that the U.S. is getting "more and more" Big Brother-like.

"When I was brought up, we were told that Communist Russia was the ones that were going to kill us and bomb our country and all this," he said. "And Communist Russia was so bad because they followed their people, they snooped on them, they arrested them, they put them in secret prisons, they disappeared them. These kinds of things were part of Russia. We're getting more and more like that."

In an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan last week, the computer whiz added:

I actually feel a little guilty about [my role in developing technology that has allowed for widespread surveillance] but not totally. We created the computers to free the people up, give them instant communication anywhere in the world; any thought you had, you could share freely. That it was going to overcome a lot of the government restrictions.

We didn't realize that in the digital world there were a lot of ways to use the digital technology to control us, to snoop on us, to make things possible that weren't.

According to some reports, late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs may have been as resistant to PRISM as Wozniak is now. “Steve Jobs would’ve rather died than give into that," a former co-worker of Jobs' told Cult of Mac earlier this month.

Edward Snowden has been on the run since he leaked documents describing U.S. surveillance and intelligence programs to the press earlier this month. At press time, he was believed to be hiding out in Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport. He may soon seek asylum in Ecuador, The Associated Press reported Wednesday.

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Steve Mariotti: John Boyd, An American Genius: What Everyone Should Know About the OODA Loop

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One of the greatest military minds of all time, John Boyd was a pilot in the Air Force from 1951-1975. He was puzzled by the fact that, in Korea, American fighter pilots were able to win nine of ten dogfights against Soviet convoys -- despite the fact that the Soviets had a superior plane (the MiGs), and had more training time.

It was this puzzle on which Boyd built his entire career. The answer he found was that, in an effort to save money in their production, American manufacturers made planes without the metal canopies that protected the pilots. Hence the American pilot could see. The MiG, on the other hand, had a metal protector that prevented the pilot from seeing his target.

Out of that insight came one of the most important military breakthroughs of all time: observe, orient, decide, act (OODA). It is still the military policy of the U.S. Marine Corps. Essentially it argues that who ever can perform the quickest OODA Loop can win the conflict.

Boyd developed his theory over 30 years and laid it out it in a lengthy presentation, which he sent around to different military executives. It was never accepted in the Air Force but to this day it is idolized within the Marines.

The best book written on it is called John Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram.

Right now I am hoping that every young person will learn about the OODA Loop. I find it extremely helpful and relevant in my own work.

OBSERVE: You are aware of what is around you.

ORIENT: You take the time to think.

DECIDE: You make a decision based on the best information available to you.

ACT: And, finally, you take steps on this information.

You do the loop over and over again, continually adjusting and responding. You look and think before you make a decision. You act. You do it all over again. It is one of the most important lessons for a young person to learn.

I try to bring the OODA Loop to everything I do, particularly to NFTE in order to teach low-income youth how to start their own businesses: you have to be constantly aware and adjusting to feedback around you. This insight is so important to entrepreneurs as they develop startups that have to respond to an ever-changing market.

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Steve Bousquet: New Jet Helps Gov. Rick Scott Crisscross Florida

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Rick Scott is the first governor in the history of Florida (and likely the last) to travel the state in his own personal jet.

Read the whole story at Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau

Steve Blank: Who's Doing the Learning?

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In a startup instead of paying consultants to tell you what they learned you want to pay them to teach you how to learn.
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Roominate, one of my favorite Lean LaunchPad teams, came out to the ranch last week for a strategy session. Alice and Bettina had taken an idea they had tested in the class - building toys for young girls to have fun with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math -- and started a company. The Roominate dollhouse building kits are being sold via their own website and soon, retail channels. They've shipped over 5,000 to enthusiastic parents and their daughters.

As soon as they had designed the product, they found a contract manufacturer to build the product in China. Alice and Bettina are hands-on mechanical and electrical engineers, so instead of assuming everything would go smoothly, they wisely got on a plane to Dongguan, China, and worked with the factory directly. They learned a ton.

But we were meeting to talk about sales and marketing. They outlined their retail channel and PR strategy and told me about the type of consultants they wanted to hire.

Hiring Channel Sales
"So what would the retail channel consultant do?" I asked. Alice looked at me like I was a bit slow, but went on to describe how this consultant was going to take their product around to buyers inside major retail chains like Target, Toys R Us, Walmart, and others to see if they could get them to buy their product. "That sounds great." I said, "When are you leaving for the trip?" They looked confused. "We're not going on any of these calls. Our consultant is going and then he's going to give us a report of how willing these stores are to carry our product." Oh...

I said, "Let me see if I understand this correctly. What if a buyer asks, 'Can you make a custom version of your product?' Can your consultant answer that question on the spot? What if a buyer said no? Will your consultant know what questions to ask right then to figure out how to get them to yes?" I let this sink in and then offered, "Think about it for a minute. You're going to pay someone else to learn and discover if your product fits this channel, and you're are not going to do any of the learning yourself? You didn't skip the trip learning how to manufacture the product. You got on a plane yourself and went to China. Why doesn't this sound like the right thing to do for channel sales?" They thought about it for a moment and said, "Well we feel like we understand how to build things, but sales is something we thought we'd hire an expert to do."

Hiring PR Agencies
We had an almost identical conversation when the subject turned to hiring a Public Relations agency. Bettina said, "We want to drive customer demand into our channel." That's smart I thought, a real clear charter for PR. "What are they going to do for you?" I asked. "Well all the agencies we interview tell us they can survey our customers and come up with our positioning and then help us target the right blogs, influencers and press.

This felt like déjà vu all over again.

I took a deep breath and said, "Look this is just like the channel consultant conversation. But in this case it's even clearer. Didn't you get started by testing out every iteration with girls and watching firsthand what gets them excited? Don't you have 5,000 existing customers? And haven't you been telling me you've been talking to them continuously?" They nodded in agreement. I suggested, "Why don't you guys take a first pass and draft a positioning brief with target messages, think through who you think the audiences are, and you take a first pass at who you think the press should be. The team looked at me incredulously. "You want us to do this? We don't know the first thing about press, that's why we want to hire the experts." It was the answer I expected.

"Let me be clear," I explained. "At this moment you know more about your customers than any PR agency will. You've spent the last six months testing positioning, messages, and talking to the press yourself. What I want you to do is spend an hour in a conference room and write up all you learned. What worked, what didn't, etc. Then summarize it in a brief - a one-, max two-page document that you hand to prospective PR agencies. And when you hand it to them say, 'We know you can do better, but here's what we've learned so far.'" They thought about it for a while and said, "We want to hire a PR agency so we don't have to do this stuff. We're too busy focusing on getting the product right."

I pushed back, reminding them, "Look, half the agencies that see your brief are going to decline to work with you. They make most of their money doing the front-end work you already did. You do need to hire a PR agency, but I'm suggesting that you start by raising the bar on where they need to start."

You Need to Do the Learning
Thinking that founders hire domain experts to get them into places and do things they don't have any clue about is a mistake most founding CEOs make. It's wrong. If you plan to be the CEO who runs the company, you need these resources teaching you how to do it, not reporting their results to you. For Roominate I suggested that Alice and Bettina needed to try to find a channel consultant who would take them along on the sales calls and have the founders meet buyers directly. Why? Not to turn them into channel sales people but to hear customer objections unfiltered. To get data that they - and only they, not a consultant - could turn into insight about iterations and pivots about their business model. And to see how the process works directly.
A year from now when they will be hiring their first VP of Channel Sales, they want the interview to go something like, "Well we sold the first three channel partners ourselves - what can you do for us?"

The same is true for hiring the PR agency. The conversation should be, "Here's what we learned, but we know this is your expertise. Tell us what we're missing and how your firm can do better than our first pass."

As a founder - when you're searching for a business model make sure that you're the ones doing the learning... not the outsourced help.

There's Not Enough Time
The biggest objections I get when I offer this advice is, "There's not enough time in the day," or "I need to be building the product," or the more modern version is, "I'm focused on product/market fit right now."

The reality is that they're all excuses. Of course product and product/market fit are the first critical steps in a startup - but outsourcing your learning about the other parts of the business model is the reason why your investors will be hiring an operating executive as your replacement - once you done all the hard work.

Lessons Learned
You need to do the learning, not your consultants
Most consultants will think that's their secret sauce and not want your business
The smart ones will realize that's how they'll build a long-term relationship with you
Hire them
Not understanding the other parts of your business model is a reason investors hire an operating executive

Steve Blank's blog: www.steveblank.com

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Steve DiFillippo: Our Veal Parm Story: A Cautionary Tale for the Brand-Conscious Entrepreneur

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I was in the restaurant one night working as an expeditor (bringing hot dishes to tables), and I noticed that our new server from the North End, Giuseppe, kept submitting orders for veal parm. It had been the same thing all week on tables Giuseppe served -- veal parm, veal parm, veal parm. He had probably taken 15 orders for veal parm that week, more than we'd had in years.

We'll make anything for a guest, even if it's not on the menu. But veal parm is most definitely not on the menu. It's an American-Italian invention that you can find anywhere, and in some places they use low-quality cuts of meat. We're northern Italian and we use high-quality cuts. The veal we use for our dishes is veal tenderloin, the best veal you could possibly imagine. It's a crime -- a crime! -- to smother our veal in cheese and sauce. But we'll make it for you if you want it, because we're driven to please our guests.

I went over to Giuseppe and tapped him on the shoulder. "Hey, can I ask you something? Why do you keep getting veal parms? Hardly anyone ever asks for it, but for some reason you always get veal parms."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I recommend it."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "What do you mean you recommend it? Why would you do that?"

"Well, the menu here sucks, so I think you should have veal parm on the menu."

"I'm sorry, what?" I was blown away. We were standing in the middle of a restaurant with 250 seats, the place was a zoo, and you couldn't get a table. Did this guy just say our menu sucks??

"Yeah," he said. "You should have veal parm on the menu. This is an Italian restaurant."

"Well, not really, it's an Italian, we're not American..." And as I was getting these words out, I was thinking, Why the hell am I defending myself? So I stopped. Waving my hands, I said, "You know what? Forget it. Come with me." I walked Giuseppe over to our time clock and signed him out. "You're leaving right now. Give me the receipts and credit card slips from your tables."

I fired him on the spot -- the first time I had ever done that, and hopefully the last time, too. I was just so mad. He thought we were a typical American-Italian restaurant. I love American-Italian places and eat at them often. But Davio's had always been different, because I had wanted us to stand out with dishes you can't enjoy elsewhere. We had worked so hard over so many years by that point to become known first as a Northern Italian restaurant, and by 2002, as a Northern Italian steakhouse. He was telling our guests to order something that ran totally counter to our brand. Who knows what else he was telling them?

Whether you own a restaurant or any business, it's vital to make sure your team members are supporting rather than subverting your brand. You have many daily tasks to attend to, but your biggest role is to serve as brand steward. It's you who establishes the concept of the restaurant, and it's you who instills it in the community and in your employees. Fail to keep watch over what your employees are doing and saying, and before too long, your brand will become unclear. Your restaurant will sink into mediocrity. Customers will stop coming. And you'll be left standing there, wondering why.

Giuseppe might still be working for us if I hadn't been on constant brand patrol. Who knows, today we might

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Rob Portman, Steve Chabot Talk IRS Scandal With Tea Party Activists

U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, speaks at a gathering of tea party activists, Wednesday, May 29, 2013, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Al Behrman)

CINCINNATI — A Republican senator and a congressman from Ohio said Wednesday night that the key question about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status is who in the Obama administration was involved.

Sen. Rob Portman and Rep. Steve Chabot spoke to a hundreds-strong gathering of tea party activists in near Cincinnati, which has been a focus, or "ground zero," as one tea party leader called it, of the IRS probe following disclosures that agency employees there subjected conservative groups for additional, often burdensome scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status.

"The question is, `How high up did it go?'" Chabot said, adding: "And what's going to be done about it?"

The Obama administration has said no senior officials were involved in targeting.

Chabot said investigations are still unfolding, and it's important to follow the facts and not to overreach in drawing conclusions. Portman linked the IRS scandal to the Benghazi attack investigation, and both he and Chabot said the Obama administration must be more forthcoming.

Portman said he finds it hard to believe that a couple of "rogue agents" in Cincinnati were responsible for the conservative targeting and that it was done as an efficiency measure to handle a large number of applications, as was initially suggested. IRS employees in Cincinnati have declined requests for comment, but some former workers in the office have said it was nonpolitical and that they doubt there were any partisan motivations.

Portman said he hoped whistle-blowers would come forward to let people know what happened.

He reiterated that a special prosecutor could be needed to investigate the IRS case, although he's not calling for it yet. He said the possibility of a criminal investigation should at least be used as leverage to push for answers from the Obama administration.

Otherwise, Portman said, "We're going to have to go up to the next level."

GOP U.S. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, a doctor, said the IRS targeting raises troubling questions about how the Obama health care law changes will be carried out, saying people's access might be affected by their political or religious beliefs.

Tea party speakers recounted their experiences with the IRS in a meeting carried live on a website. Cincinnati leader George Brunemann said he and his wife were audited after she became a tea party group treasurer.

Former Ohio Liberty Coalition leader Tom Zawistowski of Kent said the IRS should be abolished, and he urged activists to tell their friends and neighbors that the IRS probe is important to all of them.

"We're all tea partiers now, aren't we?" Zawistowski said.

Russell Hudson, 69, a retired steelworker who came to the meeting from Trenton, about an hour's drive away, said he was concerned about the IRS' conduct.

"It's crazy. It defies imagination," he said.

___

Contact the reporter at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell

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