Tip @Techmeme
I’m not 100% sure when Techmeme came on my radar. But I know when I got on Techmeme founder Gabe Rivera’s radar. It was December 27, 2006.
Just as probably not an insignificant amount of other bloggers, it was with a sort of snotty email to Gabe wondering why my exceptionally well-written blog post with the key insight on a hot tech topic of the day wasn’t appearing on Techmeme. Hell, it probably should have been the top headline.
Gabe responded to that email in a very Gabe way: like kind of a dick. He made sure to point out that while in my own head, my post was undoubtedly the best take on the topic, no one else was linking to it. So…
Touché.
Naturally, this just made me even more obsessed with trying to get on Techmeme. And while that may or may not have made me a better writer, it certainly made me a better blogger. And my life would be very different were that not the case.
So this is a roundabout compliment of Gabe, but more importantly, Gabe’s creation: Techmeme. Which turned 10 years old today.
I had two key takeaways from Gabe’s post on the milestone.
First, while we now live in a world where the fear/hope of computers taking over everything is very real, Techmeme has sort of gone the other way over time. What started as an algorithm-based news aggregation site has morphed into a human-curated news aggregator. The algorithms assist the editors, but it’s humans who control this “last mile” before something gets displayed on the site.
In an age of ever-smarter algorithms this is controversial in some camps. But it shouldn’t be. The recognition that the two sides, humans and algorithms, can work in concert is perhaps the key power driving Techmeme. The site has a “voice” as a result. What’s left off is just as important as what’s added. And this makes it so much more compelling.
The second takeaway from Gabe’s post is his point on raising venture capital. Techmeme never has. Yet here it is, 10 years later. That’s obviously longer than most venture-backed startups last.
We also live in an age where it feels like a lot of entrepreneurs set out to raise money because they believe that’s what you should do. It’s not. For some startups it makes sense. For many others it does not.
Gabe has decided that it did not make sense for Techmeme to raise outside capital. I’m sure he’s had offers — some that were undoubtedly hard to turn down. And maybe one day he’ll decide it makes sense for the business. But I think it should be celebrated that he’s built a business that has sustained itself and several employees around the world for a decade.
And so, to that I say, toast @Techmeme.
