A Blog About Making Culture
I Work for Six Apart
April 23, 2003
A few weeks ago, I had started an entry with the phrase, "Though I work in the weblog industry..." and I had done so mainly as a tongue-in-cheek joke about how seriously the blogosphere takes itself. I was talking to Matt a few days later and he told me he'd pictured me coming up from the weblog coal mines, covered in soot, bringing home the permalinks. But I had time to think about it since then, and to talk to a lot of people about where weblogs are going, not just what they're doing now and what we've done so far. And I realized that, maybe a year from now, there will be a weblog industry, and not just the few scattered groups of friends and colleagues that I've watched building tools and technologies and companies over the years.
And oh, yeah, building great sites, too.
Because that's the part that mattered to me, and still does. The connection. I've had this site for just a bit shy of four years in its current form, with a weblog. And I've mentioned before on this site all of the ways that it's improved my life. But in deciding to leave the familiar industries I'd worked in, which covered IT and computers and technology, of course, but also television and the music industry and print publishing, I did what all of the career counselors advise you to do: I sat down to think not just of what I wanted to do, but why I wanted to do it.
One of the things that I keep coming back to is the importance of communication. I started using computers regularly when I was about 5 years old. At that time, we thought computers were for, you guessed it, computing. Even some of the people who invented the PC itself took 10 or 15 or 20 years to figure out that a personal computer's highest calling was for communication. Not surprisingly, some of the guys I look up to as heros were able to anticipate that communication would be as important as calculating, and they've ended up working in weblogs, too.
There was a more significant reason that I understood the value of communicating through technology, though. I've seen how it can broaden not just people's experiences and lives, but their ambitions. My father first came to the United States forty years ago this fall. When he came here, just before President Johnson signed the immigration laws that radically increased immigration from Asia to the U.S., there were only a few thousand people of Indian descent in the entire country. And my father's village in India had no running water or electricity, let alone a phone. So his arrival here isolated him from everything he'd ever known in a way that I've often told him I could only duplicate if I decided to emigrate to the moon.
But he'd still had the desire to come here for his education and his career, due to having read about the possibilities of life in the United States. Most of the people in his village didn't know such things were possible, and most of the people in his district couldn't have even found out about the opportunities because they were illiterate. The biggest factor limiting the life they tried to live was simply not being aware what their potential truly was.
So I make tools that help people communicate. Mostly because I love technology, mostly because I love to try and build things and to get other people to think these things are cool, too. And certainly because I'm hoping to impress my friends and family with the end results. But some small, central part of the effort is because I know I'm privileged to be able to talk to anyone in my family at any time. In the span of a few decades, my father went from not being able to even send a letter to his father for a few years to being able to instant message me frequently enough to pester me.
Our letters to each other used to be the documentation of the lives we'd lived, the entirety of our correspondence forming memoirs for those who weren't accomplished or pretentious enough to formally write out a memoir. I think that, among many other functions, this is one of the key roles that personal publishing can play in our lives. Weblogs and other social media document the lives we live and let us connect in ways that are, despite the cliché, genuinely new.
As of today, I've got the privilege of working with good friends for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect. And I get to work in the medium I know best, doing work I love. It'd be a dream job by anyone's measure. That the realm we're working in might actually turn out to be important makes it even better than a mere dream.
Previously: Off to Etech
El Refugio
Industria Blog: Six Apart, la empresa de los creadores de Movable Type ha anunciado el nuevo servicio TypePad, el cual es un... read more »GLOG: half graham, half blog. i'm a glog.
Go Trotts Go!: The Trotts, cutest couple with matching baby iBooks and creators of the beloved MovableType personal publishing software, have finally revealed... read more »dive into mark
In brief: insomniac edition: A little of everything. I mean, why not? I'm up anyway. read more »Raw Blog
Ka-boom!!!: To quote Ben : Movable Type have just announced a new hosted blogging tool - it's going to produce read more »The Long Letter
The Trotts take over the world: Now, my only question — which Trott is Pinky, and which Trott is Brain? read more »bradchoate.com
Six Apart Milestones: Announcements galore regarding Six Apart and family. read more »jogin.com :: weblog
A Fine Day: Six Apart announced the recruitment of Anil Dash as the new Vice Precident of Business Development (long title) at Six Apart. Anil, in his own weblog, did surprisingly well in disguising his overwhelming joy. Come on Anil, it's ok to cry. read more »J : Da Blog
Six cents: All I can say is, WOW. SixApart announced TypePad today. Its their version of Blogger, but it sounds like they'll... read more »Ten Reasons Why
Weblog Competition Heating Up: Six Apart, the company behind Movable Type is launching a new service, to be called TypePad. (And they hired Anil Dash as VP of Business Development...although damned if I can figure out where his TrackBack link is to ping that... read more »WOIFM :: An Institute of Higher Learning
Not a Dollar Short Anymore: Ben and Mena are hitting the big time, getting VC funding, firing up a new hosting service, and best of read more »transient savant
TypePad - MovableType goes Big Time: Mena and Ben Trott, the co-founders of MovableType (which makes quasistoic.com what it is today) have been busy making some read more »anziblog v4.0
Pinging Anil?: Hey!... read more »anziblog v4.0
Desktop Snapshot: As you can probably tell from all the CDs I have strewn in that corner of my desktop (See my fabulous musical taste! Can... read more »Journal Arcana
What'cha Readin'?: Data sure is fun. I found a new site today (allconsuming.net) via my stats that collects information on what people in the Blogosphere are reading. It hourly scours recently updated read more »Uncle Joe's House O'Crazy
The Industry: The "WeblogIndustry" seems to be entering a new golden age. First the Blogger/Google news, and now MoveableType (our current fave!) has gone bigtime. The best part of the MT News (from our perspective) is the fact that Anil Dash is the new VP of Busi... read more »Frankly, I'd Rather Not
The Promise: Anil Dash lays out for us all, in a richly articulate fashion, the lure of technology and communication. The udertone is the promise, in fact, that we all know lurks beneath the surface. read more »Kalsey Consulting Group :: Measure Twice
The agenda of Professional blogs: Why do professionals create weblogs? It's all about marketing. read more »Anil Dash
GEL writeup: Just wanted to leave myself a placeholder about the exceptional Gel Conference I attended today. Haven't had a chance to... read more »AnarCapLib
Bharateeya Blog Mela # 10: Cheers! The Bharateeya Blog Mela completes it's first decade! Let's celebrate by moving straight on to the main event... The seminal stuff this week is from Dina Mehta. Her three pieces on Youth Futures scratches way beneath the surface.... read more »Keith A
Congratulations on the new job! A very exciting opportunity.
Jake
Congratulations indeed! Very, very cool.
Anders Jacobsen
Congratulation on what must be the coolest job I’ve heard about in a long time :-)
Stewart Butterfield
Mazel tov!
Matt
Congrats Anil! It sounds like the right job for the right guy.
scottandrew
Yay!
Gina
Wooohooooooo! Congratulations, Anil!! I couldn’t imagine a better fit!
Tom Bridge
Indeed, hearty congratulations.
Sebastian
Felicidades! It’s amazingly great to be able to work at what you love and believe.
Vidiot
And the Guardian even says you’re a “famous New York weblogger.” w00t!
Geof
Conflatulations. ;)
On Kottke’s site, I wrote that I worried upon first hearing about it that the Trotts would be trying to manage this on their own. I’m glad that they’re not doing that.
I was peripherally involved with the Greymatter support community and the Greymatter hosting community back in the day. I know why that failed. If you want me to give you some rocks and shoals to miss, Anil, please feel free to email me. ;)
Shannon Clark
Congrats! Sounds like an exciting new venture!
Michael Hanscom
Congrats, Anil! Sounds perfect.
Mike
Congratulations to you and to Six Apart—great news!
:: jozjozjoz ::
Congrats on the announcement… it sounds like a great gig!
Kathy
Excellent! It sounds like a perfect gig for you, Anil. Great news for SixApart, too!
victor
Vice President??? weeeelllll, it was nice knowing ya…
mariano
Maybe im not to original but congrats… here in Argentina (LatAm) our community of webloggers are expecting to see your works ;)
Michal Wallace
Oh man is this going to give me nightmares. :) Congratulations though!!!
Christine
I can see that this will be a WONDERFUL step for MT, Six Apart, and for you. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for all of us! Fantastic. What great news! I think you will complement the team very well, and I know you’ll bring great ideas to the table!
Jon
Congratulations ! And on Shakespeare’s birthday too!
Oliver
Power to the brown.
Noah
Congratulations, and best of luck with the new project.
Philip Jache
Congratulations, you are the coolest.
zeldman
:) !!! :-) * !!! :)
(Words fail. Happy for you!)
Dan
Congratulations, Anil!
evan
Congratulations! Exciting for you, exciting for the SixApart folks, exciting for all us MT users. Looking forward to great things!
Karla Martinez
Congratulations! Best of luck with the new project. I can only imagine continued success for you and the impressive Trott team.
Jason
Congrats on joining the MT duo — sounds like a great gig.
holly
Congratulations… (love the press release)
MR. VPBIZDEV - very nice indeed.
xian
couldn’t have happened to a nicer blogger…
Dinah
This is wonderful news! No words for it. What Jeffrey said!
Michael Bernstein
Congratulations, Anil.
“Social Media”, huh? Googling for a few permutations of that phrase brings up some interesting sites.
Thanks.
Kaushik
Wow! Congratulations and best wishes …..
Gen Kanai
Now I know what you meant with those comments about visiting Japan soon :) Many congratulations from Tokyo!
Choire
Awesome. You’re just what they need. Mazel tovs all around. Your vacation’s over, now get to work making the internet a better place. “;)”
Ian Lloyd
Well done Jish … I mean Anil ;-)
Ian Lloyd
Well done Jish … I mean Anil ;-)
James
Already emailed you at your spiffy new address, but just wanted to join the chorus here, too. Congratulations!!
DJSUBg
Now you can pay back the 25 bucks you owe me!
Jason Wall
I caught the news on a reuters yesterday and was a bit shocked and rather pleased to hear it. Can’t think of a person better for it. Congrats.
George
I’m so happy for you.
adampsyche
Good for you!
Dok Millennium
Perhaps the Guardian meant to say “infamous” weblogger? ;-)
Best of luck to you and the Trotts. Here’s a video clip of MT winning “best web application” at the Bloggies: http://blogumentary.org/video/bloggies_big.mov
Charlie LIndahl
Congrats! to you and the Six Apart folks (Mena & Ben).
I really love MT and have been “spreading the word” for awhile.
And many thanks to the Trotts & the MT community.
Charlie
Phil Wolff
Here’s to great beginnings! The hard work of startup is just starting but I know you’re in the right place with great people for the best reasons.
My grandfather (Lionel Tiger Wolff. Don’t ask.) was born the century before last, in an era of horse driven ice wagons. He lived to see men walk on the moon, to visit family across the continent in hours, and to pick up the phone to call anywhere in the world. The constant across generations is our storytelling, our human voice. You’re giving wings to those voices, propelling them across space and through time.
Wish you were going to blogtalk.net.
Mazel Tov, Anil.
Susan Mernit
Anil—it’s awesome how happy the bloggiong community is about this news…people are thrilled. Here’s to great new projects, deals, and capabilities.
vanderwal
This is great news Anil. Congrats to you and Six Apart for their great news also. There is a bright future ahead.
Steve Hall
Congrats, Anil. Adrants and I will soon be making the move from Blogger to MT!
Matt
It’s getting hot in here…
Blogging is the new frontier and I hope that despite the increased competition for market share, etc everyone within the blogging elite will continue to be nice to one another.
You seem to be doing a remarkably good job so far and long may this continue.
Matt ;)
Anonymous
What do you have to publish for those of us with no job for 2 years in semicoductor ? I hate tech and wish I’d gone into medical or auto. I see nothing published about those of us out of work!!!
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