Facebook has joined Apple, Youtube, and Disqus in banning Alex Jones and yanking his InfoWars pages. Jones and his supporters are livid, claiming free speech violations, while liberals are wondering what took so long. The challenge here is that lying on Facebook is perfectly fine; only “hate speech” will get you banned. Let’s take a…
I’ve written that noncompete agreements should cost companies something. Massachusetts has finally addressed this issue with a law passed at the end of July, awaiting the governor’s signature. But it’s shot full of holes, and won’t make Massachusetts the competitive innovation economy that it needs to be. In California, noncompetes are void by law. The…
Donald Trump has repeatedly described special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his presidential campaign a “rigged witch hunt.” He’s right about one thing: there is clear evidence of a rigged witch hunt in Washington. But it’s not the one he thinks it is. Here’s a typical Trump tweet, one of many that cite the Rigged…
It was 1996. Gil Amelio had just taken over Apple Computer. My job at Forrester was to predict the future. I was certain that Apple would crater and I said so in print. Steve Jobs had introduced the Lisa and then, the insanely great Macintosh, in 1984. It made a hell of an impact, and…
In the last decade I’ve been intimately involved with 11 nonfiction book projects. I wrote or cowrote four, edited five, and ghostwrote one-and-a-half (one is not yet complete). These were the most rewarding experiences in my career. Here’s what I learned: the keys to success in a book project are planning, passion, trust, perseverance, and…
Should free-speech gun advocate Cody Wilson be able to provide you with shape files and instructions to create a 3D-printed plastic gun? That’s a question that forces freedom-loving people to think hard about which freedoms they support. Wilson and his company Defense Distributed sued the government, which was blocking his plan to put the gun…
Senator Mark R. Warner’s office wrote a paper with 20 legislative ideas on how to restrain the excesses, abuses, and ill effects of internet giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple; Axios got a copy and published it. With problems from fake news to data sharing and bullying, these platforms certainly deserve scrutiny. Of course,…
Inspiring, no? People keep using this quote (a Japanese proverb) to tell me to persevere no matter what. No matter how many times life knocks you down, you’re supposed to take it and get up again, right? I have just a few problems with this. First of all, who stays down? Short of suicide, of…
The Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (Mass TLC), a Boston-area trade group, annually presents awards to local leaders for Best CEO, Best CMO, and the like. All of this year’s nominees were men. After some local tech luminaries called them out on it, they re-opened the process and asks for women nominees. Now they have to…