On November 8th, 2009 I participated in the closing panel at Hackers 25. Spectacular Failures and What We Learned - Brad Templeton Step up to the mic and let us know what You learned. Participants: Randy Farmer, Karl Auerbach Mother hen: Chip Morningstar These are my quick quotes on my "failures" and what I learned... * Yahoo * Fumbling the Future - 100M dollar business in virtual currency derailed by lawyers. * Mixd [twitter 12 months earlier.] * Yahoo! 360 Degrees [Social Network] * The Sims Online - You can'just add a network to a single player game and expect it to work. * State Software * Invented JSON, Co-invented AJAX, but couldn't sell a new paradigm (again.) Getting tired of inventing the future and the IP ending up in a file cabinet. * Lesson: Open the good stuff as you go! * Communities.com * Lesson: Three dead dot-coms do not make a healthy company. * Lesson: There *IS* a toxic Hacker's Co-efficient. Smart People Can Talk themselves into anything. Upside - solved very herd problems - downside - software that was too big, too slow, and too complicated. * Lesson: The Palace - Unmoderated User Generated Content == No advertising revenue * AMiX - Too soon - eBay before the web. Carol Bartz cut the business free at the front edge of the web - WITH A DEVELOPMENT DEBT of 7M! * Habitat/Club Caribe - The Paper that started it all for us (Chip and Randy)