Shortly after leaving Linden Lab last month, VP Ginsu Yoon (aka Ginsu Linden) launched his own blog, and as with Cory Ondrejka's blog, it offers interesting insights on the minds that helped shaped Linden Lab's early days. Ginsu helped re-write the "Tao of Linden" corporate principles, and as it turns out, connecting high-tech business with Asian philosophy isn't confined to just that. In a recent post, Gene describes the progress of startups as a path to Buddhist enlightenment. By the time he departed Linden, the company had reached "Stage IV: Maturity and Liquidity"; Ginsu closes on this cautionary note:
With your first big liquidity event, you find out if the other side of that barrier really is nirvana. You find out whether the money has changed you, or whether it exposed who you really are.
How do you suppose this statement might relate to what Linden Lab is now? Photo credit: Joi Ito, from his Flickr stream.
I find it impossible to imagine that anyone with a serious grasp of the idea of nirvana, which among other things means freeing yourself from material attachments, could possibly confuse it with financial success.
Posted by: Alberik Rotaru | Monday, June 01, 2009 at 02:18 PM
I can't think of a more inappropriate metaphor for capitalist grasping than the path of Enlightenment.
Posted by: Hyperia | Tuesday, June 02, 2009 at 10:57 AM