MakerBot Industries explained This really does go a long ways towards explaining a company

MakerBot Industries explained

This really does go a long ways towards explaining a company I’ve never really understood.

A few favorites:

  • Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing …
  • Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done
  • Failure counts as done. So do mistakes

Hopefully, people will read these thoughts from MakerBots founder and front man before sending them more money. There are other companies out there - companies that know what they’re doing instead of pretending to know; ones that try to make the best machine possible; ones that don’t ship failure.
http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html

Sounds a lot like the way Shuttleworth manages Ubuntu :wink: Both Pettis and Shuttleworth aim IMHO to be the Steve Jobs in their domain …

Based on the date of the last entry in his blog, he really is into business a lot more now and doesn’t have time left. Which is a sad thing, but i guess as long as he and his family is fine with that, it’s fine. I just hope i get “it” when i begin to loose the connection to my roots.

@Benjamin_Andersen , I think it actually is the mindset behind MBI.

Ship product, as fast as you can. Doesn’t have to be perfect - doesn’t even have to really work - just as long as you ship something new. And it’s far more important that people think you have a clue than it is to actually have a clue…

It’s scary how closely this manifesto does fit the way MBI behaves.

Failure is part of learning, but you will never succeed if all you do is fail.
Confidence leads to progress, overconfidence leads to mistakes and misjudgements.
Perfection is unobtainable, failure to strive for perfection leads to mediocrity.

In each of these points makerbot only achieves the latter halves.

I’ll add to Steph’s : Success builds confidence, Failure builds experience.

@Benjamin_Andersen , it was written by one of the founders of MBI, Bre Petis, who is now the CEO of MBI.

Do you really think there’s no overlap between the crazy in his blog and the crazy that is MBI?

Word, @Stephanie_A !

@Benjamin_Andersen , sure but this cult of done stuff actually matches the way MakerBot has behaved over the years.

That was sorta the whole point of this post - I thought the manifesto explained a lot about a company I’ve been watching for years but never understood.