Hope Springs - sort of.

[tsukinofaerii]

As we've all heard (and rejoiced) by now, Barak Berkowitz has resigned. If you want to read the official word on the subject, here's the press release and here's the unofficial source. Both are little more than "yay team" and mindless buzzwords, so don't expect much from them. 6A, as per their usual pattern, announced it on Friday in lj_biz and had no one standing by to handle the (relatively minor, in this case) fallout. The extremely stupid part of this mess? After leaving the post open for comments, it was rapidly turned to screened and then all comments were disabled. Since I don't see any reason for this at all, in any way, shape or form, I suspect that someone panicked at the thought of 5000 renditions of "ding, dong, the witch is dead" when they're trying to pretend everything's gravy. So what do people do? The usual. Move to the last post and start bitching.

The long and short of everything I've heard lately is that Barak is known for signing onto a young company, screwing it up royally, and then bailing while the stock options are still good. (Reference Here.) Since it's obvious to anyone who's been paying attention that 6A is still making money, but won't be for long, this neatly fits in with his pattern. The official word (for those who don't want to read the articles) is that he's looking for "something smaller" and is on a "well-deserved vacation". Furthermore, they're claiming that he's leaving the company in good shape, which is such an obvious lie even a small child could spot it.

Since this whole thing falls in with Barak's pattern, I think it probably is voluntary. Still, I expect a lot of people in the office are breathing sighs of relief. I know a lot of LJ users are. I don't know Barak personally, but what I saw of him on lj_biz didn't reassure me. He came across as unprofessional, unsophisticated, close-minded, and generally a moron. Maybe he's a nice guy in person, but I doubt it. I know that what he did to LJ is unexcusable mismanagement, and the man deserved to lose his job ages ago. I have only pity for the next company he leeches onto. We've had no word on how this affects us, the policies, or anything else we really give a damn about. It's been more than a month since the spectacular fail on "non-photographic child porn", and the frequent progress reports were were promised have yet to materialize. This may be why. Speaking from experience, any change at all in the people higher up the company food chain (including their underwear brand or diet) causes unspeakable havoc amongst the peons below. Now that the big change has actually happened, we might see something happen. At this point, almost anything definite would be welcome, since it would help those of us still double-blogging to make our decisions to stay or go. I'd rather stay, but if I'm going to decide, then damnit, I want to decide with some real information in hand!

Ahem. Onto the cheery parts. The new CEO is Christopher J. Alden, who used to be EVP and GM of the Professional Division at 6A. I don't know about the rest of LJ, but I've never heard of him. Thus, being a curious Faery by nature, I followed a link over to see what kind of smackdown we can expect next. What I saw gives me hope. Not much, mind you, but a little bit. Here's the important parts.

He used to do a magazine (Red Herring), which seems to have focused on the doings in Silicon Valley (techno mag). It went under around 2002. Since it was his baby, he needed a new baby to replace it. Blogging was his answer. This starts the looking-good trend. Not only did he previously work in a communication and media industry, he's been a blogger since 02. Berkowitz had nothing in his resume that even suggested that he knows anything about online journals. This man used it as a bounce-back from a fallen project.

It seemed to me at the time, and it seems to me know, that we are in the midst of a period of massive positive, if tumultuous and sometime painful, change and growth -- impossible to grok completely from upclose, but inevitably obvious centuries from now: A new flourishing of the individual, a technological revolution, an explosion of creativity, new heights for freedom and self expression, with democracies finally outnumbering autocracies, with liberty outpacing oppression. In short, a Renaissance - but a Renaissance ofthe 21st century: r21. It was interesting thing to write about, so I started doing my best.

Do I even need to explain the happy side of this? He uses the words "freedom and self-expression" in complete seriousness. He says grok. Yes, I know it's only language, and even the most close-minded and hateful person can use any word they like freely in the USA. (How you string them together is a different matter.) Still, a person's vocabulary does say a lot about them, and the way this is written sounds very sincere.

From here he developed his new baby, got to know 6A through Movable Type, and started Rojo, which we all know eventually was aquired by 6A. (Which explains how he got where he is now.) He was the one responsible for MT4. I can't comment on that fail or win, since I don't use it, but anyone who knows what's going on there is more than welcome to fill me in.

The quote for thr win is:

When you look around at the amazing expression and diversity of LiveJournal and the relationships built there, at the powerful ideas and passionate discussions powered by TypePad, the friendships formed and extended on Vox, and of course the countless sites powered by Movable Type, from Iran to Japan, it is staggering to contemplate.

Emphasis mine. This. Utterly. Wins. It seriously suggests that he knows what LJ is, what it's about, and he values that.

What this says for "potentially objectionable" forms of self-expression is up in the air still, of course, and I'm not holding my breath over even getting them defined, much less getting an answer I like. Will he be just another Barak? Maybe. Are we going to see LJ go FUBAR? Probably. But still, I think there's some hope here. The man's only been CEO for three days, two of them weekend. I'm willing to give him some time to identify the mess Barak left him and start to address it. Not much, but even if he starts to admit there might be problems, it'll be more than we had before.

NOTE: bubble_blunder replied to the post I linked and got a response. Okay, so it's a "let's set up a phone call" response, but it's officially more than anyone's gotten Barak (who ignored us like we'd go away if he did). I'll keep an eye on bubble_blunder's journal to see if there are any updates.

References

A Company that Matters
Official Press Release
About Six Apart @ Mena's Corner
Running Dog