Foot in mouth…
We have a little rule in the office. We don’t do ‘bad karma’ things. Its very similar to ‘don’t be evil’ from Google. So yesterday I broke this rule. I was extremely frustrated with Felix Peterson about something and poured all of my frustration into a blogpost on my personal blog. I should have known better.
Here is what happened: Felix let us know on Thursday that he wouldn’t be able to make it to The Next Web Conference and with good reason: technical problems and a sick child. We tried to make up for that as best as we could but we were very disappointed. Then I received a message that Felix was actually at Reboot. Then we received a anonymous comment that we might have bluffed that those guys were coming over and that they never confirmed. This frustrated me more. To make sure everybody knew Felix had very good reasons for going home and not to Amsterdam I posted this, the actual messages from Michael and Felix. Then I received a comment on that post from someone with a link to his Plazes page and the Flickr photo at Reboot. I was furious. It totally appeared as if Felix was having a good time at Reboot and lied to us about everything!
So I emailed Felix on Saturday and asked him what the hell was going on. I didn’t get a reply and on sunday assumed he had just lied to us. Instead of waiting until Monday or just forgetting about it I posted what had happened here.
So now I feel like an jerk. Felix simply didn’t think about emailing us that his child got better and that he decided to stay at Reboot. I blame him for not thinking about us even one minute while at Reboot but I blame myself more for being so emotional about it and using my blog to get back at him.
Here is a message From Felix:
Once more, to set the record straight once and for all:
- I already was in Copenhagen, I was scheduled to be in Copenhagen on Thursday all along. I did not travel to Copenhagen on Friday, I simply stayed there.
- I canceled my appearance for Friday at next web in Amsterdam for various reasons. One, that my daughter was sick in Berlin and my wife said that I might have to come back. On Friday morning my wife told me that everything didn´t look as bad and I decided to stay
- The Trazes from my profile that people keep citing are from Thursday not Friday.
Even thought I updated the story and originally only marked the original text as erased (strikethrough) some journalists still use it as inspiration to write articles. Despite normal blogging conduct to never remove old content I have deleted it to prevent people from abusing it.
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Wait a minute, I know this one! He’s Busted!!! ;-)
I really can’t imagine that he didn’t thing he would get caught. Especially when you’re telling the world where you hang out. Maybe he had some beers before he called you guys!
Wow, that’s a pretty nasty move of Felix. Not the way to treat each other. Although you will probably feel bad about this, I think it’s also very amusing to see how his own tool betrayed him :) Nice showcase for ‘the power of the next web’.
I think you, Patrick and Arjan did a great job (again). Like with all conferences, I enjoyed some speakers better than others but eventually I went home with lots of new inspiration. Respect to you guys who managed to get all those international speakers to Amsterdam.
For the next edition (if there is one), I think it would be a nice idea to invite speakers from ‘established’ startups (e.g. twitter, digg, bebo) to talk about practical things/problems that they came across. How to deal with that, who can help you in such situations etc. We often hear the story by VC’s, but I would love to hear the other side of the story.
Did you personally confront him with this? Will you?
@Diabollik: We emailed him several times since Thursday. Yesterday I asked him about the photo. No answer on anything yet. I am hoping he will take a few minutes to react to this post so we can all say “Ah, that explains everything!” and I can update this post and feel better….
I must say I´m really confused by this whole thing. My kid was sick on Tursday and it wasn´t entirely clear wether I could attend thenextweb the next day. In addition did we have some issues with the new Plazer (http://blog.plazes.com/?p=157#comments) and Stefan, my co-founder was coming to Reboot on Friday. So for professional and personal issues I decided to cancel since I wasn´t sure at that point that I could make it. Boris forgot to mention the last part of my email:
“And to be fair to you guys I rather cancel now than trying until the last minute and then not being able to come afterall.”
So I can´t really see what the commotion is all about.
And one more thing: The Trazes you are quoting above are from Thursday not Friday.
How rude of Boris, to air publicly what is, without question, a personal issue between you and Felix. The fact that Felix is CEO of Plazes is immaterial.
Boris — You should probably address this privacy issue, whether you agree or not–
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007.....nt-1408133
Juicy stuff, folks… /sigh
Funniest about it all is really that TC picks it up :)
Oh the irony.. Ik las het net op Techcrunch en heb er smakelijk om gelachen.. The most memorable TC post ever..
Did you really need to post this? This makes you sound like a little child, whining about someone that hurt your feelings.
Why not get all the facts and talk to the person you have an issue with before you take things publicly like this?
Immature.
Although, I can totally understand your feelings about Felix not showing up and even putting up bullshit stories about the health of his child (!), I do wonder if you make a lot of friends going public about this for the entire incestuous international web2.0 community instead of e-mailing him directly. I must say i would have done the same ;)
I agree with this completely, thanks for the post.
UPDATE: so Felix finally contacted us (via comments and email) and explained that in fact his child got well by the end of Thursday and the technical problems were fixed too. He then decided to go to Reboot where his partners were and since he had canceled us in advance didn’t think of contacting us again. Not very smart on his part but also not very smart on my part to post this message without waiting for his reply.
The whole thing could have been avoided by two more emails back and forth.
The plazer *did* have problems until late thursday afternoon at least for me. And if there is a conference coming where most of your early users are, and you manage to screw up the most important piece of software, you do show up. Especially if probably your partner and the team still is frantically working on it.
Plazes has been a sponsor for reboot for not only this year, which is why why you show up. If for reasons I don’t know Stefan only was able to come for Friday, and nobody on thursday and you are free last minute because there where real issues with your daughter and software, it makes sense to go to reboot.
Besides you seeing him ‘busted’ he still could have made it. But it also makes sense, that if you are already out of speaking you should not appear maybe or maybe not on the conference.
If I go to a conference to hear somebody speak and they pull out last minute I feel more betrayed than getting to know as early as possible that this special speaker will not be at the stage.
Now, do I understand your anger? Of course. Felix should have made sure to let you know that he goes to reboot and why.
Boris, your response after Friday is human so don’t blame yourself. In my opinion Felix had to inform you on Friday that everything was settled and that he decided to have a visit to reboot instead.
I agree with Marco Boris. I know you’re somebody with primarily good karma, but this was just something that needed to be said.
I still wonder why Michael didn’t attend…
Hi Boris,
Obviously it would have been better to wait for Felix´side of the story before blogging your assupmptions.
This comeback from your side however helps a lot, although:
- It would have been even better if you could publish a joined statement from you an Felx.
- It might have been more clear if you´d decided to keep the original blogpost (and just add a short update on top, with a short explanation and a pointer to the bigger explanation).
Now there is no original post (other then the struck through paragraphs in the altered post), which is sort of against blogging rules.
Cheers,
Peter Huesken
Maybe I am wrong, but I think that what makes this whole situation sour is that there wouldn’t have been a problem if mr Peterson had just cancelled because of technical problems. But he said he couldn’t make it because his child was sick. That made me worry. Being a mother myself, I know I would only cancel a business-appointment if my children were really very sick, not if they “only” had a flu’ or something like that. Especially not when I know that hundreds of people are waiting for me. And so, this is what I think made Boris react the way he did. Because he was worried about mr Peterson as a father. When you think a parent is watching over a sick child and you are thinking about them, worring about them, hoping everything will turn out for the best and you then find out this person is somewhere having a beer…
worring=worrying
Once more, to set the record straight once and for all:
- I already was in Copenhagen, I was scheduled to be in Copenhagen on Thursday all along. I did not travel to Copenhagen on Friday, I simply stayed there.
- I canceled my appearance for Friday at next web in Amsterdam for various reasons. One, that my daughter was sick in Berlin and my wife said that I might have to come back. On Friday morning my wife told me that everything didn´t look as bad and I decided to stay
- The Trazes from my profile that people keep citing are from Thursday not Friday.
Fantastic little quibble! I think I’ll skip services that expose my whereabouts for a bit ;-)
nice blog..
Hello. And Bye. :)
mon and dad will give no food for tonight.