Why users should not be CEOs (WRONG)

Wanted to answer these: Tumblr’s Future and why 21 year olds should not be CEOs and Tumblr’s Future

The biggest part of running a service like Tumblr (or Hype Machine) is saying no. You may notice that people don’t like hearing no, in response to their very real concerns about a free service.  So the conversations above will only happen more frequently. 

David and Marco are out on a mission to build a focused and simple experience.  I agree that this experience should work well and I am certain they are working to remove as many bugs as possible.  That said, this also means they will have to say no a lot, and sometimes in ways that users won’t understand. 

Remember, if Tumblr will be another WordPress, Movable Type, Six Apart or LiveJournal (which are all fine products, by the way) then why bother?

And that’s exactly what users will demand and expect from them because those platforms are all they know.

— fascinated

EXACTLY. If Tumblr becomes a “professional” blogging platform then it will have too many features, too many moving parts for me to want to use it. I blog because it’s fun. I do it because I’m a moving target and it gives those folks who I don’t talk to personally every day a glimpse into what’s in my head. I do it because even if the communication is mostly one way and it only occasionally spurns a reader to reach out to me, then it’s done what I wanted it to do.

I don’t want this blog to be my day job. If you are doing it for fame and fortune that’s great for you but you should be using a professional tool.

Anyone can be a CEO if they are smart enough to know what they don’t know, patient enough to listen to both their passion for the product and to their users, and wise enough to do as fascinated said, say “no” to their own whims and to others who might pull them off the path.