If you’ve been off traveling around Jupiter for the last few years, you may not have heard about a strand of production that has caused a lot of controversy and already established itself as viable: home 3D printing. 3D printing, or additive manufacturing instead of the subtractive production we use today, has existed for about 30 years. But the market stayed in the hands of giants like 3D Systems and Stratasys, and only for industrial printers that ran past 100 thousand dollars. They were the IBM of the 70s.

And just like the desktop revolution that Microsoft, Compaq, Apple, and Dell helped found, now it’s the turn of startups like MakerBot and Form Labs to step in. Form Labs was one of the most successful projects in its category on Kickstarter. They bring home 3D printers, under 2 thousand dollars, within reach of hobbyists and, down the road, the ordinary consumer.

“But 3D printing is just for nerds.” That’s exactly how “a personal computer in every home” sounded in the late 70s. That’s the premise of the documentary Print the Legend, produced and released by Netflix on September 26, 2014.

I’ll admit it makes me a little nervous that the “3D revolution” already gets a documentary without having reached the level an Apple II had by the mid-80s. Then again, the film doesn’t set out to explain the manufacturing process or the various 3D printing techniques, lasers, and so on. It explores what happens when the garage-startup idealism turns real and hits the level of an early-80s Apple.

The mess is obvious in the interviews with former MakerBot employees, about how they now hate their CEO and co-founder, Bre Pettis. The original garage vision, of a company built around open source and open hardware, suddenly takes on investment and leverage from the usual Brad Felds. And the company starts ballooning from a 12-person garage into a 200-, 600-, and more-person corporation.

Friends turn into enemies (and by the way, friends always turn into the worst enemies), people leave disillusioned, traumatized, disappointed, and cruelty and authoritarianism become routine. At least that’s what the ones who left always say.

How much of this is true? We’ll never know. The truth always has three versions: the one I tell, the one you tell, and the one that actually happened.

People start startups, usually, to be the anti-system, the rebels, the ones who don’t fit in, the ones who want to do things differently and change the game. This level of naive idealism is even “cute,” and it’s necessary: if you don’t believe the thing can happen, it really won’t. Thinking that way is a requirement, up to a point.

I call it “naive” for a reason. In the very rare cases like MakerBot’s (and maybe Form Labs’ down the road, since it’s walking the same path after landing its fat Series A), when you genuinely succeed at changing the system and flipping the game, from that moment on you become the new system, the new game, the new target. Now you’re the one to be fought and torn down.

Apple was the counter-movement to IBM in the 80s. It worked so well that Apple itself became the new system. In the 90s we figured Microsoft would be IBM’s successor, but in the 21st century we found out the one who took on that role was Apple.

It falls to a new garage startup to start another game from scratch. The most interesting part of “Print the Legend” is exactly how it shows that drama, from the beginning until now, of a startup walking that curse. How Bre Pettis went from leader of an open maker community to “traitor” of the movement, and how little MakerBot reached success: it was bought by Stratasys, the second largest in the market, and with that managed to grow the business.

Without giving away too much, someone near the end mentions that founders, entrepreneurs, and successful CEOs always talk about the “sacrifice” it took to get where they are. Most people picture sacrifice as working long hours, staying away from family for long stretches, or grinding through the complications of the process.

But the sacrifice they may be talking about is a different one: breaking your own identity, betraying your own principles, and crossing the lines you swore you’d never cross. And the rare big success stories, the Microsofts, the Apples, the IBMs, and now maybe the Stratasyses, demand that this happen.

The cycle will start over. Soon a new rebel garage startup shows up, plays the same game, and shortly after becomes the new system to be beaten. That’s the cycle of successful startups, and those are exactly the rules of the game of great “success.”

Opening photo: fb.com/printthelegend

I wrote this article in English right after the last episode of the series aired on TV, in October 2013. A few months have passed, so I imagine everyone has had the chance to watch the whole thing by now. For me, this was one of the best TV dramas of the last few decades. It comes along with The Sopranos.

I won’t review every detail of the series, since there are plenty of other blogs doing that with more competency than I would. I’ll assume you’ve watched the series, and I’m going to spoil parts of the finale, so go watch it before you keep reading.

People love the series, and they root for Heisenberg even knowing he commits plenty of crimes. Personally, I think what grabs people is the story the author is telling, far more than the crimes themselves.

This is the story of a very, very successful startup, literally the classic “garage startup”, except in this case inside a van. Walter and Jesse start with an idea, a few bucks, and a lot of work, cooking meth in the middle of the desert. Even with almost no money and no resources, Walt is adamant about the quality of the product, and that’s a mark of great entrepreneurs. Jesse is the metaphor for the wannabe entrepreneur, a dropout trying to hit the jackpot without experience and without thinking ahead.

For me, the whole idea of Breaking Bad revolves around entrepreneurship. Walt is not only a seasoned chemistry teacher, with real knowledge and talent; he’s also a great businessman, and he proved it many times. One example is understanding that, to score big, growing organically by selling on the streets Jesse’s way just isn’t enough.

Then come Gus Fring and Los Pollos Hermanos, with the explosion in distribution channels. That’s how you scale a business. Gus is Walt’s “angel investor”, and once the money is in, the pressure only goes up. Jesse quickly gets fed up with working so hard in the lab, like every young idealist who doesn’t yet understand what real hard work is. Walt, on the other hand, is focused on scoring big at any cost.

The show also demonstrates how to negotiate with partners you don’t particularly like or trust, in a very demanding game. Once you get the opportunity, you don’t have to do all the dirty work with your own hands: make big dog eat big dog, turn the Cartel against Gus. And if everything goes wrong, you can always blow up the nursing home.

In the process, what we see is Jesse growing up. Walt was a great mentor, and their adventures made him stronger. The finale is also about Jesse understanding what he really is and maybe becoming a better person, in terms of self-awareness. Now he’s ready to commit and sacrifice, instead of being just an idealist.

In the real world, you have to commit and make sacrifices. There will be collateral damage, because you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Nothing worthwhile is easy, and the process is never going to be pretty.

The finale is great because Walt finally admits it: when you’re building an enterprise, you do it for yourself. Not for your family, not for your friends, not for the good of mankind. It’s for you and you alone. If you’re not doing it for yourself, you’re doing it wrong, and that’s the most basic core concept of entrepreneurship.

Benefiting (or hurting) others is always a side effect of actions you take with the single goal of benefiting yourself. As long as you’re not doing it for yourself, you’ll always use others as the easy way out, the excuse. “I screwed up, but I did it with good intentions.” Good intentions don’t matter, results do. If you do everything for yourself, the responsibility is always your own. No excuses.

Being successful is much more than glory and fame. As Breaking Bad shows, when your business grows, the competition gets harsher, the attacks get more violent, and everybody wants a piece of your pie. Defending your own territory is up to you, and you can’t always do it alone.

Sometimes you need good mercenaries and always a good lawyer, like Mike Ehrmantraut and Saul Goodman, to cover your tracks. It’s the cold-blooded partners who handle the deals you can’t touch all the time.

Marie represents the worst and most degrading thing in the world: mediocre normality. People so entrenched in the status quo, so bored by their own existence, that they’re mortally jealous of anyone who won’t follow their tiny version of “truth”, the path of “being normal”. People full of prejudice and full of themselves, who judge everything and everyone all the time. The best thing to do is stay as far away from that rotten kind as possible.

Skyler starts out the same as Marie, but being so close to Walt, she fights against herself. She suffers to get out of the box, to get used to taking risks, to think differently. She goes through all the common stages of transition: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In the end, we see that she finally understood.

Walt was not the villain, he was a man doing what he does best. Someone who values his own work so much that he won’t let anything or anyone stop him. That’s “drive”, and it’s the level of drive anyone who wants to be an entrepreneur needs to have. Reaching the goal, whatever it takes.

Walt is the ultimate entrepreneur role model, really a lot like Tony Soprano. The Mafia is the best MBA in the world.

The final scene has a defense speech by the main character, and that’s where Rand distills her idea of individualism. I thought it was so good I decided to publish the subtitled excerpt in Portuguese.

The full text of the book is much longer, and you can read the whole thing in English on this site. Just to give a taste, here’s an excerpt:

The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self.

Watch the full thing, it’s worth it:

Two Ayn Rand posts back to back is bordering on an overdose, but it had been a while since I stopped to read, listen to, and watch so many inspiring pieces. I hope you enjoy.

Everyone knows I steer clear of self-help, but every now and then I figure a little of it doesn’t hurt ;-) One thing I always tell just about everyone who has worked with me in recent years: a job isn’t for life. You never know where you’ll be tomorrow, and you should never assume you’ll be in the same place.

While you’re at a job, you should absolutely do everything you can to deliver your best work, even when that often means pulling all-nighters, putting in extra hours, and carrying heavy responsibilities. Up to the limit of what’s tolerable and stops short of abuse.

And unless you’re the company owner, a partner, or a sizable shareholder, that limit must be short. Whether you make R$40k or R$250k a year makes no difference. The result is always the same: the longer you stay in the same place, doing the same thing, the less you’re worth. There’s only one person you owe blind loyalty to: yourself.

The most important part: what’s your goal? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Does what you do today move you toward where you want to go? If it doesn’t, why keep doing it? “But I don’t have any particular goal…” Then find one.

It’s been a while since my last off-topic, but today I’m so indignant I had to write.

After reading good reviews (I need to find better sources), I took a chance and watched I Am Legend, which had just opened here. I really liked Will Smith’s previous film, The Pursuit of Happyness, and word was he goes dramatic again. That got me to the theater.

The beginning of the film is very good. Great cinematography, fast and dynamic editing. And even though Will Smith is practically the only actor on screen for most of it, he does a solid job. The technical crew recreated a deserted New York beautifully, and the tense moments work. In short, every trick in the book got used.

But the first time one of the monsters shows up, the disappointment kicks in: it brought back the horrendous special effects of films like The Mummy Returns. In a post-Matrix, post-Lord of the Rings era, there’s no excuse left for monsters this bad. Still, that part is forgivable.

The other problem is that the story is only superficially based on Richard Matheson’s novel. A shallow adaptation wasn’t hard to predict, but the film had been building good tension and was fun. Which is why the third act was doubly disappointing. The entire sequence involving Alice Braga is disposable.

It starts with a joke I still don’t get. Alice’s character, Anna, says she came from São Paulo, Brazil. Mid-conversation, Robert, Will’s character, asks if she knows Bob Marley. And she makes a face like: “never heard of him”. She says it out loud!

Ok, the story is set in 2012, not that far away. Even I, practically music illiterate, know Bob Marley and the song they played in the film. What are they trying to say? “In Brazil there’s only jungle, so nobody there has ever heard of Bob Marley?” Not important, but I found it strange. I’ll give the benefit of the doubt, because maybe I didn’t get the joke. Who knows.

Now, the “God sent me” part … no, no, so fucking sorry! I couldn’t swallow it. What does that have to do with the story?? Worse, the story took it seriously!! This Anna character “started listening better to signs from heaven”. She showed up to save Robert the instant he was about to die, heard his radio message because she got a divine signal, and she knows, simply knows, that a survivor colony exists, address and all, more efficient than Google Maps, because God told her … oh well …

And in the end the guy actually has a divine vision and decides to die! And the colony really exists! Wow. I hate it when a film starts thinking too highly of itself.

It left a worse taste than another terrible one: Signs, by M. Night Shyamalan. Same deal: the film starts with a serious mood, builds the tension, goes along great until it completely falls apart, also in the third act. The dying woman delivers a message from heaven: “oh, tell him to swing the bat …” And they show the little green aliens!! And the guy swings the bat and saves the world!

God damn! Ok, I Am Legend has nothing to do with the novel of the same name. The book ends in a completely different way, and the theme is something else entirely, far more interesting. If you go see the film, walk out when Anna shows up. Up to that point it’s a decent film; after that, brace for a huge disappointment.

I’m shocked by the sheer lack of quality in the storytelling. Akiva Goldsman worked on the screenplay, which explains a lot: the same person who managed to ruin the Da Vinci Code adaptation.

I’ve seen bad films by the dozen, but they know they’re bad and don’t take themselves too seriously. Take Resident Evil: mediocre, aware of it, and at least fun for a lazy Sunday afternoon. This one promises a lot up front and ends like that guy who turns around and goes “gotcha!”

The marketing team behind this film is very good! They managed to squeeze plenty of good reviews out of everywhere. Even on Rotten Tomatoes it got 68% approval! Far more than it deserves. Anything above single digits, on a zero-to-one-hundred scale, is already too much.

The next film people are talking up, with some hype already building, is Cloverfield. Whether it’s as good as they say remains to be seen.