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BE ON FIRE

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A few weeks ago a guest post titled Minimum Viable Personality appeared on Fred Wilson’s blog. The author was a Giant Robot Dinosaur who has been dishing out wisdom in all caps in the comments on Fred’s blog for a long time. I’m a huge fan of FAKEGRIMLOCK, occasionally commenting on his comments, but often laughing out loud or smiling with recognition of their brilliance when I saw them. And, I grinned with relief when I finally made his #NOEATFRIDAY list.

Recently, while pondering how Yoda would deal with Optimus Prime, I got a tweet from FAKEGRIMLOCK asking if I wanted a guest post from him. Without hesitation I said yes. Following in all its awesomeness (with illustrations), is another missive from my favorite Dinobot.

BE ON FIRE

WORLD FULL OF IDEA. ALL NEED IS BRAIN. MOST HUMANS HAVE BRAIN.

IDEA BY SELF IS COLD. JUST SIT THERE. DO NOTHING.

IF WANT DO SOMETHING, NEED FIRE.

NEED BE ON FIRE.

WHY BURNING MATTER

MAKE STARTUP HARD. IT HARD BECAUSE YOU WRONG. YOU FAIL.

FAIL COLD? GO HOME. QUIT.

YOU NOT QUIT. YOU BURN. FAIL IS FUEL. MORE FAIL, MORE BURN. BURN FAIL UNTIL ONLY WIN LEFT.

THAT WHY BURNING MATTER. NOTHING STOP PERSON ON FIRE. NOT SLEEP. NOT SICK. NOT BROKE. NOT BULLET. NOT END OF EARTH.

NOTHING.

FIRE MAKE SMOKE

ANGER IS SMOKE. FIRE DESTROY. DESTROY MAKE NEW THINGS GROW. COLD PEOPLE HATE FIRE. NO ONE WANT TO BE FERTILIZER. FIRE NOT CARE.

LOYALTY IS SMOKE. PEOPLE FOLLOW FIRE, GET HOT. NOTHING STOP PERSON ON FIRE. PERSON ON FIRE WRAPPED IN HOT CROWD? THAT FIRE CHANGE WORLD.

WIN IS SMOKE. PERSON ON FIRE NOT CARE ABOUT WIN. NOT CARE ABOUT MONEY, FAME. WIN HAPPEN WHEN BUSY DO THINGS THAT MATTER. THINGS ON FIRE.

WHERE IS FIRE? LOOK FOR ANGER. MIDDLE OF ANGER IS CHANGE. MIDDLE OF CHANGE IS HOT CROWD. MIDDLE OF HOT CROWD IS WIN. MIDDLE OF WIN IS FIRE.

HOW MAKE FIRE?

WORLD IS BROKEN. FIX IT.

RIGHT IDEA HARD. RIGHT IDEA HURT. RIGHT IDEA IS HOLE IN WORLD.

RIGHT IDEA MAKE BURN INSIDE TO FIX. CAN TAKE DAY OFF FROM IDEA? IT WRONG ONE.

FIND IDEA THAT BURN, GRAB WITH BOTH HANDS, NEVER LET GO.

THAT HOW MAKE FIRE.

YOU MUST BURN

EVERYONE THINK WAY TO STARTUP IS TALENT + IDEA + MONEY.

EVERYONE WRONG.

STARTUP NOT ABOUT MAKE THING, SELL THING. STARTUP ABOUT CHANGE WORLD.

WORLD IS COLD. YOU MUST LIGHT WORLD ON FIRE.

YOUR FIRE.

YOU. MUST. BURN.

In order to stay on the #NOEATFRIDAY list, I promised FAKEGRIMLOCK that this would be licensed under Creative Commons. Anyone can do anything they want with this, including FAKEGRIMLOCK (as long as no infinite loops are created.)

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October 25th, 2011     Categories: Entrepreneurship     Tags: , ,
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  • http://www.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    Brad, wait til you receive a package next week with these original drawings from Grimlock. I can see it coming. 

  • http://www.eqentia.com William Mougayar

    Brad, wait til you receive a package next week with these original drawings from Grimlock. I can see it coming. 

  • http://twitter.com/tapan_pandita tapan pandita

    How do i get a print out of this ? this post is so going up on my wall (real one, i hate how we have to clarify that now since facebook)

  • http://twitter.com/tapan_pandita tapan pandita

    How do i get a print out of this ? this post is so going up on my wall (real one, i hate how we have to clarify that now since facebook)

  • http://BSMnyc.com LGBlueSky

    The problem with people is that they lose fire.  Everyone must have fire to thrive.  The fire is burning in NYC.  Catch it or create your own.  Great job Giant Robot Dinosaur.  

  • http://BSMnyc.com LGBlueSky

    The problem with people is that they lose fire.  Everyone must have fire to thrive.  The fire is burning in NYC.  Catch it or create your own.  Great job Giant Robot Dinosaur.  

  • Patrick Carmitchel

    Thank you. Enough said. Wisdom is simple. As the co-founder of the startup http://rule.fm I have to say that playing with fire (while not safe for children) is good for ideas.

  • Patrick Carmitchel

    Thank you. Enough said. Wisdom is simple. As the co-founder of the startup http://rule.fm I have to say that playing with fire (while not safe for children) is good for ideas.

  • http://www.lindventures.com/blog Brad Lindenberg

    YES! Best post everrrrr.

  • http://www.lindventures.com/blog Brad Lindenberg

    YES! Best post everrrrr.

  • Andi

    That’s wrong. Stay calm, be informed about your field, then act.

    • JamesHRH

      Andi-

      Fire=attitude / desire

      Calm = action

      Lou Gerstner had a quote in his book: Think like a man of action; Act like a man of thought.

      GRIM is focused on your thinking!

    • JamesHRH

      Andi-

      Fire=attitude / desire

      Calm = action

      Lou Gerstner had a quote in his book: Think like a man of action; Act like a man of thought.

      GRIM is focused on your thinking!

  • Andi

    That’s wrong. Stay calm, be informed about your field, then act.

  • http://petegrif.tumblr.com/ Pete Griffiths

    V. Cool – nice one Grim.

  • http://petegrif.tumblr.com/ Pete Griffiths

    V. Cool – nice one Grim.

  • http://twitter.com/#!/chrishuntis/ chrishuntis

    i don’t really understand: failure, winning, changing the world etc any more.

    i’ve recently started to get the feeling like i’m at home. at home on the internet. that literal feeling when you’re in the house you grew up in as a child etc.

    everything changes on the outside, but all this technology is an internal experience. i come back to it day after day, to the narrative i follow, to the narrative i understand.

    if i do change anything it’s just like changing something in my own house.

    and i’m calm because i find my own house relaxing.

  • http://twitter.com/#!/chrishuntis/ chrishuntis

    i don’t really understand: failure, winning, changing the world etc any more.

    i’ve recently started to get the feeling like i’m at home. at home on the internet. that literal feeling when you’re in the house you grew up in as a child etc.

    everything changes on the outside, but all this technology is an internal experience. i come back to it day after day, to the narrative i follow, to the narrative i understand.

    if i do change anything it’s just like changing something in my own house.

    and i’m calm because i find my own house relaxing.

  • http://pablomarques.tumblr.com Pablo Marques

    Hard for me to get over how much I love this post. So good in so many different ways. Brilliant. This is the first thing I’ve seen here, I guess i’ll be sticking around.

  • http://pablomarques.tumblr.com Pablo Marques

    Hard for me to get over how much I love this post. So good in so many different ways. Brilliant. This is the first thing I’ve seen here, I guess i’ll be sticking around.

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  • http://twitter.com/miles_matthias Miles Matthias

    Great post! Very motivating and I love the drawings as usual :)

  • http://twitter.com/miles_matthias Miles Matthias

    Great post! Very motivating and I love the drawings as usual :)

  • FAKE GRIMLOCK

    UNTIL PRINTS MAYBE MADE GET HIGH-REZ IMAGES HERE: http://yfrog.com/user/FAKEGRIMLOCK/photos

  • FAKE GRIMLOCK

    UNTIL PRINTS MAYBE MADE GET HIGH-REZ IMAGES HERE: http://yfrog.com/user/FAKEGRIMLOCK/photos

  • http://twitter.com/okor Jason Ormand

    made a shirt: http://www.cafepress.com/okor.586949080

  • http://twitter.com/okor Jason Ormand

    made a shirt: http://www.cafepress.com/okor.586949080

  • Soo-Hyun Yoo

    That last image is so full of win I want to print it out and frame it. Or make it my desktop wallpaper. ..if FG is okay with it?

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      Yup

      • http://twitter.com/nn140 Nikhil Nilakantan

        So inspiring! I’m printing it in the office as I write this. We are a 6 person startup. We are going to be actively discussing how to a) have the core team embody being on FIRE b) make the FIRE spread to EVERY person who joins our team as we go forward (we are hiring two more in a few weeks). Would love to see a follow up post from anyone who has tips on how they have already achieved this!

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      Yup

  • Soo-Hyun Yoo

    That last image is so full of win I want to print it out and frame it. Or make it my desktop wallpaper. ..if FG is okay with it?

  • Walt Morton

    I loved this piece. I loved it a lot because giant robot dinosaurs are genius. And I am in essential agreement with 99% of it. With one exception. It’s the tricky bit about deciding in what way the world is broken and what qualified good idea will fix it. There are people out there full of fire to solve America’s energy future by fracking the Northern plains states for natural gas. Good idea? Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were full of fire but the social ideas they were selling weren’t so great. The soon-to-be concluded Iraq war was a fire lit by the idea of removing weapons of mass destruction — except it turned out the WMD’s did not exist. I think the robot dinosaur is expressing the need for total commitment beautifully. But for the most part but I’d prefer ideas that made a pleasant hole in the world (the iPod) to ones that make a nasty hole (Chernobyl). Sometimes a human can have a stupid idea but they are so fired up they go ahead and damn the consequences. That can be a “powerful learning experience.” Humans like to experiment. You need fire to try anything new. Fire is essential. But what is most tricky is to figure out which are the good ideas and which are the bad ideas — before you run the experiment. You do want to be careful what you set on fire.

  • Walt Morton

    I loved this piece. I loved it a lot because giant robot dinosaurs are genius. And I am in essential agreement with 99% of it. With one exception. It’s the tricky bit about deciding in what way the world is broken and what qualified good idea will fix it. There are people out there full of fire to solve America’s energy future by fracking the Northern plains states for natural gas. Good idea? Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin were full of fire but the social ideas they were selling weren’t so great. The soon-to-be concluded Iraq war was a fire lit by the idea of removing weapons of mass destruction — except it turned out the WMD’s did not exist. I think the robot dinosaur is expressing the need for total commitment beautifully. But for the most part but I’d prefer ideas that made a pleasant hole in the world (the iPod) to ones that make a nasty hole (Chernobyl). Sometimes a human can have a stupid idea but they are so fired up they go ahead and damn the consequences. That can be a “powerful learning experience.” Humans like to experiment. You need fire to try anything new. Fire is essential. But what is most tricky is to figure out which are the good ideas and which are the bad ideas — before you run the experiment. You do want to be careful what you set on fire.

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    Great thing!

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      Deletr

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  • Dfriedman

    Love the fire analogy.  Yeah I don’t think I would sleep if I was on fire! :D

  • Dfriedman

    Love the fire analogy.  Yeah I don’t think I would sleep if I was on fire! :D

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  • Anonymous

    FAKEGRIMLOCK  ME C3PO & R2D2 THINK YOU VERY FUNNY. YOU NOT DANGEROUS FOR US. YOU FAKE

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  • http://www.buywigonline.com Yesuifen20

    ORLD VIEW TOO NARROW.

  • Anonymous

    Freeqin’ Awesome. REKINDLED

  • http://www.davidorban.com davidorban

    I made a video for BE ON FIRE. Hope you like it, and if you do, share it, or mash it up… It is on dotSUB, if somebody wants to translate it in other languages, and from there I published it on YouTube, including the captions http://dotsub.com/view/731510a8-d762-42d5-b229-60173dbf0202http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1x3BZjU5Pw

    • http://www.feld.com bfeld

      JUST AWESOME!

    • http://over40innovator.blogspot.com Roger Toennis

      David, your dotsub link here doesn’t work. Here’s the youtube link to the video by David. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1x3BZjU5Pw

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  • http://giannii.com Giannii

    Genius.

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  • http://over40innovator.blogspot.com Roger Toennis

    The last illustration in this post lights me on FIRE!!!

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  • John K

    How’s that song by Henry Rollins go…

    CAUSE I’M ON FIRE
    YEAH I AM ON FIRE
    I WORK ALL NIGHT NOW
    I CODE IN BOLD
    I’LL TURN YOU ON TO ME
    I’M CHASING DOWN V.C.
    CAUSE I’M ON FIRE, ON FIRE
    FIRE, FIRE, FIRE, FIRE

  • panterosa,

    GRIM
    YOU MAKE ME THINK SUN TSU. MY FAVORITE.
    YOU MAKE ME THINK FAVORITE CHINESE WORD.
    CRISIS=DANGER+OPPORTUNITY.
    THAT BURN. BURN BRIGHT. BRIGHT THRU TIL WIN.

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  • Robert Thuston

    Fucking Love Fake Grimlock!  HE FUEL FOR MY FIRE!

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Brad Feld

Hi, I'm Brad Feld, a managing director at Foundry Group who lives in Boulder, Colorado. I invest in software and Internet companies around the US, run marathons and read a lot.