<p>ArsDigita WAS something special. While other company sent cute, young female recruiters deep into the hallways of UCLA Enginner, aD send down <a href="http://www.aure.com">Aure</a> and the problem sets. Instead of sugar coat problems, aD had public shame. If something is bad, people would say, "it sucked!" There was vision, the brain and yes, plenty egos as well. It was an awesome place to be…while it lasted.

<p>Yes, Lars is very right. There is a real longing for a company like that. For better or worse, all of us Ex-ArsDigitans were lucky enough to be part of a company where vision, honesty and earnest hardwork is TRUELY valued and applied (how ever many weeks that lasted or how ever so screwed up it was towards the end). See, most people I known don’t have this kinda experiences. That was some ride, yes?

<p>Anyway, I wrote <a href="http://marduk.org/writings/item?item_id=107154">this little list</a> a while back on ArsDigita.

In the paragraph "Could it really be true?", you write:

"I guess my suspicion should’ve been awakened earlier. In the first chapter of his book, Philip mentions how he and Peter Nürnberg from Texas A&M once exchanged views on botany and web publishing."

I looked it up and found this on page 13:

"I learned all this interesting stuff about taxonomic botanists from Peter Nürnberg from Texas A&M University. But as much as he educated me about botany, I failed to educate him about Web publishing. He broke the link that I had to his Webnet ‘96 paper."

I see how your perception differs from the actual text – but I don’t find reason to blame Philip for the assumptions made from it. I learned a lot from Philip, though I never met the guy, and I feel educated. I would not phrase my failure to educate Philip on management along the same lines – as I never made an effort to that effect. But I do not read Philip’s text as deliberately misleading.

Please provide a more illuminating example.