Blech, I hate this style of journalism. I gave up reading while slogging through the guy's entire personal history. I never even got to the meat of the article. (I suppose the style works for bio-centric publications like Rolling Stone, though.)
Could anyone post a synopsis of why the guy is supposedly dangerous?
AOL paid him $100 million for winamp, and he refused to sell out to the point of placing a desktop icon for aol during the install. Version 3.0 became bloated, and so v2.9 was released as a more stream lined version. Some other projects like gnutella were announced but AOL as a corporation dragged their feet and he released the packages on his own, which caused them no end of pain.
Hmm... gnutella was dangerous, I suppose, but certainly not "most dangerous". Sounds like it must have just been a PR puff piece to promote his latest software. (Not that Rolling Stone would ever become the tool of a press agent.)
I too am curious why this was posted being that it's 4 years old.
"The Most Dangerous Geek in the World" ?!?! Where did they get that from? Free spirited? Sure. But how is he dangerous in the slightest?
While I admire his free spirited nature I don't admire his hypocracy. If AOL was that much of an idea crusher/non-innovator why didn't he leave and launch his ideas? Instead he chooses a manner that is disrespectful and possibly illegal.
He worked for a company that was / is clearly floundering. He told them clearly that they needed to change things. And they ignored him. They labelled him a troublemaker.
He tried to help the company, and they declined that help. He tried to push the company, and they ignored that as well. The way I see it, this is the demise of AOL in a nutshell.
Could anyone post a synopsis of why the guy is supposedly dangerous?