As publishers and authors scramble to figure out which of the quickly-evolving publishing paradigms will take hold, the issue of what product type is greener–ebooks or paper books–keeps coming up. In my mind, there is no longer any debate. The answer is clear. Ebooks are the preferred choice. Here’s why.

Looking Beyond Carbon

My wife (as many of my readers know) is a successful children’s book author primarily writing books about science and nature. Therefore, this issue is very close to our hearts.

Like most paper-based children’s books published these days, most of her books are sent overseas to be printed in Asia. One of our greatest fears about the sourcing of the paper used to print her books was recently confirmed: most of the paper used by Asian printers contains some pulp from virgin Indonesian rainforests.

This is absolutely devastating news to us. As avid naturalists who have literally spent thousands of hours in rainforests around the world, this confirmation of our fears hit us like a nail-riddled two-by-four in the face.

( See the Rainforest Action Network’s recently-released report, Turning the Page
on Rainforest Destruction: Children’s books and the future of Indonesia’s rainforests )

The e-book versus treeware book calculations do not, in fact cannot, take into account the loss of ecosystem services from the destruction of complex, highly-biodiverse virgin rainforest habitat. Unlike virgin temperate forests that are not as complex or species diverse, tropical forest recovery is a significantly longer process, requiring centuries. In fact, it is not yet fully clear if a destroyed virgin tropical forest can actually recover.

Environmental calculations that simply compare carbon emissions are woefully myopic. Furthermore, the more robust cradle-to-grave analyses (sometimes called life cycle analysis) are inadequate at fully quantifying the scope of ecosystem services. Ecologists are still discovering the immense complexity and real-world economic value provided by intact, virgin rainforest— vital services that are lost (possibly for good) when the land is destroyed.

Suffice it to say that ecosystem services of all forest habitat are numerous. And when comparing temperate to tropical forest ecosystems, those factors are often multiplied many fold. I will not go into the currently-known ecosystem services provided by virgin rainforest habitat. You can read the linked-to report to learn some of these.

Are We Hypocritical?

Of course, April and I did not turn our backs on the fact that books are printed on paper. Even before publishers started sending the majority of their children’s books overseas to be printed in Asia, we knew that forests in Europe and North America were being destroyed to print her books. Most of those forests, however, were non-virgin forests, having long ago been destroyed. We took some solace in the fact that very few virgin acres of temperate forest were being decimated for producing paper.

Yes, there are many environmental impacts of foresting, paper manufacturing, printing, and distribution of which the book publishing industry is complicit, but we rationalized that the environmental benefit of April’s message resulted in a net positive. With this recent revelation, the environmental calculus may have shifted to a net negative.

So the next time you read or hear a debate about the environmental costs of ebooks versus paper-based books, think about what is happening with the production of paper-based children’s books. When it comes to children’s books, we feel that the answer is clear. Paper-based children’s books need to be phased out. Paperless ebooks are the better alternative.*

What are We Doing About this Issue?

As some of you know, my project of the last several years is to build a pioneering ebook venture that will redefine the concept of book publishing and sales in the Web 2.0 / Web 3.0 Internet age.

My resolve has been strengthened many fold with this unfortunate news. I am redoubling my efforts and will be unveiling our new publishing vision later next year.

* It is not currently possible to fully account for the actual environmental costs of producing ebooks and ebook readers. But we feel that once those costs are taken into account (materials mining, solvents used for electronic component manufacturing, energy used in production and distribution, usage patterns, etcetera), the ebook ecconomy will still turn out to be more environmentally friendly than the old-style, habitat-destroying, paper-based publishing. Producing any product–hardcopy or digital–requires resource exploitation. We believe that fewer resources and significantly less sensitive habitat will be destroyed if the publishing economy transitions to being fully-digital based.

Since I am not hiring employees, I am not breaking anti-discrimination laws. I am not making job offers. I am searching for business partners with whom to start a business. So, I can use whatever criteria I want in selecting my startup partners.

In the days that followed that post, Dave brought up more issues of ageism—in particular venture funding in the realm of tech startups. On Wednesday, January 13, 2009, Dave tweeted this quote, taken from an article about Douglas Leone, a partner at Sequoia Capital:

“Sequoia focuses on younger entrepreneurs because people over 30 aren’t innovative.” http://r2.ly/red7

Wow! I guess Pablo Picasso, Richard Feynman, Steve Jobs, James Cameron, and hundreds of thousand of other post-30 innovators, never realized that their creativity and innovative spirits had dried up once they hit 30. Shame on them. They all should have been sent to the Soylent Corporation’s processing plant once they hit 30-years old.

If you read the article linked to in the tweet, you’ll get the full picture of what was being said. But the point is, that when it comes to web startups, especially those in the social media space, ageism is an issue.

( N.B. If you have made it this far in the article and your blood is beginning to boil, read this newer post for a sneak peek at the message behind the headline.)

Fifty is the New Forty; Thirty is the New Twenty

So, why am I looking for founding partners 35-plus years of age?

In my two previous jobs, I managed teams of people; I managed managers who managed teams of people. It was a rare exception when I found someone under the age of 30 who was sufficiently focused, task-oriented, dependable, experienced, and knew what they wanted. When I did find someone like that, I knew that I had a potential project manager and someone who might be able to be mentored to become a possible future executive.

Now that does not imply that most people over the age of 30 have what it takes to manage projects, to lead a team of people, to start a company. Most of them do not. It is simply that my empirical evidence convinced me, when it came to a professional life, most people under the age of 30 still had some growing up to do—and some of those had a long ways to go.

All under-30, professional-level employees have fewer than 10 years of work experience. Most are still very green and have much to learn about work ethos, teamwork, project management, and leadership. The other big issue is that many under-30 employees have yet to perfect an effective, proactive communication style. Finally, experience comes with discipline, hard work, learning from mistakes, and age. And experience is more valuable than raw, young talent in my book.

Don’t get me wrong. Young employees are important to a healthy, vibrant business. But a company full of only young employees is a company that is most likely inefficient and prone at making mistakes that a business with a diverse, well-seasoned workforce would never make. This applies to old firms as well as new startups.

The Company, The Opportunity

My startup is in the Publishing 2.0 space. That is all I will say for now.

I have an detailed concept paper describing the underlying vision and functionality. It is not a business plan. At this stage in a startup’s life, business plans are not necessary. If you don’t understand that statement, or understand why, then this opportunity is not for you.

You must know the differences between working at a startup and working for a small business. Whereas all startups are (usually) considered small businesses, very few small businesses are startups. If you do not clearly understand the differences, then this opportunity is not for you.

Each founder is required to provide their own hardware and software. As we will be using a number of Open Source tools for designing, coding, implementing, managing, and running the platform, the need for proprietary software should be limited.

The earliest stages of this startup will be self-funded. It should not require much initial infusion of capital beyond what is needed for hosting and membership in a few select collaborative services. I plan to run a very lean startup. The mid-term goal is to bootstrap the startup, thereby not requiring any angel or venture funding. However, I am not opposed to either if it makes sense down the road.

As this is a startup with zero outside investment and will initially have zero cash flow, founders will not receive any salary or benefits at first. You must be able to meet adequately your personal financial responsibilities and have a sufficient savings cushion to live in this way for at least 6 to 12 months. If that is not possible, if that concerns you, then this opportunity is not for you.

Founders will be owners of the company. Percent ownership will be negotiated with me on an individual basis. Stock options will also be made available.

Our company will strive to determine as quickly as possible the right fit of functionality and service for our intended target demographic. We will do this through analyzing metrics and customer development data obtained over a series of incremental launches (iterations of our platform). The initial goal will be to get a minimally viable service built as quickly as possible so that we can begin this process. We’ll then scale up our platform and service, leveraging our learned intelligence.

What I’m Seeking

In particular, I’m looking to create an energetic team that will function as generalist. We will build the initial, working technology platform, and create the business foundation.

Whereas each member of our team will have a specific, unique skill set that complements the overall startup process, there will be necessary overlap in the area of coding knowledge. This means that each team member must have sufficient Web coding experience, although only one of us truly needs to be an expert-level developer.

In the earliest stages of a Web-based startup, generalists often perform better than specialists. But, as we begin to successfully acquire members and bootstrap the business, we will hire (additional) specialists.

Here are the basic requirements (not listed in any particular order of importance):

Required of all Founders

• Must be 35-plus years of age
• High energy, positive personality
• A killer work ethic (days will be long)
• Ability to work independently
• Adept at creative problem solving
• Proven creative, innovative, independent thinking
• Ability to work initially for zero salary or benefits (this could last 6 or more months)
• Sufficient comfort level with back-end PHP coding and front-end design
• Project management experience
• Must live in the contiguous United States—for travel purposes
• Must be a citizen of the United States—for legal purposes
• Must have a computer with a video camera and high-speed Internet access
• Thrive in taking measured risks
• A healthy savings from which you can survive off of for at least 12 months
• Respectful, proactive communication style
• Easy to communicate with and a good, active listener
• Understanding that there are no guarantees of success
• Must be willing to travel to meet in person a few times in the first 6 months
• You cannot be in arrears with local, state, or federal tax institutions
• You cannot be a defendant in any pending or active lawsuit
• Founders will share corporate risk and liability
• Founders will sign shareholders’ agreement
• Must be results-oriented, focused, tenacious, and driven

More Specific Requirements—Coder, lead-developer

• At least one coder with significant experience in OOP MVC Python-based frameworks (PHP considered as well)
• Experience and knowledge of DB design theory and practice—ERDs, normalization, sharding, etc.
• Experience with PostgreSQL
• Experience with Web security
• Experience with agile development

More Specific Requirements—Designer

• CSS and HTML guru
• Ability to resolve browser-specific rendering issues
• Keen eye for clean, uncluttered, Web-2.0 style design
• A stickler for designs that validate
• User-friendly UI/UX maven

Not Required but a Plus (one or more)

• Previous startup experience as a founder
• Previous early-stage startup experience as an employee
• Extensive, high-level contacts in the New York book publishing Industry
• Understanding of Semantic Web and experience with semantic technologies
• Past P&L responsibility
• Previous position as CTO
• Law or MBA degree
• You are a Mac person

Not An Issue

• Married/unmarried with kids
• Desire not to relocate
• Desire to get some sleep each night
• It’s okay if you’re a PC person

I spent years in the PC world designing custom database solutions for big companies, I now prefer Macs. In fact, I have three Macs that I use for development. I no longer own a PC—which I have found to be a nice relief.

Now, I am not an ageist by any stretch of the imagination. So, if you’re an exceptional under-35 year old who is interested in this opportunity, send an email convincing me that you’re the one I should pick. You will still be required to meet all the requirements except age.

If Interested, Here’s What you Need to Know and Do

If you are not a highly-motivated, creative, driven, risk-tolerant, tenacious, tireless worker, then this opportunity is not for you.

This is not a job posting. It is a potential opportunity to become a startup founder.

If you are interested in being considered for a slot as one of three founders, ping me here no later than February 6, 2009.

In the body of your (brief) email tell me why this opportunity intrigues you and what experience and skills you bring to the table. Please include a link to your “About Me” page on your website (I prefer that over a digital resume). Include your Twitter and LinkedIn usernames. Finally, include your Skype or iChat contact details so that, if I think it desirable, we can have a video conference.

I will seriously review each potential candidate and make a short list of those with whom I wish to have a video conference. I retain the right to make the final decision on selection of partners. I do not guarantee that I will select any of the candidates who apply. I will not add another founder until I’ve found the right fit.