Awkward moments on an ✈️

There's a scene near the beginning of the film, Her, that features a completely naked pregnant woman, moving in a sexually provocative way. The scene lasts for all of 5 seconds.

I was eager to watch the movie, since a number of people had recommended it to me on the basis that they saw some commonalities between the artificial intelligence in the film and the product I was building with my two cofounders. A stretch if you ask me.

And so, as soon as I jumped aboard flight NZ0007 to Auckland on my way home to Brisbane from San Francisco, I put my headphones on and hoped that Her would be amongst the available in-flight entertainment options. Sure enough, there it was. I patiently waited for the infamous Sports Illustrated safety video to complete, got comfortable and hit play.

Then, while still on the ground, the Inflight Service Manager came on the speaker to tell everyone something undoubtedly important.

What are the chances of that? The video player and the screen were completely unresponsive. None of the buttons had any effect. Not even the screen dimmer worked. Stuck. Face turning red, ears burning.

I was in an aisle seat, as is my custom whenever I fly. So here's me, buckled into my economy seat, waiting for the plane to take off, with a completely naked and very pregnant May Lindstrom staring out of my video screen in full view of everyone behind and across from me.

A few seats back, a man — clearly of antipodean origin, though Aussie or Kiwi I couldn't be sure — thought the whole episode was hilarious and yelled out "I'd be covering that up if I was you!"

Well, now that you've alerted most of the plane to the situation, I probably should, I thought. But I didn't.

"This flick is supposed to be about artificial intelligence!" I exclaimed back at him, wearing what I suppose must have been a very sheepish grin.

Anyone within viewing distance had already seen what was on my screen, half of them giggling and snickering, the other half too shocked to say anything, and apparently too dumbstruck to look away from the screen. The bloke next to me was shaking his head and having a good old laugh, while trying desperately not to look at the image blazing from the back of the seat in front of me.

Five minutes later, although it seemed more like an hour, the helpful person on the speaker stopped talking, and my video reset to the start. But, funnily enough, my appetite for watching the film had somewhat subsided by that point. Besides, I wasn't about to give my fellow passengers the satisfaction of watching me sit through that scene again (and who knew what other raunchy scenes to come; as it turns out, there are no more scenes like that in the film). 

I chose another movie (I can't remember what).

I don't want to give the impression that this event was psychologically damaging or some kind of defining moment or anything like that. Maybe it was character-building at best, but mostly it's a story that gets a laugh, and makes people wonder what they'd do in the same situation.

Hide the screen with a pillow, perhaps? Call a flight attendant? Grab a life vest and blow the little whistle?

You may be wondering, if you read the subtitle of this piece, what any of this has to do with startups. Well, in truth, probably not much, except that in Startup Land, random stuff like this happens all the time. You'll receive embarrassing press (PayPal was nominated as one of the 10 worst ideas of 1999), your product will fail in a myriad of ways (remember the Twitter Fail Whale?), and, oh yeah, that funding deal you thought you closed? It ain't closed.

Your job as a founder is to deal with it. If you persist, you might eventually end up where you were headed, but it's more likely than not that you'll end up taking a different route than you expected to take to get there. You'll also be making decisions at every turn based on incomplete information.

Additionally, there are times when you think you need to make a decision about something, but actually it's just a distraction and doesn't matter in the least. It can be hard to filter these out, because they come disguised as problems that need immediate attention.

They're in your face, it involves somebody screaming, it causes embarrassment and discomfort.

This kind of decision is the startup equivalent of the situation that I faced on the plane. It turns out that what you do in these situations doesn't matter one little bit as long as you don't make things worse. Relax.

If you read on, you'll see I ended up watching Her, just later and under different circumstances.

I had been in San Francisco to meet investors, other startup founders and ultimately to see if we could raise some money for our fledgling company. I've been asked on numerous occasions by folks back home to recount that journey and maybe share anything I learned.

There's a reason I have been reluctant to do this: there's a bunch of stuff that all startups go through which is already covered in lots of places, and the rest of it is unique to each individual startup, in which case you're just going to have to figure things out for yourself anyway. In the end, I've decided to document a few of my experiences here on Shorthand Social from an entertainment perspective, and if you learn something from it, bonus.

But know this: if you're building a startup, I strongly urge you not to read this crap (or any other "startup wisdom" scattered about the interwebs), and go build something or chat with a customer/user instead.

Epilog

My wife, Karen, bought Her for me for Father's Day, and we watched it together. It's a great movie, and Karen was much better company than the passengers of flight NZ0007!