And when you hear them talk it is clear they are just in it for the money. There is no passion in their speech (if you can even call it that). I would be VERY VERY careful of these guys. They have millions and millions tide up. They are looking out for themselves first.
+1
i've seen more passion from a javascript meetup talk. you don't have to be steve jobs to be a good speaker.. you just have to believe in the cause. it's just extra uuh, suprising that uhh these guys uhh graduated uhhh from Harvard.
wrong.
my son and i followed them out of the Conference Hall after their speech as my son wanted a pic with them. naturally we were amongst a small hoard of ppl doing the same thing.
outside the hall we found them being interviewed by some female reporter surrounded by ppl. Tyler was speaking about how he thinks Bitcoin can be used to bring freedom to ppl of the third world. how a new sense of freedom and relief from poverty could be harnessed using a pure new form of money. she asked him about the mtgox seizure and he hopefully said it probably wouldn't matter in the whole scheme of things as Bitcoin is unstoppable from a global perspective.
their handlers then whisked them off down the long hallway before anyone else could talk or get pictures from them. it's a long, long hallway and i decided to follow them to see if the crowd thinned out so we could grab that picture for my son. the crowd did thin some and just before they were to turn into an exit i shouted out to them to take a picture. both of them immediately stopped and said "sure" much to my surprise and the chagrin of the bodyguards. i quickly shoved my son btwn them and snapped off a very memorable picture. that picture meant a lot to the both of us.
i'm convinced that the two of them are a humble, caring, thoughtful pair and my opinion of them shot up orders of magnitude. to my mind, the burden of proof has shifted to Zuckerberg to prove to me, at least, he was not the schmuck in that dispute.
Great, so you have a story of them, against the wishes of their bodyguard, taking a picture with your son. That is really heartwarming but that doesn't convince me. What convinces me is what I see on a day to day basis, not a personal anecdote here and there. (Not that there is anything wrong with that - more data points in which to judge.) I think of athletes like Michael Jordon who are known to be very condescending and unfriendly to people (when the cameras aren't rolling) - saying all the right things in interviews and taking pictures with kids. It works, it's PR (and I'm not saying the twins are doing the same, but we should keep an eye on them.)
Now maybe, they just don't come across as "emotional" or "enthralling" with regard to their speeches. We will find out. But right now, we need to be very very careful with who is "let into" the BTC community - including Ripple.
Time will tell and further, where they spend all of those BTC's and money that they got. The proof will surely be in the pudding...