I am flying at least once per month from Athens International Airport. What I am most happy about is the moment after check-in that I am diving into a bookstore’s International Press department. The magazine that I never miss is the British Car. As its title proves, it is a magazine about cars and generally about automotive news.

Some of you, may already know that I am blogging about cars in one of the bigger blogs in Greece, pestaola.gr. That means that I have subscribed in the most known web sites, both from Greece and abroad. I also have subscribed to some less known web sites. I get too many information from all these online sources. However, when I am reading Car’s latest issue I get all those *useful* information. Car has one advantage that I have not found (yet?) in any web site: every single car presentation has the right ratio of everything that is hidden under the “shiny new car”: technical stuff, market placement, journalist’s driving experience, even some times driving tips from the guy who actually tested and improved the car just before its launch (to name one, Walter Rohrl in every Porsche). If you add the great (love it or hate it) British humor in the equation, you can get the picture..

I don’t want to be misunderstood, web sites have all the information that I need to write an article but I have to read three or four web-articles before getting all the necessary information. And that’s ok when you are about to write an article, but what happens if you are just a car-enthusiast that simply wants to get all the latest information? Even in that web-driven era, certain things have not been replaced by the web. Will they ever be?

[photo via]

“Money makes the world go round” sang Liza Minelli back in the days. Although many years have passed since then, that song contains the biggest truth to be ever told: Money makes the world go round. I strongly believe that there is no such thing as free beer, especially when we are talking about business and web2.0 startups.

However, there are some people out there that can not understand that. Let me explain that. 2 days ago, a web-developer presented me a great project that was already built and ready to be launched.  To be completely honest, I liked it and I also liked the proposed role in the team. There was even a venture stake after a trial period that was really appealing. The problem was in the trial period.

To explain myself, I totally agree with trial periods, they are like a test drive before buying a new car. You have to understand how your colleagues work and vice versa, to check your compatibility and if both sides are satisfied you can keep working together. There is always a but though. My “but” comes when I was asked to work for free in the trial period. I didn’t expect a great amount of money and frankly, I wouldn’t believe that I deserve much money for the 3-4-5 first months.

You will probably think: Hey, you are about to get a venture stake and you are talking about 3 months work? I agree, if we consider that I will keep working in that startup. What will happen if not? As the owner of the startup told me, I ‘ll get a big, fat NOTHING. What I also didn’t like, was the attitude that he had: It’s your big opportunity to do something great, if there is somebody to ask money after a failed trial period that is me and not you. Take into consideration that we are not talking about somebody who is starting right now and has no cash flow but about a fully functional company with income and expenses that is just not willing to pay me.

The combination of these three things drove me to reject the offer although the project rocks. I value my time and my will to do things much more than “you ‘ll work for free for 3 months”. And that’s far from snobism, I am willing to work for free in a project that there are no money (yet), in a friend’s project or in a project that I will have asked to work, but working for free for someone who found me and made an offer is not in my to-do list.

[photo via flickr.com, user: Your Teacher]