No Linkup for You!

He liked to provoke at school, too. Wearing a lab coat one day, headphones plugged into nothing the next, he was the kid who wrote on his AP English final that the teacher should find a less clichéd essay topic. He eschewed cliques, often bringing together greasers and jocks at the same party to see how they'd mix. One friend, Jim Simpkins, says Firinn would be the ultimate flake one day, storming away for no apparent reason, but then backing him up in a showdown with a bully the next.

Firinn was kicked out of the house the summer after high school, by which time he says he'd honed a healthy suspicion of groups. They just lie and cover up for each other, he decided. After moving to Berkeley for college, he eventually became estranged from his family.

In 1996, he opened an Irish dictionary in the San Francisco Public Library. He'd wanted a name that described what he valued and strove for, and he figured he felt more Irish than anything else. Two words struck him: "Firinn," pronounced "Fear-in." It meant "truth" and, pronounced differently, meant "young girl" — a reminder of his older sister who committed suicide during his senior year of high school, and whom he saw as a victim of the toxic lack of truth in the house. "Taisdeal," pronounced "Tash-duhl," meant "seeker." He legally changed his name within weeks.

Having taught himself computer programming, Firinn worked in Silicon Valley during the tech boom. But after growing disgusted with co-workers interested only in the value of their stock options, he says he left three months short of collecting some $600,000 himself, torching bridges behind him with a parting note that went something like: I'm going to go do something with actual integrity. If you have integrity, you'll leave, too.

Firinn went on to a job designing computer games. The potential of technology fascinated him, but how was he contributing to the world by creating ways for people to waste their time? Thrown into what he describes as a personal and professional crisis, he quit, and soon learned firsthand how the Internet can bring out the worst in people. He hit up the business networking site www.ryze.com, but instead of making connections, he busted onto message boards for conservative Republicans and flamed people he'd never meet for four hours a day.

At the same time, he saw how technology could bring out personal initiative while he volunteered for the Howard Dean presidential campaign, which allowed volunteers to organize campaign events online. Could that work in the social arena?

Firinn would soon see. His girlfriend urged him to attend a lunch club, but he was so annoyed by the disorganization and onerous sign-up process of one on Craigslist that he created his own, the Bay Area Lunch Club, in 2003. After about six months, members of the club started to host their own events beyond midday meals.

But the club's momentum hit an obstacle. One host told Firinn how embarrassed she'd been when only three people showed up for a reservation for 12 at Nordstrom. Firinn says people flaking had never particularly bothered him — a friend who once forgot to take him to the airport begs to differ — but the woman's complaint hit a nerve.

"She was never going to try again," Firinn says, going into tears as he recounts the story. "She had given up. ... She was trying to fight back her tears." (The woman, Karla Dayton of Alameda, says she's honored he took her seriously, but politely adds that she wasn't that upset: "Maybe he's the emotional one.")

Firinn thought about the lessons gleaned from Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling books, The Tipping Point and Blink. People respond to cues that indicate the permitted behavior in any environment. Firinn had already programmed his site to urge good behavior; it corrected sloppy online grammar, changing "tonite" to "tonight" and shrinking multiple exclamation points to one. Swearing, spamming, and cruising were regulated.

In addition, Firinn learned from Gladwell's books that you can judge a lot about a person's character from the smallest of indicators. If those who jump subway turnstiles are more likely to have a criminal history, Firinn figured something as complex as a person's integrity could be judged by something as simple as whether they could keep a commitment.

Enter the accountability system.

As Firinn kicked off the first batches of flakes, mutiny broke out. The condemned logged onto Craigslist and spewed vitriol against him. At first, Firinn worried he had overreached. But as the so-called flakes and other transgressors were banished, Linkup hosts found their efforts wouldn't be squandered. Word got out, and Linkup took off. A patent for the accountability system is pending.