Video of the week:
Honorable mention:
Podcast of the week:
A Strategy Session with Reid Hoffman - Masters of Scale
Honorable mention:
Article of the week:
Ever since Peter Thiel mentioned him, reading Rene Girard’s work has become become the ‘hip’ thing to do in tech circles (ironically enough). This essay is one of the best introductions/summary to Rene’s key ideas. Excerpt:
Honorable mention:
Four Years in Startups - Great story through the lens of a woman/non-technical engineer navigating Silicon Valley’s culture and eccentricities. Excerpt:
Statistic of the week:
(Adults still vastly underestimate how big gaming is and it will only get 10x bigger as Esports continues to gain in popularity)
Worldwide Revenues:
Film Box Office
2015: $39B
2018: $41B (+5%)
Video Gaming
2015: $92B
2018: $138B (+50%)
Honorable mention:
WeWork valuations, a one-year history
Morgan Stanley high-end estimate: $104 billion
Goldman: $96 billion
JPMorgan: $63 billion
WeWork S-1: $47 billion
Final price before IPO shelved: $15 billion
Quote I’m reflecting on this week:
Book recommendation of the week:
Some of the best things in life are free (as is the book above). Basecamp is one of my favorite companies and is completely a beast at shipping product and features. They also have a very unique company culture. The book documents Basecamp’s product management culture and the author gives advice based on his 18+ years at Basecamp. He also explains a 6-week sprint has been so successful for Basecamp (instead of the 1 or 2 week thing that has become common across companies adopting Agile)
Start-up of the week:
CTRL-Labs, since it’s really pushing the needle on human-machine interfaces. It got acquired by Facebook for a neat $1B. Here’s a quick video on what they do
Honorable mention:
TikTok, since it just released an in-video search feature:
(people underestimate a) how much more advanced China’s tech scene is in some areas relative to West b) how big the social feature of commerce can be - I’ve previously highlighted Popshop Live, a startup that is directly tackling this)
Tweet of the week:
Marathon finishing times. I love the spikes around “pretty” times (3:00, 3:30, 4:00, etc). Shows you how much of human achievement is about setting goals.Honorable mention:
Image of the week:
(the problem with economic growth over the past decade)
Honorable mention:
(the retail apocalypse continues)
Question of the week:
Ask yourselves this:
“Compared to this time last year, are you: happier or sadder?” - from Reddit
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