less humans, more robots
My work moves around the intersection of technology, design, architecture, venture capital, psychology, economics and applied physics. I work with startups and large corporations on business design and future design.
In my work, it starts with ideas. It starts with design. It starts with writing. It starts with strategy.
In my work, It starts with getting started.
10th anniversary of the first major ‘loss’ in my life. – View on Path.
NEW: The Tech Blues - $99 | http://seat14a.com/
Hey S14a! When are you ‘soft launching’ in India?
Products can introduce more complexity over time, but as far as launching and introducing a new product in to the market, it’s a marketing problem,..
You have to explain everything you do, and people have to understand it, within seconds.
…In the mobile context, you need to explain what you do in 30 seconds or less because people move on to the next shiny object. There are so many apps and people are vying for your attention on the go. It’s the one context in which you’ve got lots and lots of other stuff going on. You’re not sitting in front of a computer; you’re at a bus stop or in a meeting.
This graph says ‘US healthcare is an embarrassment’. Help me find a word to explain ‘healthcare in India’ — – View on Path.
1. Globalization is not (all there is to) progress.
2. It is better to be right than to be contrarian.
3. Secrets exist.
4. Capitalism and competition are antonyms, not synonyms.
5. People lie.
6. Much of life is a power law.
7. A bad plan is better than no plan. A good plan is even better.
8. Foundations matter. Beginnings are special.
9. Founders are different.
10. Find a frontier and go for it.
There is something importantly singular about each new thing. There is a mini singularity whenever you start a company or make a key life decision. In a very real sense, the life of every person is a singularity.
The obvious question is what you should do with your singularity. The obvious answer, unfortunately, has been to follow the well-trodden path. You are constantly encouraged to play it safe and be conventional. The future, we are told, is just probabilities and statistics.You are a statistic.
But the obvious answer is wrong. That is selling yourself short. There are still many large white spaces on the map of human knowledge. You can go discover them. So do it. Get out there and fill in the blank spaces. Every single moment is a possibility to go to these new places and explore them.
There is perhaps no specific time that is necessarily right to start your company or start your life. But some times and some moments seem more auspicious than others. Now is such a moment. If we don’t take charge and usher in the future—if you don’t take charge of your life—there is the sense that no one else will.
The Biggest Problem in Design [by Julie Zhuo, Product design director @ Facebook]
Good Design is Honest [Omar El Amri, Computer Scientist]
Wasted Talent - Arranging deck chairs on the Mars rover. [Matt]
Do Tomorrow What You Decide Today [ Anders Thoresson]
What kind of a designer are you? [ Tuhin Kumar, Product Designer @Facebook ]
How, When and Where Will The First Truly Great Digital Design Studio Emerge? [Murat Mutlu, Designer]
Here is a collection of uplifting and heartwarming words of encouragement from the most sage voices in the tech startup world as you begin your own entrepreneurial journey.
- Throwing yourself off a cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down. - Reif Hoffman
- Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death. - Elon Musk
- Running a start-up is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood. - Sean Parker
- Startups are hell. - Penelope Trunk
- It’s like we’re married, but we’re not fucking. - Y Combinator founder via Paul Graham
- I kept busy by thinking about how running that marathon was much like doing a startup. - Dan Martell
- People say doing a startup is like a marathon. It’s actually a roadtrip at night with no headlights. You think you’re going to Toledo but you’re actually going to Miami and you might not have enough gas so you might need to buy gas from someone who might take you out if you aren’t driving well. - Ben Silbermann via Jason Shen
- This is what running a startup is like…every day (cue video). - Jason Calacanis
- Running a startup is like being punched in the face repeatedly. - Paul Graham
- In my tiredness, my scars, and my strength I have noticed that launching and running a start-up is a lot like war. - Ryan Wood
- Running a startup is like having all the bad guys from Die Hard attack you, but you’re way more scrawny than Bruce Willis. - Aaron Levie
Missing the train is only painful if you run after it. Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that is what you are seeking. – Read on Path.
Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you…it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger.
It means insisting that those to whom you give your friendship and love are able to respect your mind. It means being able to say, with Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre: “I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.
Responsibility to yourself means that you don’t fall for shallow and easy solutions—predigested books and ideas…marrying early as an escape from real decisions, getting pregnant as an evasion of already existing problems. It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short…and this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in the places assigned to us. It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives.
It means, therefore, the courage to be “different”…The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.
Midas, Son of Gordias
We are like them only, aren’t we? We don’t want to follow the herd. We want to be the black-sheep. We don’t want to be ‘wrong’. We all want to be alone. We all want to be right. We all want to be Midas, son of Gordias.
But - was he right?
