I finished reading The Man Who Solved the Market this past weekend about Jim Simons, Renaissance Technologies, and the quant revolution. The book was alright, but the story of Rentech is remarkable, i
It was morning and bright, and Reinhard Grubhofer, depleted and dehydrated, hoisted his body over a crest and rose uneasily. There, from the summit of Mount Everest, he could see everything. How the earth curved gorgeously in all direction; how wisps of clouds sailed beneath his boots. The view—out…
Why Will Breitbart Be Included in ‘Facebook News’? Mark Zuckerberg can’t be understood in terms of partisan politics. It’s all about growth. Oct. 25, 2019 The Facebook co-founder and chief executive M
You guys, what’s going on? How come we routinely say “guys” or “you guys” when talking to a group of two or more? Whenever we speak or write, we are automatically voting just by choosing which words t
Posted October 17, 2019 The plan was to drink until the pain over. But what’s worse, the pain or the hangover? —Kanye West, “Dark Fantasy” When you found a company, it tends to get wired into your ner
On Monday of this week the Business Roundtable, an organization which “represents chief executive officers (CEOs) of America’s leading companies,” published a new statement on the purpose of a corpora
Ittetsu Nemoto near his temple, in Gifu prefecture. Japan’s suicide rate is nearly twice that of the United States.Photograph by Pari Dukovic From time to time, Ittetsu Nemoto gets a group of suicidal
If you spend much time out in nature, you know how to recognize the subtle and unsubtle signs of an ecosystem in distress. It could be a forest that’s eerily silent where you should hear birds and ins
Former Star Google and Uber Engineer Charged With Theft of Trade Secrets Anthony Levandowski, who was a star engineer at Google and Uber specializing in self-driving technologies, with his lawyer Mile
Farhad Manjoo, in the New York Times, ran an experiment on themself: Earlier this year, an editor working on The Times’s Privacy Project asked me whether I’d be interested in having all my digital act
“The status quo on our streets today is simply unacceptable, and we’re not going to stand for it,” Mayor Mark Farrell said the other day as he stood on Natoma Street to unveil his new needle cleanup t
Many describe Product Hunt as the place to see what's next in tech. Every day startups and makers launch their latest creation on the site, introducing it to the world for the first time. Like everyon
awaldstein Mar 4, 2014 Words to the wise Fred.Bore repeating and repeating again. William Mougayar Mar 4, 2014 I have seen VCs push for pro-rata rights on the overall ownership, not just on the round,
Apple Inc.’s mobile apps routinely appear first in search results ahead of competitors in its App Store, a powerful advantage that skirts some of the company’s rules on such rankings, according to a W
Craig Newmark is a man of quiet contradiction. Wrapped in a sweater the color of hot chocolate, the 66-year-old founder of Craigslist is painfully self-effacing, yet he started a wildly successful onl
I First Had Lyme Disease in 2010. I Never Really Got Better. The author has spent a decade fighting persistent Lyme disease symptoms — and convincing those who don’t believe him that his illness is re
Yves here. We edited this important post from a version on Aaron Greenspan’s website. Lambert reordered it to make the likely magnitude of Facebook fake accounts the starting point, which we see as th
The suggestion that humans will soon set up bustling, long-lasting colonies on Mars is something many of us take for granted. What this lofty vision fails to appreciate, however, are the monumental—if
Welcome to geezer town, junior. While researching my recent article, “Age discrimination and Programming Jobs” , I discovered a 1998 Op-Ed piece from The New York Times that cited some startling stati
Sky used technology as a crowbar to build a new TV business. Everything about how it executed that technology had to be good, and by and large it was. The box was good, the UI was good, the truck-roll
Intro There are many definitions of product market fit: Product market fit is your NPS score Product market fit is when 40% of your users would be “very disappointed” if they no longer have access to
This article is part of an investigation with Underunderstood, a podcast that explores stories the internet missed. You can subscribe to Underunderstood on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you lis
William Mougayar Aug 4, 2019 Can’t argue with balance. I have been on both sides too, and agree. But the non-CEO as chair is rare in early stage tech companies, but more commonly practiced as a compan
At 3 a.m. on June 10, my brother-in-law Dan and I started walking uphill from the Whitney Portal trailhead. Our goal: the top of California’s 14,494-foot Mount Whitney, three hours north of Los Angele
One of the basic mechanics of tech over the past few decades has been that we tend to start with special-purpose components, but then over time we replace them with general-purpose components. When pe
Jeff Bezos, chief executive officer of Amazon.com Inc. Photographer: Mike Kane/Bloomberg Visit the office of Amazon’s head of Devices, Dave Limp, and you may get an offer to look at a piece of corpora
It hasn’t been a great couple of years for Neil Woodford — and it has been just as miserable for the people who have entrusted money to his investment funds. Mr Woodford was probably the most celebrat
Last October, we announced that we'd partnered with Kickstarter to start a new project to succeed Drip, their subscription platform for independent artists. Unfortunately, we’ve decided to cancel the
Published inPodfund · 3 min read· May 7, 2019 -- We’re incredibly excited to announce the launch of Podfund. Jake Shapiro has written an excellent post outlining our inspiration and vision, so I thoug
Ringer illustration Instagram has long been an unofficial shopping platform, where people (i.e., me) can purchase useless stuff (i.e., novelty winged cat pins) while tipsily scrolling through their fe
Almost as suddenly as the electric rent-a-scooters appeared, everyone had an opinion about them. They began clogging sidewalks across the Bay Area in late 2017 ($1 to start!) as brands with four-lette
Whether you’re hiring your first or hundredth engineer, you can build a hiring pipeline to discover, interview, and recruit quality candidates at scale. We’re here to help with every step: Background on the current engineering landscape How to build your employer brand How to source top engineers…
I always liked writing. In the fifth grade, I wrote a dark, brooding story about a rat in a dungeon. My teacher liked it so much she read it in front of the class. At first I was embarrassed, but afte
Published inDesign at Meta · 11 min read· Feb 24, 2016 -- I come to Facebook to share all kinds of things with people I care about — from celebratory posts about practicing yoga for 60 days straight,
Colin Kroll, a college dropout turned startup millionaire, drifted through his company’s holiday party at Gran Morsi, a cozy Italian restaurant in downtown Manhattan. Dressed in a gray sweater and jea
published February 10th, 2019 This week’s essay is on on how to interview an executive, though it may also be helpful to read when preparing to be interviewed. From day 1, one of the most important jobs of a CEO is to hire incredible talent to your team. Hiring the right executive is one of the most…
11 min read · Jan 16, 2019 -- We recently celebrated a decade (!) of building Thumbtack so I’m sharing a few hard-fought lessons from growing a startup to $1B. To set some context… A decade ago: Thumb
In August, an analyst for a little-known U.S. startup called NewsGuard tried to contact the editors of the Daily Mail Online, the U.K.-based news and celebrity-gossip site that ranks as one of the int
If you remove the societal impact, just for a moment, the story of publishers’ demise — first newspapers, and now digital-only companies like BuzzFeed and Huffington Post, which both announced signifi
Brad Feld 2 min read· Jan 16, 2019 -- Today, Techstars announced a new initiative called Techstars Studio which will allow Techstars to source new company concepts from Techstars alumni founders, community leaders, venture capitalists, mentors, and corporate partners. The Techstars Studio will then…
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