This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Dear readers: I have come upon a secret treasure, a heretofore-unknown bounty of facts only recently unearthed by a team of evolutionary…

We spend a lot of time emphasizing data because we find the strongest companies have the strongest data systems and data cultures. But the other half of the strongest companies is the human factor. Psychology. Interpersonal dynamics. Touchy feely. Politics is typically a sickness that undermines the…

These are dark days for supplements. Although they are a $30-plus billion market in the United States alone, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, selenium, beta-carotene, glucosamine, chondroitin, and fish oil have now flopped in study after study. If there was one supplement that seemed sure to survive…

Apple’s hardware and chip teams are really at the top of their game. The new M4 iPad Pro is a sleek slab of concentrated computing power, tucked behind a spectacular OLED display. It arrives with a bundle of impressively updated accessories, which is appropriate given that the iPad is partially…

7 years ago, I called my best friend Robert Stephens and asked him for advice. His response was not what I was looking for. He said, Do you want my Advice or do you want my Validation? I just sat there for a second. Doubting my actual intentions. Thinking. What do I actually want? Why am I calling?…

Nearly every organization that is designed to have impact has a board of directors, whether that's a small non-profit, or a giant corporation, or anything in between. But having served on a number of boards across that entire range of institutions, I realize that most people who've never been in the…

The three distinct selling points of the Boox Palma are: form factore-ink displayandroid Why I bought the Boox Palma? I read everynight most nights, either a book on my Kindle Oasis or catching up on blog posts on Reader (either on my phone or tablet). My kindle is over 5 years old (it still works…

Far and away, the most common question I get is about my partnership with Tom. It’s flattering, especially when founders you admire want to hear about how two old east coast friends with one B+ exit to their names do things. It has its moments of agony too: “They’re such good friends!” isn’t the…

Epistemic status: abstract, speculative, experimental Recently I’ve written about how markets disrupted traditional communities and how reality is up for grabs. In summary: we’re all responsible for defining our realities now. This has profound implications. If and when anyone rebels against our…

“Armored in Vineyard Vines and Patagonia, fueled by Zyn and White Claws, these triumphant Brohemians protected Old Glory from the unwashed Marxist horde,” reads a recently launched GoFundMe for the members of Phi Kappa Phi, a fraternity at UNC Chapel Hill. The fundraiser, which is formally titled…

Delegating From the Magazine (November–December 1999) Leer en españolLer em português Why is it that managers are typically running out of time while their subordinates are typically running out of work? Here we shall explore the meaning of management time as it relates to the interaction between…

Why won’t antisemitism die, or at least die down? In the months following Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, antisemitic incidents increased substantially. The Anti-Defamation League, which keeps track, says they tripled in the U.S. over the previous year, although its criteria also changed to…

Marques Brownlee ushers me into his robot room, where I stand face-to-face with Colossus. An imposing yet graceful contraption, the aptly named $250,000 mechanical arm towers over my 6-foot- 3-inch host, who is giving me a guided tour through his studio in Kearny, New Jersey, on a late-August…

Annals of Health Care Big Med August 6, 2012 Medicine has long resisted the productivity revolutions that transformed other industries. But the new chains aim to change this.Illustration by Harry Campbell It was Saturday night, and I was at the local Cheesecake Factory with my two teen-age daughters…

In March 2022, James Everingham left Meta, capping off a nearly eight-year run where he headed up engineering at Instagram and helped shape the cryptocurrency experiment that was Diem (fka Libra). After steering large orgs (we’re talking thousands of engineers), he signed up for a challenge of a…

A group of cash-rich former employees of the $50 billion ride-share company are convinced they can replicate that same success on their own Words by BRADLEY SPEWAK Illustration by NEIL WEBB When William Barnes left Uber in 2017, he was exhausted. “[Almost] six years is a long time at such a…

Credit...Photograph by Jamie Chung. Concept by Pablo Delcan. The Great Read Whether the platform is dying or not, it’s time to reckon with how exactly it broke our brains. Credit...Photograph by Jamie Chung. Concept by Pablo Delcan. By Published April 18, 2023Updated May 3, 2023 Listen to This…

It has been a subject of much recent internet discourse that the kids are not okay. By all reports, the kids very much seem to be not all right. Suicide attempts are up. Depressive episodes are way up. The general vibes and zeitgeist one gets (or at least that I get) from young people are super…

When iOS 8 hits, the notification center is going to be the most important screen in your iPhone. Think about it: Notifications already are the way you know about everything that happens without having to fire up an app. A notification lets you know you have a new email, a new text message, a new…

AONC Archives: Good Writing Tips -- http://t.co/L6CsrRhU

I often talk about the use of cell based structures (e.g. think Amazon Two Pizza, Starfish model) which are populated not only with aptitude (the skill to do something) but the right attitude (type of

Upon seeing the adult world in detail, teens often lament “But it’s all so boring!” And in a standard trope of fiction, a spark of art infuses life, energy, and vitality into dull adults whose lives h

Credits Alex Vuocolo is a journalist based in New York. The R32 trains, nicknamed the Brightliners for their shiny unpainted exteriors, were built to last 35 years. (Imagine that: Your lifespan stampe

By and Jackie Davalos October 24, 2022 at 5:00 AM EDT Updated on October 24, 2022 at 12:38 PM EDT Gopuff’s 10,000-square-foot warehouse in downtown Philadelphia sits right at the intersection of hedonism and sloth. Lining the shelves are Seagram’s party packs, condoms, Plan B contraceptives, three…

There was a moment not so long ago when I thought, “What if I’ve had this crypto thing all wrong?” I’m a doubting normie who, if I’m being honest, hasn’t always understood this alternate universe that’s been percolating and expanding for more than a decade now. If you’re a disciple, this new…

Anxiety: We worry. A gallery of contributors count the ways. Recently I received an e-mail that wasn’t meant for me, but was about me. I’d been cc’d by accident. This is one of the darker hazards of electronic communication, Reason No. 697 Why the Internet Is Bad — the dreadful consequence of…

Have you ever wondered whether you’d ever find a job that was the right fit? Where you’d be able to open your computer and, instead of dread, unhappiness, and a sense of being weighed down, feeling go

Ezra Klein Aug. 7, 2022 A composite of photos taken at Government Center, Boston, over about an hour in March 2022, showing only people with their phones.Credit...Photo Illustration by Pelle Cass By O

When Che Fico opened in San Francisco in 2018, it was an immediate hit. People waited as long as four hours to eat wood-fired pizza and handmade pasta in the gorgeous, second-floor restaurant overlook

As the former CEO of both Data Domain and ServiceNow, two successful tech companies in recent years, I am often confronted with questions: what did you guys do? What is the secret sauce? How did you d

Search Cultural Comment The social-media platform has become a spectacle driven by a narrow and unrepresentative group of élites. May 2, 2022 Illustration by Erik Carter When Elon Musk reached an agre

A good friend and fellow creative and entrepreneur recently eliminated all social media from his life. About his experience, he wrote the following: It’s really eye-opening just how much of our lives

Made Possible By: Fundrise Fundrise is an easy-to-use platform that lets you build, grow and manage a diversified portfolio of high-end private real estate projects across the US. They have become Ame

Success and Failure at Pebble 14 min read· Apr 11, 2022 -- I’ve been giving a talk on the importance of learning from failure to every YC batch for last few years. I wrote this post in 2017 but never

Raising debt is an important financial tool for startups, and in particular, as more and more companies become fintech companies, debt, and in particular asset-backed debt, can provide a critical vehi