Aishwarya Goel

A goal is a win condition. Constraints are the rules of the game. But not all games are worth playing. And some of the most powerful forms of progress emerge from people who stopped trying to win and started building new game boards entirely.

Earlier generations were bound by family, geographic location, and their physical being. People today face few limits on their ability to explore, express, and manifest distinct identities. But our approaches are shaped by the platforms and algorithms we identiate through.

The spaces previous generations filled with close human relationships we fill... See more

when people match their crazy to the right outlet, they become terrifyingly powerful.

Dear investors, 

We reflect on 2024 with both satisfaction and impatience. We’re satisfied because the business is strong, growth is robust, and we continue to attract the world’s best writers and creators to Substack. But there is still much work to be done, new territories to push into, and some key improvements to make to the product, and we’re... See more

This raises the need to understand what your audience aims to do when they scroll a given social platform. After all, they’re definitely not scrolling in hopes of resharing others’ content. They might be scrolling to:

Be entertained. If they’re scrolling for entertainment, does your content deliver on that? If you’re aiming to be funny, you need to... See more

One framework for understanding the success of the internet is to view it through the lens of coordination. Fundamentally, we can reduce the success of the most valuable internet applications to their ability to more granularly coordinate human intents. Amazon coordinates commercial intents. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter coordinate social... See more

Obstacles to fluent writing

• Any variation on: “I can't say that!”


• “What if people think I'm stupid?”


• “What if people think this is boring?”


• “What if people think I'm ignorant?”


• “What if people think I'm trying to be superior?”


• “What if this isn't good enough?”


• “What if sharing my ideas results in my being scooped?”


• “Is this part of my job?”


• The vague

... See more