Alex Wittenberg

Why assume that an infinite supply of time is the default, and mortality the outrageous violation? Or to put it another way, why treat four thousand weeks as a very small number, because it’s so tiny compared with infinity, rather than treating it as a huge number, because it’s so many more weeks than if you had never been born?

For example, anytime you find yourself writing a paragraph that is "listing" things out, it's worth questioning whether that paragraph can be re-formatting in the form of a bulleted list. "The first thing you want to do when writing online is prep the page. Then, once you've prepped the page, see where you can turn long paragraphs into short... See more

Taking a walk in the countryside, like listening to a favorite song or meeting friends for an evening of conversation, is thus a good example of what the philosopher Kieran Setiya calls an “atelic activity,” meaning that its value isn’t derived from its telos, or ultimate aim. You shouldn’t be aiming to get a walk “done”; nor are you likely to... See more

Belief in future value is often one of the most powerful drivers of demand. Bitcoin has no cash flow, no staking rewards, nothing. It just has the belief that it could be a long term store of value to rival gold. Or more ambitious beliefs like definancialization and hyper-bitcoinization. But it’s all beliefs at the end of the day.

For one, the faster a new company is built, the faster other companies can benefit from it. New primitives create new opportunities for innovation. Kind of obvious.Less explored is the fact that if a new company needs fewer employees, because it can outsource whole functions to APIs and software, there are more talented employees freed up to go... See more

Reminiscent of the foundational computing companies, Rippling shows what ambition in modern business software looks like. In the age of software incrementalism, Rippling is an anachronism.

Rippling’s expansive product strategy requires a unique modular org structure. Each product has a relatively autonomous GM and engineering team. Given each sub-product has massive scope, they’re like startups within a bigger startup. In fact, Rippling has over 50 former founders within the company, many of whom are running various product... See more

The easiest way to nail formatting is to create a skeleton of your essay or article before you start writing.