Britt Gage

Humans have vibes, computers don’t.

It’s common to compare the brain to a computer, but this is a deeply flawed analogy.

This insight was best captured in The Extended Mind – a book that reveals how intelligence exists well beyond our brain. A laptop operates the same whether it is on a desk in an office or on a bench in a park. But human brains are... See more

Save frameworks for big (one-way-door) decisions: AsGokul Rajaram put it, “[A decision-making] framework isn’t meant for every situation. It’s meant for hard decisions. Things that would have real consequences for a company or group. Not all decisions are important. At Square, we used to jokingly call this the ‘kombucha scale,’ which captures two... See more

In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more... See more

So why wouldn't all founders start by engaging with users individually? Because it's hard and demoralizing. Sales gives you a kind of harsh feedback that "marketing" doesn't. You try to convince someone to use what you've built, and they won't. These conversations are painful, but necessary. I suspect from my experience that founders who want to... See more

Paul Graham said, “when people visit your startup, they should be surprised how few people you have.”

“Liberation,” viewed through a behavioral lens, is the ability to orient toward what’s appetitive (i.e., pleasant or meaningful), even in an environment full of aversive stimuli. For me, this has meant learning to stay connected to a larger vision and the joy of creativity, even during difficult times.

Yet, this is hard to do. When we perceive a... See more

If you are hyper-fixated on an ideal user, you will begin to think of your product as a single player game. You’ll develop tools that enable 1:1 interactions between that ideal user and your product.

But once you start thinking of your ICP as a node in a network – with a white hot center that enables you to spread to acquire new nodes of a network –... See more