Building With Soul

Ten years ago, the industry’s identity was largely defined by thousands of young millennials who wanted to “change the world,” and the handful of large technology companies attempting to attract that talent. Discussions of material abundance, of connecting humanity, and of every sci-fi moonshot on our path to Star Trekkian utopia were not only comm... See more

Moral clarity creates market opportunities. Notion thrives by enhancing users' ability to organize their thoughts rather than maximizing time-in-app—its block-based architecture prioritizes user control and flexibility. Substack focuses on helping writers build direct relationships with readers instead of ad-driven revenue—writers own their subscri... See more

If you consider yourself a technologist, here’s your imperative: build things that are unabashedly, beautifully tangled into all else in life — people and relationships, politics, emotion and pain, understanding or the lack thereof, being alone, being together, homesickness, adventure, victory, loss. Build things that come alive, and drag everythin... See more

Things should be costly (either in materials or the effort we put in) because it proves love and sacrifice went into it — for the benefit of all.

We lost our soul and growth was slow and I failed to raise a Series A investment round and Ebay.

If you know to look, you can feel the difference between software crafted with care for its users and systems of vacuous tradition that just happen to be good at producing the vapid fodder of convenience.

Techno-Industrials are addressing larger markets than most software companies can.

They use whichever tools they need to provide better solutions to key bottlenecks with better unit economics than incumbents.

They are more capital efficient than most investors expect.

And they have to be more strategically sound than the average software company.

B... See more