internet culture
Flattened, algorithmically-driven, risk-averse, accounting-based reboot culture continues to win despite the incredible diversity and eagerness of the creator economy and its long tail of choice and representation.
But despite a firehouse of hot takes, nothing much has changed over the years. Perhaps it’s gotten worse ?
In 2024, all of the Top 15... See more
But despite a firehouse of hot takes, nothing much has changed over the years. Perhaps it’s gotten worse ?
In 2024, all of the Top 15... See more
Cultural Singularity & The Need for Friction: The Business Case for Thinking the Inverse
Adam Kirsch, in his piece about the Amtrak residency, theorized: “Perhaps there is a certain charm in the fact that the train is an obsolete mode of transportation, much as literature sometimes suspects that it is an obsolete form of communication.”
Jasmine Sun • the scenic route
Put through that process, reality usually hits like a truck. Many concepts that sound good on paper are infeasible to implement, or simply don’t produce the expected results. It’s frustrating when that happens, of course, but the pace of experimentation and learning at a startup is unparalleled. I think this is an especially important form of rigor... See more
Jasmine Sun • exit interview
Metrics Are Poisoning You
This isn’t just about bad ideas, poor execution and apathy — it’s about the broader culture we’ve created around innovation. It’s become too hard to stop, reflect, interrogate and interject with fresh ideas, while KPIs run the show.
We’re not solving real problems; we’re searching for validation .
As marketer and author Rory... See more
This isn’t just about bad ideas, poor execution and apathy — it’s about the broader culture we’ve created around innovation. It’s become too hard to stop, reflect, interrogate and interject with fresh ideas, while KPIs run the show.
We’re not solving real problems; we’re searching for validation .
As marketer and author Rory... See more
Matt Klein • Self-Sabotaging Innovation: The Art of Doing Dumb Shit
Another few decades later, in 2024, it’s difficult to even remember the world that came before this. No Logo feels dated in 2024 because it’s a dispatch from the twilight of the (comparatively) unbranded world that has since been overwritten, the logic of branding having escaped its traditional corporate confines, now internalized by subcultures,... See more
Drew Austin • Learning from the Virgin Megastore
There are hundreds of programming blogs. Many large corporations let their engineers blog (a generous gift, given how many recruiters are hovering). Discussions about programming go on everywhere, in public, at all times, about hundreds of languages. There is a keen sense of what’s coming up and what’s fading out.
It’s not simply fashion; one’s... See more
It’s not simply fashion; one’s... See more
PAUL FORD • Paul Ford: What Is Code? | Bloomberg
So I’ll end with a very weird question: What does slow AI look like? We’ve automatically assumed that the way we interact with it is instantaneous. Are we sure that’s right? Would it be interesting to be able to say to an AI, Look, over the next three or four months, can you give me some ideas about holidays in Greece? Do we want to make that... See more
Adam Grant • Are We Too Impatient to Be Intelligent?
cheaper to run this way?

