Ian Vanagas

An accurate definition of “influencer” is: a virtuoso of a particular internet platform; someone who has learned to use its mechanisms to achieve their own objectives, rather than the other way around.

The next time you are attending a formal presentation at a conference, ask yourself these questions: Is this better than all of those Zoom calls I am turning down? Is this better than the next best YouTube clip I might be watching? For most people, the answers are obvious. Conference organizers need to be willing to pull the trigger and usher the... See more

Travis Kalanick started Uber as a hack to split a few private cars with his friends. Thefacebook.com was just a student directory written in PHP. Even Elon Musk started SpaceX with the goal of merely increasing NASA’s budget by pulling a PR stunt.

Information bankruptcy can’t be fully solved, but it can be managed.

Our relation to ideas is an inextricable symbiosis, like that between plant and pollinator, a mutualism in which neither can survive without the other. At the dawn of civilization, a covenant was made between humans and these alien entities that live in our minds—honor and respect each other and all will flourish beyond their wildest dreams.