Jay Matthews

"Trying to make sense of the senseless, to process the unthinkable as it’s happening, the news cycle is already moving on, you haven’t stopped crying about the other recent tragedies, don’t know how to hold all this, your mind like a vase that is leaking, trying to find some way to contain all of this but it slips out, into everything, onto every... See more

"the creator is an artist above all." yes, that’s what I think may be the most poetic way of stating this conclusion that the world, in large part, does embody beautiful ideas; that if you regard the world as a work of art — first of all, it helps you understand things, and secondly, it’s a pretty good work of art. It has tremendous beauty. It has... See more

Each year I’ve been self-employed I have underestimated the opportunities in front of me and it seems that there is still a massive disconnect between the quality of opportunities and the real and perceived “tax” that one needs to pay if they want to create online or leave the default path.

The choice, then, is not whether to build models; it's whether to build explicit ones. In explicit models, assumptions are laid out in detail, so we can study exactly what they entail. On these assumptions, this sort of thing happens. When you alter the assumptions that is what happens. By writing explicit models, you let others replicate your... See more

While a complex, stimulating environment is useful for providing new insights, a more humdrum setting may be indicated for pursuing the bulk of the creative endeavor—the much longer periods of preparation that must precede the flash of insight, and the equally long periods of evaluation and elaboration that follow... We need a supportive symbolic... See more

And that purpose was to communalize trauma, to create the conditions where — the word “amphitheater” in Greek means “the place where we go to see in both directions.” “Amphi-” — I see you, you see me; both directions. “Theatron” — the seeing place. So we go to the amphitheater in the fifth century, B.C., to see each other, to see ourselves; to see... See more

But perhaps there is a middle ground between self and stranger. To the extent that someone imagines their future self to be similar to their present self, this sense of “future self-continuity” might predict their willingness to at least consider the interests of the future self.

In hindsight, my professional and personal experiences have taught me valuable lessons through forced humility, and my advice to all budding entrepreneurs and founders out there is: to always trust your instinct, be fearless when choosing courage over comfort, and remember that failing is A-OK!

The idea is to initially attract users with a single-player tool and then, over time, get them to participate in a network. The tool helps get to initial critical mass. The network creates the long term value for users, and defensibility for the company.