Peter Hagen

Probably the bigger change, from what I've heard, was losing Amit Singhal who led Search until 2016. Amit fought against creeping complexity. There is a semi-famous internal document he wrote where he argued against the other search leads that Google should use less machine-learning, or at least contain it as much as possible, so that ranking stays... See more

Management is mostly needed for two things [*]:

- Organising the work and steering it in the right direction

- Ensuring that people work well together, help them grow, deal with "people problems"

If and when both of the above is achieved without a person holding the title "Manager", you don't need them.

Touching the product makes it different — At CB Insights, we deliver data to customers. At Atlas, we deliver drums to customers. There is something unique and gratifying about making a tangible product which was new to me. Turning a bunch of raw materials into a finished product and watching them move from step-to-step in the production process is... See more

Mind you, there are limited models where a shared package does work. For instance, Motor Trend On Demand is a shared platform where all of Motor Trend's different publications and shows are brought into a single platform.

It works because everything on it is part of the same need. It's not random content from random publications. It's amazing... See more

We send people away for years, tell them exactly what to do every day and they get to make exacrly one choice every day: do you obey or not? That's the only choice you get to make. Then, after 3, 5, 10 years, we send them out into society and tell them, "Make better choices." But we haven't prepared them for that at all. We have given them almost... See more

Platforms only work for creators when you can limit the number of creators on it . The platforms don't care, of course, because they make money of the total revenue, so Facebook wants as many things as possible. But for individual creators, it's not a very good idea.

When the level of abundance gets too high, the solution, as hard as it may sound,... See more