Peter Hagen

First, Facebook views itself first-and-foremost as a social network, so it is disinclined to see that as a liability. Second, that view was reinforced by the way in which Facebook took on Snapchat. The point of The Audacity of Copying Well is that Facebook leveraged Instagram’s social network to halt Snapchat’s growth, which only reinforced that

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Like every human endeavour, every social network is there for a limited duration and will be useful to a limited niche of people. That niche may grow to the point of being huge, like Facebook and WhatsApp. But, to this day, there are more people in the world without an account on Facebook than people with one. Every single social network is only... See more

As we embrace this offline renaissance, we have an opportunity to redefine the real world and create an era where personal connections thrive, leaving behind the shallow realm of repetitive content and fragmented communities. It is up to us, the silent majority, to reimagine the offline world for a new generation that is outside of both centralized... See more

One of my contrarian views is that I’m a big defender of gut-based decision making. Not in an “always trust your gut” kind of way, but I don’t think listening to your intuition means you’re “ignoring the data.” You’re just using data that can’t be articulated. It’s hard to get intuitive, experiential out of your head and into someone else’s. You... See more

If you look closely, all these problems fundamentally come from:

1. Decreased skin in the game, which reduces team alignment


2. N^2 communication, which creates need for managers and specialization, which reduces individual agency and breadth of learning


3. Reduced risk tolerance, which slows everything down

#1 and #2 are inevitable results of having more... See more

“[Y]ou can dislike parts of a game. You can hate on a game entirely,” Pagliarulo wrote several messages later. “But don’t fool yourself into thinking you know why it is the way it is (unless it’s somehow documented and verified), or how it got to be that way (good or bad). Chances are, unless you’ve made a game yourself, you don’t know who made... See more

The key to spice trade is TINA - There is no alternative - in financial terms. The largest form of investment in Middle Ages had been farmland with average ROI of c.a. 7-8 percent but no guarantee (wars, diseases, crop failure). The ROI of spice trade was 200-300 percent over similar period.

So if you wanted double you capital it was either spice... See more