Culture plays an important role in determining effective reinforcers. And what’s reinforced shapes culture. Offering tickets to a cricket match might serve as a powerful reward for someone in a country where cricket is a big deal, but would be meaningless to most Americans. Similarly, an air-conditioned office might be a powerful incentive for empl... See more
To that end, I’m exceedingly happy to report that we’ve just acquired People & Company, one of the leading authorities on community-building, to accelerate and celebrate writer success on Substack.
It’s clear that the most thorny problems facing humanity today—climate crisis, cybersecurity, income inequality to name a few—will not be solved by one corporation or one individual. These problems need to be addressed with the scale and efficiency of a corporation, without compromising on individual autonomy, creativity, and ownership. They requir... See more
The possible letdown, however, is that there is nothing in Substack’s technical or legal design that guarantees that it will remain a tolerant home for heterodox writers.
Facebook's momentum is behind (hours per week per user on Facebook is -26% since 2017 & Facebook NPS is -21%). And while it is certainly not dead, the 2020s will inevitably see the rise of new social products.
The goal of cognition was not to be right, but to make something interesting, provocative, and original,” he wrote. “When I played the game of right and wrong at school, I always lost. But when I built something evocative in the studio, adults would stare in wonder and admiration
Scheduled Zoom calls, utilitarian Slack threads, and endless email chains don’t capture the thrill of surprise or the joy of conversation that giddily revs up as people riff off each other’s ideas. But smart app developers are also realizing that spontaneity doesn’t mean constantly interrupting people’s life or workflow. They give people the power ... See more