Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
evil”—but it seemed to have a blind spot regarding the consequences of its own technology on privacy and property rights.
Steven Levy • In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
EBay had an enormous advantage over the competition that it only then, under challenge, was coming to appreciate: a nicely balanced critical mass of sellers and buyers in each of hundreds of categories. This delicate balance had been achieved through the natural evolution of the eBay ecosystem, without the intervention of any guiding hand. If in an
... See moreRandall E. Stross • eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work
Today, with the Internet, you get that gift of free distribution. We had to take advantage of that gift. That was the basic strategy. We had to switch from a business model where we made a lot of money per reader, with a relatively small number of readers, to a tiny bit of money per reader on a very large number of readers. That’s the transition we
... See moreDavid M. Rubenstein • How to Lead: Wisdom from the World's Greatest CEOs, Founders, and Game Changers
Non-monopolists exaggerate their distinction by defining their market as the intersection of various smaller markets: British food ∩ restaurant ∩ Palo Alto Rap star ∩ hackers ∩ sharks Monopolists, by contrast, disguise their monopoly by framing their market as the union of several large markets: search engine ∪ mobile phones ∪ wearable computers ∪
... See morePeter Thiel, Blake Masters • Zero to One
Jaron Lanier’s critique of the “hive mind” appears in his book You Are Not a Gadget,
Steven Johnson • Where Good Ideas Come From
Economies of Scale
Peter Thiel, Blake Masters • Zero to One
What I discovered was a company exulting in creative disorganization, even if the creativity was not always as substantial as hoped for.
Steven Levy • In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
You can’t understand personal computing and the techno-economic transition it brought about if you don’t keep in mind that it was all about radical entrepreneurs sealing an alliance with returns-hungry venture capitalists.
Nicolas Colin • Hedge: A Greater Safety Net for the Entrepreneurial Age
The replication of tens of thousands of independent data centers, all using similar hardware, running similar software, and employing similar kinds of workers, has imposed severe penalties on the economy.