Sixian

Becoming 'multi-temporal', rather than multi-cultural: it used to be a very big problem for historians that they supposedly could not divide themselves from the outlooks and interests of their own age. I think we are approaching a situation where the outlooks and interests of our own age make very little sense. They just don't bind us to anything... See more

Data embedding is the idea that by holding more and more of your clients’/users’ data, the harder you are to remove, and that gives you some defensibility.

Part 2: How to cultivate a point of view

Transparency and data provide ruthless meritocracy.

3. Data ThresholdHow much data do you need to make your product valuable to users? How hard is it to get that dataset — or a dataset like it? If you need a lot of data that is hard to get, that creates a barrier to others competing with you in the future... most Founders overestimate how unique and valuable their dataset is. 

This is why most of us spend our lives on a never-satisfied search for the next object of desire. There is always another model somewhere making us wonder if what they want, we should be what we want, too.

The biggest fear of independent consultants when specializing is not just that it will narrow your options - but that will take you down a path you already know.

On the other hand, networks with profiles that allow for more anonymity often grow more easily at the beginning because of the lower commitment required. Long term, however, we’ve seen them burn out and produce less value on average.