You Must Fuck Around and Find Out
You should take much more risk, and try new things much more often. Much of your comfort with risk is hard-coded genetically, a variable carefully tuned by millions of years of evolution, balancing the upside and downside of risk. But this is one of these cases where the modern world
Don't Build a Mine Before You Struck Gold
The best analogy I’ve heard for startups is that they’re like looking for gold. Not because of the adventure, or the camaraderie, or the riches awaiting you on the other end. But because a gold-seeking expedition has two very different phases: first, you look for gold; then, you
Evaluating interpersonal skills
At this point, I've conducted thousands of interviews, and if there's one thing I've learnt, it's the vital importance of evaluating interpersonal skills. This might be a blind spot for us in tech — we inhabit a sphere where the ability to code, to understand systems, to nail down quantitative abilities
Changing my mind on remote, moving the team back to San Francisco
This is a memo I sent to the Lindy team last month, with slight edits. Thoughts on Remote I’ve made a 180º on remote. I think everyone here can attest to the fact that we tried harder than anyone else. And I’m more bummed out about it than
Reasons to worry about AGI
We can't even reason about the problem, because humans are bad at reasoning about exponentials; even if we could, we wouldn't worry about it (and the folks closest to the problem are least likely to worry); and even if we did worry, we probably wouldn't be unable to do anything about it.
Co-Founding Considered Harmful
“Hell is other people.” Sartre I’ve come to view the idea that you absolutely need a co-founder as one of the most harmful memes in Silicon Valley. It’s probably killed more companies than any other misconceptions out there. Instead, I think one should go solo if they can,
The Dictatorship of the Articulate
“The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” — Shakespeare A few years ago, Silicon Valley was buzzing with the reverberations of Marc Andreessen’s epic essay, It’s Time To Build. In case you haven’t read it, It’s a formidable pep talk, a call to
UX > EX: the painful truth about customer obsession
Publishing this memo I shared with Teamfellows. Everyone agrees with good-sounding principles until they experience their downsides. “Working out is healthy!” Haha, yes! Yes! “So hit the gym!” Well this sucks. “Hire slow!” Yes! Yes! “There’s this seat you’re dying to fill. And it’s going to remain
General Magic and Silicon Valley Common Wisdom
I strongly recommend General Magic, a documentary about the eponymous company, founded in 1990 with a clear vision of what smartphones could be, and how huge they could be. It built one of the most impressive teams in Silicon Valley’s history to make this vision a reality: its alumni
How Apple Sells Software At Hardware Prices
I ran this poll the other day on Twitter: Which would you prefer, assuming both cost $700 (and no dual boot) — Flo Crivello (@Altimor) September 12, 2019 The answers highlight a point I often make: that when people buy an iPhone for $1,100, they’re really paying $600 for
