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The Uber and the frog
How the mighty are fallen. Travis Kalanick is out, and Uber has become something of a headless horseman, with no current CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, VP of Engineering, or general counsel. Its alleged valuation has fallen by $18 billion and counting. How did this happen? Or maybe a better question is: how could this not have happened? It really wasn’t so long ago, believe it or not, that Uber… Read More
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How to kill a golden age
So I was sitting in the Theatre of Salt in Florence with my friend Jo discussing golden ages, as one inevitably does when in Florence — it having been the birthplace of that most famous and most consequential of all golden ages, the Renaissance — and I found myself speculating that Silicon Valley’s own ongoing golden age is at real risk of ending soon. I don’t think… Read More
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The new new things that weren’t
We’re always looking for the New New Thing in tech, since long before Michael Lewis coined the phrase. Often we are entirely too successful. There are so many New New Things — and so many of them fall from the sky like burned-out flares soon enough, to further litter the graveyard of Old New Things. Can we learn from them? Probably. Will we learn from them? Probably not. But… Read More
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Crunch Network
Technologists in the era of Trump
If innovation is the religion of the technology industry, then industriousness is the religion for the rest of America’s workforce. Read More
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Facebook is broken
The problem is this: Facebook has become a feedback loop which can and does, despite its best intentions, become a vicious spiral. At Facebook’s scale, behavioral targeting doesn’t just reflect our behavior, it actually influences it. Over time, a service which was supposed to connect humanity is actually partitioning us into fractal disconnected bubbles. The way Facebook’s… Read More
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Crunch Network
How to create the most value for the next technology wave
Major technology platforms shift every 10-15 years, with new platforms building on the ones they preceded. We’re due for the next major technology platform shift, and artificial intelligence, augmented reality and virtual reality are those next platforms. So how do you maximize value creation for the next wave? Read More
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Crunch Network
This Memorial Day don’t remember; just celebrate
This Memorial Day I propose that you not spend time in over-adulation and recognition of those who serve or have served. Rather, this Memorial Day you can honor their memory, service and sacrifices by living the best possible life you can… that you create, you inspire, you love, you care and you celebrate. This call to thrive is ultimately what soldiers seek to protect and defend. Read More
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Blockchains are the new Linux, not the new internet
Bitcoin is up sevenfold, to $2,500, in the last year. Three weeks ago the redoubtable Vinay Gupta, who led Ethereum’s initial release, published an essay entitled “What Does Ether At $100 Mean?” Since then it has doubled. Too many altcoins to name have skyrocketed in value along with the Big Two. ICOs are raking in money hand over fist over bicep. What the hell is going on? Read More
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Instagram Location Stories appear in Explore. Is Story Search coming?
It’s taking Instagram less and less time to copy Snapchat. Less than two months after Snapchat launched its Stories Search feature for seeing what’s going on at a location or related to a topic, Instagram is rolling out Location Stories to its Explore page. Read More
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Google in, Google out
Call it the Triumph of the Stacks. I attended Google I/O this week, and saw a lot of cool things: but what really hit home for me, at the keynote and the demos and the developer sessions, was just how dominant Google has become, in so many different domains … and, especially, how its only real competition comes from the four other tech behemoths who dominate our industry’s… Read More
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Instagram on copying Snapchat: “This is the way the tech industry works”
“I think it would frankly be silly of us if we were to say “Oh see that good idea over there that’s actually fulfilling a need people have to share more moments of their life, oh because one person did that we can’t even go near that idea.” That’s Instagram’s VP of Product Kevin Weil’s perspective about cloning Snapchat. He’s the man in… Read More
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Pattern recognition
I helped work on a thing last weekend that I can’t write about, yet, and then last week I found my way to San Jose for Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, and fine, all right, OK, I’m convinced: Now that the smartphone boom is plateauing, AI/deep learning is the new coal face of technology — and, at least for now, Nvidia bestrides it like many parallel colossi. Read More
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Crunch Network
Creativity is overrated
Today’s creative workplaces work hard to obscure the uncreative labor that makes them run. While “creativity” is presented as the panacea for our overly cubicled society, this often leads to a narrow-minded focus on the stuff that dreams are made of — to the detriment of those keeping the company afloat. Read More
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Emmanuel Macron and how political campaigns will never be the same
Every major campaign brings its set of changes. Barack Obama used big data and micro-targeting in his 2008 campaign. Then social networks became a great way to address messages to voters directly. But the political campaigns of 2016 and 2017 have been something different altogether. Read More
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This dystopia is completely ridiculous
We live in dark and darkly hilarious times. Our world has grown so bewildering and complicated, in no small part because of the finger jammed on technology’s fast-forward button, that many people have given up trying to make sense of it — or to make sense at all. That’s honestly my only explanation for some of the craziness out in the tech world these days. I once saw… Read More
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Reasons to be cheerful
I know, I know, it’s been a rough year. Fury, discord, and hatred seem to be on the rise. The super-elite keep getting richer, while young workers keep getting poorer, and economic mobility has plummeted. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” And yet. Quietly, stubbornly, defying the headlines, bit by bit, around the world, slow… Read More
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Snapchat is stifled by its un-algorithmic feed
Snapchat invented its best products by being the anti-Facebook. Its disappearing chats made visual communication quick and casual compared to Facebook’s email-esque text messages. Stories ditched the likes and permanacy so you could share your raw moments in the now, instead of just the life highlights that define you forever on your Facebook Timeline. Read More
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Crunch Network
A call to action for tech
Tech is uniting against Trump. From 127 tech firms teaming up against Trump’s immigration ban, to Google employees’ massive walkout in response to the immigration ban, to Lyft’s $3 million donation to the ACLU, tech has taken up the language of protest and spoken loud and clear. However, as the tech community’s voice grows louder, it must be strategic in how it directs… Read More
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Every feed app should steal Pinterest’s ‘more like this’ button
This is the best new social app feature in a long time. Twitter should copy it. Instagram should copy it. Facebook probably already is copying it. I’m talking about Pinterest’s “Instant Ideas” button that started testing in February but is slowly rolling out to more people. As soon as I tapped it, I was hooked. Read More
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