A couple years ago when I started this newsletter, the inaugural post was an introduction to René Girard. I’ve been meaning to rewrite it for quite some time. Today – Election Day, 2020 – seemed like a pretty good time to do that. In my opinion, Girard’s worldview on mimetic desire, differentiation, and scapegoating is still the best way to understand Trump and the MAGA movement. So I went back and substantially rewrote the original Girard essay. I think this one’s a lot tighter and better, and clarifies some of… Read more Election Day 2020: René Girard, Part 2 →
I’m now six months into Shopify. So far it’s going basically on schedule: as I was told, “Your first couple months you’re going to have zero idea what’s going on. Then around month three you’ll come up for air and think, ok, I got this; and then you’ll try to start doing stuff. Then you’ll really struggle, because you won’t be in that happy new float-around-and-learn-people’s-names mode, you’ll be in oh-shit-can-I-really-do-this mode. It’s actually a little scary. But then around month five or six, you start to actually figure some things out… Read more Six Lessons from Six Months at Shopify →
You may have contemplated, or been asked at some point: “How will homeownership and residential real estate change after Covid?” In my experience, most of these discussions become far-fetched hypotheticals… Read more Covid Kills Inertia: Homeownership Edition →
Nadia Eghbal’s new book, Working In Public: the Making and Maintenance of Open Source Software, may not have been on your short list of books to read this year. It’s admittedly a nerdy topic: it’s about open source projects, roles and responsibilities; the rise of GitHub as a developer platform; and how developer culture is evolving around the new power of creator platforms. I recommend you get it. It is mostly about software development, but the core insight of the book is bigger: Eghbal clearly sees and articulates something important about… Read more Making is Show Business now →
This week we have a very special interview guest: I’m delighted to share this conversation with Margaret Franklin, CFA. She serves as the President and CEO of the CFA Institute. Software and the internet haven’t yet made their real impact across the world of professional services, especially when it comes to professional designations and certifications that demonstrate proficiency. On the one hand, the internet has created access we could’ve only dreamed about decades ago, both in terms of access to knowledge and advice, access to financial products like diversification, and… Read more The Future of the CFA Institute: An Interview with Margaret Franklin, CFA →
Whenever I have a candid conversation with someone interesting in tech, I like to ask: “What are taboo topics in Silicon Valley?” Unsurprisingly, most of the suggestions I hear are… Read more Are Founders Allowed to Lie? →
Welcome to the fourth and final segment in this series on Gift Culture at the Online Frontier. If you missed any of the first three, you can catch up here: Gift Culture, Part 1: Homesteading the Twittersphere Gift Culture, Part 2: The SE Suite, An interview with Julie Young Gift Culture, Part 3: Scarcity Status versus Abundance Status Today Julie is back with us to help close things out, along with our second very special guest, coming in to bat cleanup: Eugene Wei. If you’ve spent any time on Tech… Read more The Kids are Alright: An Interview with Eugene Wei and Julie Young (Gift Culture, Part 4) →
Welcome back to this multi-part newsletter series on Gift Culture on the online frontier. If you missed them, check out Part One (defining gift culture, and the “homesteading” behaviour exhibited… Read more Scarcity Status versus Abundance Status (Gift Culture, Part 3) →
