March 2008
14 posts
The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors →
“‘Closing a door on an option is experienced as a loss, and people are willing to pay a price to avoid the emotion of loss,’ Dr. Ariely says. In the experiment, the price was easy to measure in lost cash. In life, the costs are less obvious — wasted time, missed opportunities. If you are afraid to drop any project at the office, you pay for it at home.”
February 2008
20 posts
The Google Myth Rolls to Mobile →
“The greatest hoax ever played on the Internet is the idea that Google’s growth was somehow “natural” or “viral”, and that the strength of their search results alone is what propelled them to their insane 70% market share. I’ve even seen videos of Googlers listening to speakers come in and tell them this myth, and I’m sure many of today’s...
The Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur →
“We hire young professionals whom others disregard,” Vembu says. “We don’t look at colleges, degrees or grades. Not everyone in India comes from a socio-economic background to get the opportunity to go to a top-ranking engineering school, but many are really smart regardless. “We even go to poor high schools, and hire those kids who are bright but are not going to...
“How was the place different from what they expected? This is an extremely useful...”
– - Paul Graham The Age of the Essay
“An essay is something you write to try to figure something out. Figure out what?...”
– - Paul Graham The Age of the Essay
A lesson from trivia games →
“But we finally got it: the vast majority of e-mail trivia players out there weren’t looking for Jeopardy mind-stretchers. Just the opposite, in fact. They wanted to open their e-mail, read a quick question, and know the answer right away, without having to think, do research, or indeed make any physical movement but a few keystrokes. Furthermore, they wanted quick feedback that they...
“Here it is: I like to find (a) simple solutions (b) to overlooked problems (c)...”
– Paul Graham - Six Principles for Making New Things
WatchMahalo Daily - How to Propose Properly Hilarious
The coming rise of mob/editor hybrids →
“Here’s how I sum it up: The bottom-up hive mind will always take us much further than even seems possible. It keeps surprising us in this regard. Given enough time, dumb things can be smarter than we think. At that same time, the bottom-up hive mind will never take us to our end goal. We are too impatient. So we add design and top down control to get where we want to go. The systems...
“Called “Natural Born Clickers,” the study reveals that a very small group of...”
– Starcom, Tacoda, comScore Study
“It’s not until the tide goes out that you realize who’s swimming naked”
– Warren Buffet
“Be mindful of the link between present action and desired future outcome. Ask...”
– Roz Savage (Rower, writer, speaker. Working to become the first solo woman to row across the Pacific Ocean from California to Australia) via WorkHappy.net
Adwords is far more effective than Facebook Ads →
This lines up with my experience. When you’re advertising, you can’t beat knowing someone’s intent.
Silicon Valley after a Microsoft/Yahoo merger: a... →
“Your job is exactly the same as before: build something people want, scale it up, make sure it’s defensible, and make sure you can make money with it. Build a company you are proud of. If you do those things, you’ll do just fine; if you don’t, neither Microsoft nor Yahoo nor any other big company were going to rescue you anyway. Again, suppose the takeover bid succeeds....
Watch- Lawrence Lessig on why he supports Barack Obama
Better than free, how to make money in a network... →
“Yet the previous round of wealth in this economy was built on selling precious copies, so the free flow of free copies tends to undermine the established order. If reproductions of our best efforts are free, how can we keep going? To put it simply, how does one make money selling free copies? I have an answer. The simplest way I can put it is thus: When copies are super abundant, they...