Recommended Reading — Weekly Highlights From Around The Web #1
Even though we all love Medium, it’s not (yet) the only place on the web where you can find interesting, inspiring thoughts. Therefore, I will start to regularly share my personal highlights of the week with you. Obviously, the respective length will depend on the time I actually can spend reading but I assume committing myself is also a good way to foster a good habit.
So, without further ado:
From the vast web
Bill Simmons Podcast Ep. 95 feat. Chris Sacca
Shark Tank investor and legendary Silicon Valley VC Chris Sacce joins Bill Simmons on his podcast. Simmons’ who of course is currently working on launching his new website The Ringer. which is one of the more interesting media startups right now. What unfolds is an interesting conversation that ranges from picking a VC’s mind to business pop culture.
HBR: Pipeline, Platforms, and the New Rules of Strategy
A very good introduction into the platform topic. It’s written by Marshall W. Van Alstyne, who is also a Co-Author of the relatively new book Platform Revolution which I can also recommend.
Chris Dixon: The Internet Economy
Chris Dixon, investor & partner at a16z, summarizes some current development he sees on the internet. Plus, he explains the Internet Economic Loop, a useful model that allows to systematically think about the multiple layers of which the internet economy consists today.
Ben Thompson on Stratechery: Everything as a Service
Ben Thompson is taking a similar direction in his piece Everything as a Service. In there, he explains the differences between product and service business models and their respective advantages and risks (which he illustrates using his favorite example, Apple). Also, he makes a very good point about why it’s often beneficial for a company to exist at the end of a platform chain (or a loop, to use Dixon’s words). If you like listening to Podcasts, I also recommend the exponent.fm issue on the same topic.
Nassim Taleb: How To Legally Own Another Person
Highly regarded Nassim Taleb has published an excerpt from his upcoming work Skin In The Game on Evonomics. In there, he explains how employees became (and still are being) domesticated — all in his unique, sharp voice. The piece contains some very intelligent observations and hints at design principles that are valuable for organizations looking for less fragile organizational models.
Reinvent Yourself: The Playboy Interview with Ray Kurzweil
Even in a collection of business-relevant content, you sometimes sometimes must link to Playboy. At least when editor David Hochmann was given the opportunity spend two days with Ray Kurzweil. Kurzweil is one of the greats in tech and internet culture. He’s currently working at Google where he leads a team that works in machine learning and natural language understanding. In the tech industry, however, he was well-known since long before. He’s active in tech since the late 60’s and known as one of it’s forward-thinking pioneers for decades. Also, he is known for his very pro-tech world view. In the interview he shares what developments he spots at the horizon.
You don’t have to shares Kurzweil’s view of the world. I personally find that some of the scenarios he paints should be treated with caution — not because they are unlikely to happen but because they come with a price we don’t (and can’t) know. Nevertheless, he has a pretty good track record when it comes to his predictions. Having this is mind, it’s a piece worth reading.
HBR: Planned Opportunism
More grounded in our current time yet not less interesting is this Harvard Business Review article by Vijay Govindarajan. He introduces his concept of planned opportunism. The term describes the structural capability of an organization to
a) continously scrutinize its own activities,
b) perceive and process even weak signals in the environment and
c) use those to design business experiments you run based on them.
It also contains some practical advice how to achieve this state. An interesting topic that has many overlaps with antifragile organization.
Clay Forsberg: Growing an Evolved Society
We think a lot about how organizations can become quicker, more adaptive and eager to try out new things. Two important components are decentral systems and network structures. Clay Forsberg is concerned with the same topics, though not from a business perspective. He is interested in the future of local communities. Still, many of the ideas and concepts he introduces in the article are valuable in other fields of decentralization as well. If you are interested in more of Forsberg’s ideas, just look around his website.
Julian Feder @ Backfeed Magazine: The Fallacy Of Getting Rid Of Humans — Decentralization and the Future of the AI Society
Let’s stay with the topic of decentralization. This time a piece from the blockchain community — or more precisely from Backfeed’s. Julian Feder, in there, takes a look at the current discussion of blockchain’s potential influence on society and systems. He links it to another big development of our times: artificial intelligence. A thought-provoking piece worth reading — and an reminder that we should keep developing technology in a way that it stays serving humanity and not vice versa. Important words in a time of digital group think, filter bubbles & Co., where nuanced opinions too often go unnoticed.
First Round Review: ‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups
It’s every founder’s wet dream: The own company nails it, the business scales, the company grows rapidly. But then what? Quick growth needs to be managed swiftly and well. No easy task. Molly Graham, COO at Quip and as a former Google and Facebook employee a true scale veteran, describes the challanges of this face in her wonderful piece. She mentions the emotional rides, explains why giving away your legos is a good thing and gives some pretty good advice on dealing with scale from the inside.
Originally published — in an extended, German version — at www.linkedin.com.
