Here’s What’s Trending on Medium This Week: September 10–16
Your window into what’s resonating with readers across Medium
Every day, thousands of writers turn to Medium to share their stories and ideas — from congressional statements to productivity advice and beyond. Here, anyone with an insightful perspective can potentially reach thousands (or millions) of readers, helping us learn more about ourselves and each other.
To give you a sense of what’s having that kind of impact, here are a handful of stories resonating widely across the platform right now. They’re each among the top 100 Medium posts ranked by views and reads this week; we’ve curated a handful we hope you enjoy.
Curious what else is resonating widely across Medium? Browse the “trending” tab on any tag page (e.g., medium.com/tag/photography).
1. “Apple’s Next Big Thing: A Business Model Change” by Jean-Louis Gassée, former head of Macintosh development at Apple
My feeling is that Cook and his team are way ahead of us — or me, anyway. They’ve known for a while that Apple has entered a different era. With no Next Big Thing on the horizon — with Devices in a safe-but-slow incremental upward incline — the company has been compelled to move into conquest mode with its Services. This forced change in priorities has consequences, the compass needle points in a different direction. The reward system, people hired, career opportunities, “How We Do Things Here” culture…everything changes.
As an example, the introduction of an “Apple Bank” or an “Apple Search Engine” could yield the company more glory — and profit — than would a new-and-improved iDevice running on the latest, fastest, coolest Apple Silicon chip. Yes, a better iPhone would be cool, but the market is cooling…
2. “Our Statement on the Passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II” by Barack Obama
Michelle and I were lucky enough to come to know Her Majesty, and she meant a great deal to us. Back when we were just beginning to navigate life as President and First Lady, she welcomed us to the world stage with open arms and extraordinary generosity. Time and again, we were struck by her warmth, the way she put people at ease, and how she brought her considerable humor and charm to moments of great pomp and circumstance.
3. “How the Principles of Architecture Can Help Your Writing” by Susan Orlean, bestselling author and journalist
The important, empowering thing to realize, as you structure a piece, is that you are the director. You control the narrative — not the other way around. You can introduce characters or settings at will, when you need them. I know this sounds almost silly, or at least obvious, but it’s something you really have to embrace and believe. It’s a state of mind. You have to relish the power of being the storyteller who calls in material as you need to make your point. I’m always preaching the importance of confidence in writing, and this is another example of where it’s the essential ingredient. If you abandon the idea of how your story should unfold and tell it how it organically arises in your mind, you will begin finding the structure that’s authenticate and natural.
4. “Quiet Quitting and Strategy” by Roger Martin, author and former dean of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management
Workers need to feel motivated and compelled by the purpose of the organization to which they are dedicating their worklife. They aren’t motivated by a highly abstract concept like shareholder value maximization. They don’t spend their working lives happily toiling for nameless, faceless people called shareholders. For most shareholders, the name on the stock register isn’t actually the name of the shareholder but rather of a fiduciary (e.g., Fidelity, Black Rock) acting on behalf of the real and hidden shareholder. Not only that, those nameless, faceless shareholders come and go as they please, selling their shares without giving a rationale or notice.
That is not how genuine human relationships work. They aren’t anonymous and fleeting. Workers may care about each other and customers but if the stated purpose of the company is put shareholders first and foremost, the workers will not feel a consistent sense of humanity. It will feel fractured — part imbued with humanity, part artificial and abstract — a recipe for disengagement.
5. “When My Mother Wrote a Letter to the Queen” by Lydia Swan
Isabel turned to my mother, who was then just a young girl of nine. “You share a birthday with that Princess whom the broadcaster is praising. You were born on her 10th birthday. She’s a decent sort, and does her duty.” Her eyes shifted to the window. “She may even be Queen one day.”
My mother envisioned this Princess, just nineteen, and thought of herself one day standing her ground, remaining calm in danger, inspiring people…
6. “The Secret Ingredient to Telling a Good Story” by GB 'Doc' Burford, screenwriter and professional video game designer
There is no formula to good storytelling because storytelling feels pandering when it’s not genuine, and story that ignores the storyteller’s instincts in favor of rote structure is disingenuous; I stumbled across my copy of David Mamet’s (the man has stupid political views and has since like, 9/11, but much like Frank Miller, he is an expert in his own field) Three Uses of the Knife the other day and finally decided to give it a read, and in it, Mamet makes the (correct) argument that people will recognize when they’ve been pandered to, and the pandering story won’t work for them. It is, essentially, too cheap to leave a lasting impression. Pandering through structure is the empty calorie of the storytelling pantry.
7. “A linear thinker, a design thinker, and a systems thinker walk into a bar…” by Houda Boulahbel, systems thinking consultant and former cancer researcher
As a society, we tend to focus quite heavily on linear thinking. We are taught to do so at school, and rewarded throughout our professional lives for our ability to break down a problem or a task into smaller, more manageable parts. While this has served us well (many scientific discoveries are the result of linear thinking), it is becoming increasingly harder in the complex modern world…
8. “Why Printers Are So Terrible” by Clive Thompson, author of “Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World”
Printers are thus weird outliers in world where most other consumer tech has gotten better over time. Processors have gotten faster; hard drives have plummeted in price. Name nearly any tech category, and it’s better and cheaper than previous decades.
But not printers. They were wretched ten years ago, and they’re wretched still. Why?
It’s kind of interesting, really. I’ve been low-key reading and researching this for years and years, and the upshot is there’s no single reason printers are so lousy. It’s more a constellation of interlocking and reinforcing reasons…
9. “How I Structure My Teams for Growth” by Simone Basso, chief product and technology officer at motorhome rental company Indie Campers
Having worked in a number of scale-ups in the last 10 years, there are a few principles I have adopted for scaling Tech and Product teams.
The first one, is to organize teams to be cross-functional. Generally, to get any product built, you need Product Managers to represent the business, Product Designers to represent the customer and Engineers to build.
I tend to organize teams to be 5–10 people, following the two pizza teams rule, made famous at AWS, with a Product Trio leading each team.
10. “Let’s Talk More About Rejection” by Savala Nolan, author and essayist
There’s a way in which talking about rejections is almost in vogue — but mostly for people who’ve crossed the threshold into mainstream “success” and are now looking back on their Season of Rejection. It’s a bit less common to hear writers who are still trying to make a name for themselves open up about just how fast and furious the river of no’s can remain even after some success…
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