Hot Takes
To end the week, I'd like to share an interesting find about a legacy technology that still survives against all odds. The mighty floppy disk! As much as I would like to think it's now a kind of exotic oddity used by hobbyists and retrogamers, it&
Strategy
We talked many times over about network effects and their indisputable power. The question today is: Is there a self-defense manual against them? Or "How to kill a Facebook"?
Fascinating tweet from Johannes Wachs a few days ago: Preprint day: I measure developer brain drain from Russia since the invasion. Comparing @github data Feb21vsJun22 I find many RU devs are abroad (8.6%) or obscure their loc (11.3%). Leavers were more active and central in the collabnet. Feedback
Historically, I have been doubtful of reproducing innovation models imported from other cultures and ecosystems – I've been very polite. In my experience, the main fallacy is that such things as "Silicon Valley" are a model to start with. If anything, they are a complex construct that
Hot Takes
The Verge is among the most famous consumer electronics and technology news websites. As of yesterday, they entirely redesigned their website and, more importantly, changed how they feed their audience news. Let's see why this might be big news. The Verge was launched in 2011 and is owned
![🟢 [ Looking back at ] 15 years of mentoring](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612993232871-47e86e7de1f9?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDV8fHBlYWt8ZW58MHx8fHwxNjYyNzkzNzE2&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=600)
Mentoring is now a wide-spread practice that is more or less loosely understood, but that is always of great promise. After working on this subject for about 15 years and obtaining a PhD on the very subject in 2012, I thought it would interesting to look back and reflect.
AI
Two weeks ago, a composition won the first prize at the Colorado State Fair. This composition wasn't produced by an artist but by someone using Midjourney (a now notorious AI that generates images from text prompts). Scandal ensued. TL;DR — Someone entered an art competition with an AI-generated
Hot Takes
In the context of a looming recession, most governments think again that maybe big tech should start paying a fairer amount of taxes. Prepare for talks on e-commerce and social media regulation to fire up all around (except in China, where they brutally clamp down the sector). Given the legal
Hot Takes
This August, I translated and updated an article from 2013 about how innovation is a cycle of reimagination, diversification, and reduction. The core thesis is that, as innovators, we understand and expect the reimagination/diversification cycle quite well, but we nurture a massive blindspot in the reduction phase. 🔴 The Romanesco
![[ Looking back at ] the rise of China](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1612383401582-e96cc0bc83d2?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDEzfHxjaGluYXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjI3MTAwMzQ&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=600)
Hot Takes
The last episode of this week's Looking Back series will be about China. How can I avoid this hot topic when seemingly everyone is suddenly starting to read the writing that was on the proverbial wall for the last ten years? In 2019, I threw on the website
![🟢 [ Looking back at ] how platforms and big tech scale](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1577071835592-d5d55ffef660?crop=entropy&cs=tinysrgb&fit=max&fm=jpg&ixid=MnwxMTc3M3wwfDF8c2VhcmNofDl8fGdvb2dsZXxlbnwwfHx8fDE2NjI1Mzk1MTE&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&q=80&w=600)
Strategy
Pursuing my [ Looking back at ] series today by curating about digital platform scaling strategies, why network effects matter, and what we still have a hard time understanding about them (especially if you're a regular multinational in defense mode).
Hot Takes
A series of micro-interviews with people we work with. Partners in crime, current or former customers, all have a unique view on innovation and the current zeitgeist. Five questions on innovation, short answers. We might agree, we might disagree. No context, no comments.