Welcome to the startupy newsletter. Every week, we curate the hottest links from our universe and share them with you here. As a reminder, startupy is a community-curated knowledge graph. Discover interesting and unobvious perspectives on tech, startups, and culture - mapped and indexed by the best and brightest curators. If you're feeling the vibe, consider becoming a member. For $20/month or $180/year you get unlimited access to our collective intelligence engine and community. |
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🪐 HOT LINKS IN OUR UNIVERSE |
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Notice, though, the trouble this Internet reality presents to Netflix: if content is abundant and attention is scarce, it’s easier to sell attention than content; Netflix’s business model, though, is the exact opposite. |
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If technology is good, then why do so many algorithms seem to leave us feeling depressed and isolated? Can a video call really replace the full-bodied magic of spending time with someone we love? What’s the difference between a childhood spent playing outside in the fresh air and amongst the trees, and another spent on an iPad levelling up FarmVille? These may sound like simple questions with simple answers depending on your perspective, but the truth is no one fully knows the answers yet. What if computer games enhance cognitive ability? What if running on a treadmill is safer than going for a run in the city? The answers to these questions are multi-faceted and varied — they’re complex. |
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We sometimes treat the information industries as if they were like any other enterprise, but they are not, for their structure determines who gets heard. It is in this context that Fred Friendly, onetime CBS News president, made it clear that before any question of free speech comes the question of “who controls the master switch. |
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Strategy = Anything that contributes to potential behavior change Self expression = Everything else you should not say Feedback conversations should be about strategy, not self-expression. |
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I think a lot about the fluctuations of belief—the inevitable up and downs of maintaining engagement with something over long periods of time. Most people seem to think that love is unchanging versus merely enduring, that if you’re really passionate about something you wake up excited to do it every day. I don’t believe that’s true. In fact, it sets you up for failure—you start out in a manic rush of excitement, believing that the framework or cause or person you’ve found will be your salvation, and after a while you become disenchanted. If you think disenchantment is a sign of disaster, you’ll probably abandon what you’re doing. In order to stick with anything for a long period of time, you have to believe that disenchantment is a normal, healthy part of experience. |
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At critical moments in time, you can raise the aspirations of other people significantly, especially when they are relatively young, simply by suggesting they do something better or more ambitious than what they might have in mind. |
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🔥 POPULAR RABBIT HOLES ON STARTUPY |
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15 connections → 10 content, 1 company, 4 related topics |
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Sacra: Highlights on market reports of the most interesting startups |
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Governance → unobvious perspectives on how crypto and the Internet change the systems and structures for decision-making, accountability, and control. 57 connections → 43 content, 8 companies, 6 related topics |
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Consumer SaaS → Insights on building consumer software subscription businesses 80 connections → 50 content, 20 companies, 10 related topics |
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47 connections → 8 content, 32 companies, 7 related topics |
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49 connections → 37 content, 7 companies, 5 related topics |
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👆 Use the Startupy randomizer to get inspired ☝️ |
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534 contributions this week 1,315 connections this week 462 highlights this week |
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Why is the future of funding interesting? How ideas are funded to evolve from concept to practise and who gets to bring ideas forward is an interest that has seen me through various careers, from working closely with founders as an angel investor to my time grantmaking. Capital is a tool, after all, and there’s clearly room for new approaches. And it’s a fertile moment, from the rise of solo GPs to Stonks and Party Round, the rise of interest in public goods funding in crypto through communities like Gitcoin and champions like Tyler Cowen funding talent philanthropically. Together, this set of diversified approaches should mean a diversified set of people who bring forwards ideas, and that we have more mechanisms beyond pure venture capital or government cash to consider how we address society’s hardest problems. It’s just exciting. |
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A podcast worth listening to? I'm not a huge podcast fan but loved Matt Clifford's conversation with Tyler Cowen and Daniel Gross on talent - so rich on how we think about individual and collective skill, and how the winners emerge. |
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Things worth reading and watching? This great deep dive into solo GPs, who are increasingly managing larger pots of money than conventional funds, with potentially very different processes and outcomes. And this piece on how Lawtrades raised their series A using new gen tools like Angellist roll-ups, Journey, Stonks and more. |
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Projects worth following? I’m a Nadia Eghbal maximalist from her ethnographic study of open source communities to her new research in crypto philanthropy; so I always keep an eye on her website. In web3, I’m closely following Utopia Labs (even or especially in a decentralised world you need a tight finance and people stack. Disclosure: I'm an angel investor) and Optimism (new public goods funding). |
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