Why It’s Hard to Build For People Something They Don’t Know They Want
It is very rare that a startup can create a product that people didn’t know they wanted. And not because there is no innovation. It’s because the ability to make something like that actually requires being able to read between the lines of what people say they want, and predicting accurately what it is they are really trying to say. All descriptions of the present and the future depend on a vocabulary we build from the past. All of our formulations of the future inevitably are the past dressed in the wrong clothes for the event
My Take on the Geopolitical Aspect of the NSA Operations and Edward Snowden
This often gets missed in the local and national news, because the angle in the US is solely on the privacy aspect of it, which is completely understandable. But this is what I keep thinking about:
I wrote this on Gawker this morning:
So, what’s amazing to me about his decision to go to Hong Kong is that — all talk of treason, national security, domestic spying aside — he is still fulfilling the President’s brief about keeping a conversation going on the localized Hong Kong SAR “rule of law” process. It’s also interesting that the break in this story would happen as President Xi visits Obama. So, in addition to having leaked a NSA operation to the global public, he’s also centered the conversation squarely on China’s relationship with Hong Kong and the future of democracy there, only a week after the Tiananmen Square anniversary
Hilarious.
“Whatever You Want to Be”
“Moments later, Ryheim was brought to tears. He struggled to complete his sentence when asked what it was his father said that made him cry.
He soon managed to explain that it was when his father said “that he really looks forward to me growing up and becoming… “
Rasan jumped in and finished the sentence for him. “Whatever you want to be,” he said.”
Storm Trooper
Jeff Clavier, Andrew Chung, Pete Sonsini, John Lilly discuss VC.
BizSpark
I believe you call it “Hella” blooms
A manly night cap
