Occasional Observations

For no particular reason, here are three mental models that I often use in thinking through a situation. ShoesWhen you’re looking for a shoe online, there are a number of attributes you could start from: color, size, style, usage, ratings, materials, retailer, typical buyer, price, availability, and so on. On a website, this is called faceted navigation; a facet is a side of something, so faceted navigation allows you to browse options according to the “side” of an object. So when I’m trying ...

Bearing a whole bunch of assumptions, these are some implications I've been collecting & exploring. There's more to add for sure — holler if you've got any — and I intend to add some commentary at some point. We'll see. Independent tinkerers↑ Ease of a low-tech savvy individual making their own tools ↓ Cost of a low-tech savvy individual making various tools they need to do their job ↑ People making what they, and only they, need to do a job in a way that’s uniquely suited to themJump startin...

This is probably an important piece of writing, we just don't exactly know why yet. Not because he’s necessarily right about everything, but because he’s running one of the most consequential companies of our time. In some way or another, we'll have to deal with his perspective. First of all, publishing what amounts to a blog post on a subdomain rather than a folder is pretty interesting. That's suggests a certain level of importance; it's not one post among many, but a standalone piece in a ...

This thread from Jonathan Courtney of AJ&Smart was an interesting spark I hadn't considered before: Slack's tagline is literally "Where w...

Intel is taking some heat for not investing in OpenAI in 2017. It's easy to look back on that from 2024 and prompt ChatGPT to write a sca...

A bit ago, I noticed that my kids have never said, "google it". They say, "search it up" and then use whatever built-in search tool is on...

Author David Bland — who is excellent at crossing the business-culture meme divide, btw — shared this video with the caption, "This would make an ama...

According to this PwC report, "roughly 40% of the time spent on [emails, meetings and administrative processes] is inefficient."Sorry, but that's pro...

Users & customers are just as likely to distract or lead you astray as they are to lead you to the promised land. This doesn't mean you don't listen...

The more work I do, the more I understand the kinds of work I like to do and am good at. Thus, the more likely I am to opt in or out of certain kinds...