🖖 On advice that's sound in most times
- The work required to have an opinion – Charlie Munger
- How to get rich (without getting lucky) – Naval Ravikant (tweets)
- Climbing the wrong hill – Chris Dixon
- A lesson on elementary worldly wisdom – Charlie Munger
- Grow the puzzle around you – Jessica Livingston
- What would you like to do if money were no object – Alan Watts
- What Is Thought? - Jiddu Krishnamurti
👩💻 On products
On markets and opportunities || product strategy
- Finding secrets that matter – Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
- The idea maze – Chris Dixon
- Market matters most – Marc Andreessen
- Disruptive innovation explainer – Mark Suster
- Christensen on disruptive innovation – Clayton Christensen
- Aa critique of disruptive innovation in b2c – Ben Thompson
- Commoditize your complements – Joel Spolsky
- The conservation of attractive profits – Ben Thompson
- Aggregation theory & an updated take – Ben Thompson
- The smile curve – Ben Thompson
- 1000 true fans – Kevin Kelly
- The next big thing will look like a toy – Chris Dixon
- Office, messaging & verbs – Benedict Evans
- Bundling & unbundling – Marc Andreessen (also see by Ben Thompson)
- The thin edge of the wedge – Chris Dixon
- Invisible asymptotes – Eugene Wei
- Emergent layers – Alex Danco
- A taxonomy of moats - Jerry Neumann
On building the right thing || product management
- people don't buy products; they buy better versions of themselves
- how superhuman found it's product market fit – rahul vohra
- do things that don't scale – paul graham
- handcrafting the customer experience – reid hoffman
- post product-market fit priorities – marc andreessen & elad gil
- babe ruth & feature lists – ken norton
- the next feature fallacy – andrew chen
- validating pain – ryan hoover
- tactics to overcome the chicken-and-egg problem – james currier
- making users awesome – kathy sierra (video)
- platform rant – steve yegge
- road to a great product – maxime braud
- a product manager's job – josh elman
- good product manager, bad product manager - ben horowitz
On uncovering why your users do as they do || user research
- jobs to be done – bob moesta
- uncovering the jobs to be done – bob moesta & chris spiek
- what is jobs to be done – justin jackson
- 10 things i've learnt about customer development – cindy alvarez
On designing how the thing works || interaction design
- designing with forces – ryan singer (video)
- the fidelity curve – ryan singer
- learning increases resolution – kathy sierra
- software is like kung-fu – kathy sierra
- the dribblisation of design – paul adams
- the wireframing process – nathan barry
- designing features using job stories – alan klement
- crafting the first mile of product – scott belsky
- up & down the ladder of abstraction – brett victor
- media for thinking the unthinkable – brett victor
- inventing on principle – brett victor (video)
- on cartographic details & cartographic moats – justin beirne
- designing fluid interfaces – apple
- design is about intent – john morgan
On designing how the thing feels || visual design
- gestalt principles of design: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 – andy rutledge
- typographic hierarchy – frank chimero
- monoculture illustrations – khoi vinh
- web design is 95% typography – oliver richenstein
- on taste – ira glass
On making the thing a place you'd hang out at || social design
- evaporative cooling effect – Xianhang Zhang
- the del.icio.us lesson - joshua porter
- the real life social network – paul adams
- principles for designing social experiences – paul adams
- warrens, plazas & the edge of legibility – venkatesh rao
On making the thing fun || game design
- the art of screenshake – jan willem nijman (video)
- why your death animation sucks – nicolae berbece
- secrets of game feel – mark brown (video)
- why kratos' axe feels so powerful - polygon
- creating invisible tutorials – mark brown (video)
- feedback loops – mark brown (video)
- the rise of systemic games – mark brown (video)
- loops vs arcs – daniel cook
- big ideas from game design – christina wodtke
- lessons in game design – will wright
- invisible tutorials – mark brown (video)
On checking if the thing you wanted to happen, happened || analytics
- pirate metrics – dave mcclure
- retention cohorts & visualizations – des traynor
- the only metric that matters – josh elman
- saas metrics: measuring what matters – david skok
On creating awareness and sneaking in desire || marketing
- the century of the self – adam curtis (documentary)
- the shape of stories – kurt vonnegut
- people don't buy products, they buy better versions of themselves – zander nethercutt
- archetypal branding (slides)
- cultural branding – douglas holt (slides)
On acquiring more of those who want what you've built || growth marketing
- the law of shitty clickthroughs – andrew chen
- what's your viral loop – andrew chen
- how to model viral growth: one, two, three– rahul vohra
- retention curves of successful apps – andrew chen
- growth loops are the new funnels – brian balfour
- product channel fit – brian balfour
- the dropbox journey – drew houston
On aligning people while they do things || management
- maker schedule, manager schedule – paul graham
- the iceberg sheet revealed – joel spolsky
- how to tell the truth – ben horowitz
- how to manage – ben horowitz (video)
- how to operate – keith rabois (video)
- radical candor – kim scott
On the search for a scalable way to make money || startups
- default alive or default dead – paul graham
- on airbnb being obvious only in hindsight – paul graham
- ladder of proof – james currier
- build a team that ships – naval ravikant
- black swan farming – paul graham
- what's a startup – steve blank
On words that clarify and convince || writing & copywriting
On building the thing that builds the thing || hiring
- how to hire a product manager – kenneth norton
- how to hire a product manager (revised) – kenneth norton
- find, vet & close the best product managers – todd jackson
⛩ On cities & spaces
- traditional urbanism – wrath of gnon (tweets)
- granularity in cities – andrew alexander price
- four ways to make a city more walkable – jeff spec
- what we can learn from eye tracking studies on architecture – ann sussman
- how highways wreck cities – vox
- how to make an attractive city – the school of life
- you don't need transit to build a walkable place – andrew alexander price
- why modernist architecture sucks – adam greenfield
- let's build a traditional city & profit – andrew alexander price
- japan – paul stamatiou
🎭 On culture
- the premium mediocre life of maya millenial – venkatesh rao
- the instagram generation – zander nethercutt
- everything is a remix – kirby ferguson
- everything is a remix: the matrix – kirby ferguson
🕸 On the organization of people
- a big little idea called legibility – venkatesh rao
- the metaphors of organization – venkatesh rao
- networks, firm and markets – albert wenger
- networks, markets & blockchains – naval ravikant (tweets)
- the next 10 years are about market networks – james currier
💸 On money & its origins
- the origins of money – nick szabo
- social scalability – nick szabo
- the fifth protocol – naval ravikant
- crypto currencies with tim ferris, nick szabo & naval ravikant
👨👩👧👦 On people, psychology & matters of desire
- mimetic desire & consumerism – rene girard
- the century of self - adam curtis (video)
- the psychology of human misjudhement – charlie munger
- driven by compression progress: the principle that explains subjective beauty, novelty, surprise, interestingness, attention, curiosity, creativity, art, science, music & jokes
- you weren't meant to have a boss – paul graham
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Notes:
- All media tend to centralise over time. I hope the internet is the exception that breaks the rule (despite signs that online attention is getting increasingly aggregated.)
- Tangential: science fiction often predicts the future and then, ironically, stops being fiction — the nets in ender’s game seem eerily like thought-blips on twitter.