Cue the Future

Kevin Kelly's "What Technology Wants" is one of the most important books I've read in the past decade. If you're at all involved in technology innovation, it's required reading. I use several of the ideas originating from this book on a weekly basis. One of the ideas that I often revisit is the ... Read More

Facebook acquired mobile commerce startup, Karma. This acquisition didn't get nearly the attention it deserved. As Chris Dixon wrote about Facebook's Business Model: The key question when trying to value Facebook’s stock is: can they find another business model that generates significantly ... Read More

Andrew Chen has the valley all atwitter with his most recent post: Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing. The post is well worth reading, and Andrew adds a fantastic starting point that will get a lot more people involved in the discussion about how marketing teams are being reshaped. If you're ... Read More

If I were to send you back in time to 1500, a time when people were just learning how to cope with the recent disruptive invention of the moveable type printing press, you could have lived a very respectable and comfortable live (by the standards of the time) without being literate.  In fact ... Read More

Regular Readers If you are a regular reader here, you might be interested in reading a guest essay I wrote in Forbes. It's about how marketers are being challenged by the increasing the number of channels available to engage consumers on. It takes about 3.5 minutes to read and covers a lot of ... Read More

Building a great team is the ultimate competitive advantage. Steve Jobs famously thought that his greatest creation wasn't a great device, but rather was a company filled with people capable of making great devices. If you want to create an entity that is valuable and makes an impact, there's no ... Read More

The technologies that contribute to automation are likely to follow an exponential pattern, which means that more industries will start to lose jobs at an astounding rate as machines get more and more capable. Let's say Automation could reduce the number of employees needed for the Retail ... Read More

Occupy Wall Street is becoming a meaningful movement these days, with large numbers of people out on the street in several major cities and many more engaging cautiously, curious about what the movement's message is. That curiosity is a rough proxy for potential radicalization - it stems from a ... Read More

On October 19th, there was an event on Apple's campus celebrating Steve Jobs's life. This event was not secret, but the live video feed that connected all employees of Apple Stores to the event was not widely shared. The event is great, and each contributor is fantastic. It's a great way to ... Read More

I just got back from a vacation and during that time I got to do something I love - read all sorts of intellectually stimulating stuff. It re-affirmed some simple knowledge: I love the Economist... One of the most interesting stories I read was one I hadn't been following at all prior to my trip ... Read More

"By honoring the lives of those we admire, we make our own values known. Perhaps more clearly than words ever could." -Steve Jobs This is hardly the most well-known Steve Jobs quote, but it's possibly the most fitting as we look back and remember him.  It appeared as part of a forward ... Read More

Facebook has largely won the war of the online identity platform, however identity online creates big markets and there are still large openings for a secondary mainstream player and probably several vertical players. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google and About.me are all credible competitors for the ... Read More

I love Product Design. As consumer tech has matured, I think the most interesting challenges have largely moved from pure technology problems in to more general interface problems - helping a user get real value from a product while also creating real value for the company. On Friday, there was ... Read More

At this year's F8, Mark Zuckerberg's keynote was opened by Andy Samberg doing a 5 minute impersonation of Zuck (or, as Samberg began calling his character, "The Zuck Dawg").   Turns out there's another funny example of a tech CEO opening with a look-a-like. In 1999, Steve Jobs invited Noah ... Read More

Acute Leukemia was the first issue we fought against at Involver. I'm telling that story today because a great person, Amit Gupta, was just diagnosed with this disease. You can help save Amit's life. Here's how.  Go to the NYC Donor Drive on Oct. 14th, order a free test in the mail or donate ... Read More