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Why Education Startups Do Not Succeed (2011)
I co-founded PrepMe in 2001. We were one of the first education companies online and the first purely online, personalized platform. We were acquired in 2011 by Providence Equity-backed Ascend Lea…
Topics /
Tech Industry & Business
The most popular blog posts about tech industry & business on Hacker News. 383 posts.
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Deleting Uber is the least you can do
Uber is what you get when you take Silicon Valley’s most toxic values, add billions of dollars in venture capital, and spice it with…
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Why you can’t cash out part 1: Bitcoin’s “price” is largely fictional
Public discussion and media coverage of Bitcoin assumes certain things about Bitcoin: • Bitcoin has a price, that you could expect to buy or sell it around. • Bitcoin is like buying a share in a co…
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Open Source License Business Perception Report
the pain and confusion of common open licenses, roughly quantified
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Twice as happy customers means half the marketing spend
Halving your cancel rate doubles the number of customers your business has. Even if you run a subscription business forever, you will not have infinite customers. Instead you reach a steady-state number.
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Something is wrong with children's videos on the internet
I’m James Bridle. I’m a writer and artist concerned with technology and culture. I usually write on my own blog, but frankly I don’t want…
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The Art of Writing One-Sentence Product Descriptions
A look back at early interviews with Facebook and Uber CEOs illustrates an ingenious way to communicate hard-to-describe products.
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Going for the 5 hour workday
Update: it's been a month since my proposal was approved - details at the end. Before my month long vacation I was in a crisis. Now I'm back at work and regardless of the great team and awesome project - I'm feeling the crisis creeping back. It's not the job,
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Why Twitter Is Failing to Grow
No, it's not rampant abuse, weak leadership, or a product that intimidates new users. The roots of Twitter's stagnation go back to 2010.
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The Marketing Behind MongoDB
Countless NoSQL databases competed to be the database of choice. MongoDB's marketing strategy helped it become the winner.
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A/B test of banner ads vs. traffic
9 months of daily A/B-testing of Google AdSense banner ads on Gwern.net indicates banner ads decrease total traffic substantially, possibly due to spillover effects in reader engagement and resharing.
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ThoughtWorks has been sold to private equity
Thoughtworks is acquired by Apax Funds. The current management team will continue to run the company as before.
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Facebook Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Buy Tbh
Facebook is acquiring tbh, another burgeoning social network; regulators erred in allowing the Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions, but there is no better place to start enforcing the law than now.
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Why I don't believe in Uber's Success
I wanted to write this blog post for well over half a year. I don’t believe Uber will be a successful business . I’ve been making my points in individual conversations over and over again - with this post I’m creating a writeup of my arguments that I can share in future.
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A Data-Driven Guide to Becoming a Consistent Billionaire
Did You Really Think All Billionaires Were the Same? Recently, I became a bit obsessed with the one percent of the one percent – Billionaires. I was intrigued when I stumbled on articles telling us…
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Ask a Repair Shop
This is the story of how you’re buying your enterprise software the wrong way. Probably your appliances, too. This is an excerpt from my guide, “Enterprise Software Confidential.” This post is also available in Chinese thanks to Xu Zhi. Some years ago, I had a broken GE washer. Pretty sure I knew the culprit, but if…
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Facebook and the Cost of Monopoly
Facebook gave one of the worst keynotes in a long time: there was no vision, just the adoption of Snap’s. It’s the inevitable outcome of a monopoly.
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Successful Solo Founders
Note* Since publishing this, a research study came out by MIT with more information and data on this. See 2 founders are not always better…
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The Uber Dilemma
Benchmark’s lawsuit against Uber is extraordinary; that is because Uber, despite everything, remains an extraordinary company. Game theory explains the implications.
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What We Get Wrong About Technology
Blade Runner (1982) is a magnificent film, but there’s something odd about it. The heroine, Rachael, seems to be a beautiful young woman. In reality, she’s a piece of technology — an organic robot …
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Amazon’s New Customer
The key to understanding Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods is to understand that Amazon didn’t buy a retailer: the company bought a customer.
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A Clash of Cultures
There’s an Internet controversy going on between Dale Dougherty, the CEO of Maker Media and Naomi Wu ( @realsexycyborg ), a Chinese Maker and Internet personality. Briefly, Dale Doughtery tweeted a single line questioning Naomi Wu’s authenticity, which is destroying Naomi’s reputation and livelihood in China.
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Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Give Real-Time Analytics (2013)
Homer: There's three ways to do things. The right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!