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Top Articles of the Week | Feb 5

February 5, 2022

Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!

Don’t forget Microsoft Luttig’s Learnings  (reading time:  22 minutes)

Microsoft raised eyebrows when it released massive Q4 earnings last week. The company is on a huge tear. This article unpacks its remaining opportunity and the path to $10T. There are some strategy lessons as well (aggressive M&A, capital as a moat and the importance of distribution).

Don’t shine the turd Collaborative Fund (reading time:  3 minutes)

This is good, short, simple advice. Don’t hide bad news, confront it quickly. This principle can be quite powerful, it reminded me of this post by Ben Horowitz on which way CEOs should run.

Why Japanese Businesses Are So Good at Surviving Crises Harvard Business School  (reading time:  9 minutes)

Japan stands out for corporate longevity; 40 percent of companies that have remained in existence more than 300 years are located in the country

There is a reason why Japanese companies stand the test of time, they think and act long term. During the 2011 earthquake and tsunami disaster that hit the country,  many of the country’s companies took action to help victims. There are many good lessons on how companies should act during a time of crisis, the answer lies in helping others. 

Andy Warhol, Clay Christensen, and Vitalik Buterin walk into a bar Oreilly  (reading time:  21 minutes)

Millions of dollars of value are being controlled and allocated, not by individuals or cryptographic keys, but by social conceptions of legitimacy

Tim O’Reilly popularized the term Web 2.0 and has been actively writing about technology’s impact for a long-time. In this interesting thought experiment, he argues the role that art plays in our modern capitalist society. Though NFTs sound absurd (at least to me), he provides a blueprint for where they create value. 

Bonus

Competitive programming with AlphaCode DeepMind  (reading time:  5 minutes)

This news went below the radar given its technical nature. Alphabet’s subsidiary, DeepMind announced AlphaCode that writes computer programs at a competitive level. What’s exciting about this breakthrough is the possibility for machine learning to solve more complex problems. DeepMind says its new AI coding engine is as good as an average human programmer. We’re not too far away from software writing and improving its own software.