Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
How Eric S. Yuan Connected the World Sequoia (reading time: 16 minutes)
When the pandemic crisis hit us, I can tell you: we were not ready. We did not design the product with the foresight that, in a matter of weeks, every person in the world would suddenly be working, studying, and socializing from home
Even the founder of Zoom, Eric Yuan could not have predicted the explosive growth of his company. When we look back to the early days of the pandemic, Zoom was a savior for millions of people. This post looks at the founder’s journey and decade long story of Zoom.
9 Ideation Frameworks of Top Founders NFX (reading time: 25 minutes)
The internet is littered with startup advice but rarely any good advice. This post by NFX provides a neat framework for founders to stress test their ideas before launching a startup. It’s also applicable to new ideas or projects within larger organizations as well.
Rippling and the return of ambition Luttig’s Learnings (reading time: 15 minutes)
I had never heard of HR software company Rippling before. They just raised $250MUSD at an $11B valuation. This post dissects the company’s strategy and unorthodox approach to building a modern software company. They are some great company building lessons that are widely applicable.
Cable’s Last Laugh Stratechery (reading time: 18 minutes)
I always assume that the tech industry is going to win over every traditional industry. Yet, this belief is not rooted in fact but rather philosophical inclination – the new is better & smarter than the old. This contrarian post by Ben Thompson shows that this isn’t necessarily the case. The US cable industry hasn’t suffered from cord-cutting as much as you would expect. By virtue of owning internet wires, they are in much stronger strategic position that might allow them to re-bundle streaming content.
Some Notes on Executive Dashboards Tom Critchlow (reading time: 12 minutes)
Most executive dashboards are god-awful. They are only good at looking in the rearview mirror rather than generating useful insights about the company. This is a slightly technical post on how to improve exec dashboards by focusing on leading indicators, not just lagging indicators.
