Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Why New Technology Is A Hard Sell Collaborative Fund (reading time: 11 minutes)
This is fascinating article on how new technologies are adopted. The author examines the time required for transformative technologies to become socially adopted. For instance, the entire planet accepted the polio vaccine almost immediately. It’s almost never the case for new innovations.
A Case Study on Social Credit Scores in Xiamen and Fuzhou Dev Lewis (reading time: 12 minutes)
I’ve shared articles in the past about the terrifying potential of China’s social credit system. The reality on the ground however is a bit different. This article is a good counterweight to the alarm bells raised by western media on this subject. I don’t have a horse in this race. I’m simply fascinated by the potential for harm (and good?) of this technology.
The Next Word. Where will predictive text take us? New Yorker (reading time: 47 minutes)
Yes, this is a long read but well worth it. Predictive text is improving at a rate that is astonishing. This piece in the New Yorker explores what this means for writing. The author also includes predicted text; what the algorithm recommends as a next sentence. As you read each section and click on the predicted text box, you will quickly appreciate just how good the predictions are.
The Passion Economy and the Future of Work a16z (reading time: 10 minutes)
The tools to become your own entrepreneur are becoming easier than ever. Anyone can create their own subscription based or ad based business model and build their own career. What is means to have a job will be very different given all these new monetization opportunities.
Memos Sriram Krishnan (reading time: 8 minutes)
Absolutely love this effort by Sriram to pull together important internal memos. It’s a collection of memos written by leaders at critical moments in their organization’s history (example Bill Gates internet memo in the 90s). If you like business history, you’ll want to bookmark this page.
