aka Alpha Male, Alpha Chimp (Primate). In social animals, the alpha is the individual in the community with the highest rank (status, power). Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair (the term varies when several females fulfill this role – it is extremely rare among mammals for several males to fulfill this role with one female). Other animals in the same social group may exhibit deference or other symbolic signs of respect particular to their species towards the alpha. The alpha animals are given preference to be the first to eat and the first to mate; among some species they are the only animals in the pack (Tribe) allowed to mate. Other animals in the community are usually killed or ousted if they violate this rule. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_(ethology) (more)

James Altucher episode 401 - Chip Conley: How To Find Your Calling At Age 50 (Or Older). Chip Conley. He’s the Head of Hospitality for Airbnb. Chip has a new book out called “Wisdom at Work.” (more)

Michele Sollecito: The product manager role is a mistake. Software product companies aren’t usually started by people with a strong background in building software products. Those who most likely end up founding businesses are good at getting funding, and at understanding their target industry (more)

David Cummings: The 10x Exercise for Entrepreneurs. Once an entrepreneur has gained some traction, product-market fit, and the beginnings of a repeatable customer acquisition process, one of my favorite exercises for them is the 10X scale. (more)

Jeff Jordon: Wonderschool. I’ve had a front row seat to a set of companies where new technologies have immediately created new streams of income for millions of people. These companies typically enable (what Airbnb founder Brian Chesky refers to as) “micro-entrepreneurs” (micropreneur): eBay, Airbnb, Instacart. (I think only eBay really qualifies) (more)

Snap (SnapChat) lays off 20 product managers to speed up decision-making. Snap is going through a reorganization and has laid off "nearly 20 product managers," according to The Information. The job cuts follow a string of departures and position shuffling over the past few months. A company spokesperson told the publication that the layoffs were meant to speed up the company's decision-making process, presumably because they'd be cutting out people between lower-level employees and higher-level managers (more)

Brianne Kimmel: How creatives win friends, influence people and break the internet. In addition to the traditional technical hacker culture, I’m excited to see a new class of hackers that use both art and science to create iconic experiences inside tech companies and online: designers. (more)

John Cutler: TBM 8/52: Top 1% Product Managers. Why is product management so obsessed with tropes and bromides like "Top 1% Product Managers" and "Good Product Managers _____ Great Product Managers______"? (well, dev has 10x-dev framing, though maybe fewer pieces defining a path there) (more)

Sir Jonathan "Jony" Paul Ive KBE HonFREng RDI (born 27 February 1967) is a British-American designer. Ive is best known for his work at Apple Inc., where he served as senior vice president of industrial design and chief design officer.[1][2] He also serves as Chancellor of the Royal College of Art in London. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jony_Ive

Itamar Gilad: Why Did Airbnb Kill Product Management? The product-sphere is boiling-over over an interview with Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of AirBnB, in which he said that the company no longer has a product management function - PM has been merged with product-marketing-management (PMM). (more)

co-founder, AirBnb

someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain (Context). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expert (more)

Steve Blank: Lean Meets Wicked Problems. I just spent a month and a half at Imperial College London co-teaching a “Wicked” Entrepreneurship class. (A few of these projects address climate change, but are they big levers? ((2020-06-27) Ways To Nudge Future)) (more)

Ash Maurya likes a staged Product Launch for his Lean Startup, sizing up 10x at each stage. But from the very first stage, he's dealing with paying customers.

virtual-mental health company

keeping information unknown from some 3rd parties, contra Surveillance Capitalism and the Surveillance State (more)

GIMP Toolkit (more)

Aral Balkan: What is the Small Web? To understand what the Small Web is, let’s compare it to the Big Web. In other words, to the centralised Web we have today. The Big Web is the centralised web; it is a web in the sense of a spider’s web. The spiders that sit at its centre waiting to suck you dry are Big Tech people farmers like Facebook, Google, etc. (more)

I’m developing the Small Web at Small Technology Foundation. The tools I’m building are called Kitten and Domain. https://ar.al/ (more)

studied maths in Heidelberg and Glasgow; from 1981 to 2016 in the Computer Center of the University. Initially in network infrastructure. Since the early gopher days, I have drifted more and more towards content. https://x28newblog.wordpress.com aka x28