Picking startup advisors
From Uber Layoffs: To Build Wheels or Not?
Between 2014 and 2018, Uber built several "wheels," such as the service discovery tool Hyperbahn, the task queue Cherami, the MySQL-based NoSQL Schemaless, the resource scheduler Peloton, and the service deployment platform uDeploy, among others. Now, with layoffs affecting even engineering teams and stock prices falling below 15-year valuations, were these "wheels" a success or a failure? Should startups hire people to build wheels, or should they adopt existing solutions?
Mark Zuckerberg is building WeChat for the West
Facebook is a very profitable company with operating margins at 42%. While transiting into a privacy-centric super app, it has to face three challenges in three aspects: technology, economy and privacy & competition.
Learning to Be Trusted — It Only Takes 72 Minutes to Incite Murder
To be trusted, you must first be trustworthy; you need to be competent. Not only must you be competent, but you also need to establish a connection with the other party, which requires you to appear approachable. Psychologists have found that trust equals competence plus approachability, but being overly competent can create a sense of distance and threat. You also need to expose minor weaknesses to bridge the gap with others.
The Importance of Names — Insights from a Nickname Enthusiast
Names are a very important weapon. Researchers at Syracuse University found that when people use derogatory terms to refer to a certain social group, the suicide rate among that group tends to be higher. Names can also unite people; experimental results show that the name of a game influences people's ability to cooperate. When people cheer for themselves during a competition, they often achieve their best performance.
Sarah Tavel: The Three Levels of User Engagement
Sustainable user engagement should be built through three levels: user growth, focusing on the growth of users completing core actions; user retention, where the longer the product is used, the greater its value, and the greater the loss when users leave; self-sustaining, where users create a positive feedback loop through their participation in the product.
Elements of Value
When customers evaluate a product or service, they weigh perceived value against actual price. The elements of value include functional value; emotional value; life-changing; and social impact.