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Great article by Paul Graham about the initial user base of startups. Read more...

Printed magazines like Harvard Business Review, Wired, The Economist, and others offer an electronic version of their publications, be it as an application for Apple’s Newsstand1 or through third-party providers like Zinio. But what do you do if you are a smaller size magazine that needs to have an electronic edition? Lightweight magazine publishing Marco Arment is the founder of Instapaper, a ‘read-it-later’ app that lets you save web articles for later consumption. Read more...

Doug Engelbart died July 2nd, 2013, at the age of 88. Who was Doug Engelbart? As Bret Victor explains in his article A few words on Doug Engelbart, it is important to reflect not only about what Engelbart did invent but on what his intent was. Remembering Engelbart as the inventor of the mouse, or the inventor of video conferencing, is like finding the person who invented writing and remembering him for inventing the pencil. Read more...

Just finished re-reading this article by Jason Fried of 37signals.com, which included this 30 min. talk by David Heinemeier Hansson (cofounder of 37signals and creator of Rails) at Startup School 2008. Great common sense advice about starting a business. Despite the popularity of the freemium model among internet startups (grow a user base fast, charge nothing, get VC funding, think about monetizing later, better if we get bought for a huge sum of money on the way), David argues that one of the most basic way to have your company turn a profit is charging upfront for the service your company provides. Read more...

Susan Cain writes in the New York Times about the contemporary view which holds that creativity and achievement come from teamwork. As Cain explains, research strongly suggests the contrary: people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. Susan Cain, The Rise of the New Groupthink Read more...