The Rubber Band Effect
When AI researchers Tristan Harris and Aza Raskin tried to explain generative AI to journalists in early 2022 —when just a few hundred researchers and early adopters were toying with the new tech and…
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Creator Economy
Writing with a Nemesis: Using ChatGPT to Strengthen Your Arguments
Are you getting tired of ChatGPT’s endless regurgitation of SEO-optimized articles and social media posts? Even ChatGPT is getting tired of that. Too many people use the trendy AI as a text…
Read the essay →MicroConf US ’23 Recap — What Happens When 250 SaaS Founders Meet
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThis week, I got on my first post-COVID trip and headed to Denver, Colorado for MicroConf 2023. It. Was. Awesome. Unsurprisingly, being in the same room with 250 other…
Read the essay →Artificial Scarcity Damages the Creator Economy
Artificial scarcity is a trendy marketing tactic. I see limited-time sales, contests, and first-come-first-serve discounts —only 5 copies left at $20!!— all over the place. And it bothers me…
Read the essay →How I Stay Consistent
This week marks the 200th episode of my podcast. For over three years now, I’ve been sharing my thoughts with my fellow founders, creators, and makers — every single week, without fail. Today, I want…
Read the essay →Don’t Fall for the Follower Count Trap
“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” These are the famous words of economist Charles Goodhart, who introduced this concept in 1975. The idea is that when a particular…
Read the essay →Diversify Your Creator Portfolio
As a creative entrepreneur, it has become important to diversify your portfolio and have multiple irons in the fire. Many successful creators end up having a podcast, a newsletter, a YouTube channel…
Read the essay →On Art and Artifice
When generative AI systems can create artworks that win Fine Arts competitions, we have reached a point where bleeding-edge technological experiments start seeping into the larger cultural…
Read the essay →Why Reading Fiction Is Important for Entrepreneurs
I recently heard a saying: “leaders read, and readers lead.” It made me reflect on my reading choices over the last few years and what I have discovered from switching things up a little. A few years…
Read the essay →Open-Source and Bootstrapping
This week, a few remarkable things happened in the open-source scene. First, Mapbox decided to change the license on their popular Mapbox-gl-js library, used by many to power their fancy in-app maps.…
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