This edition is lovingly curated by Kanyi Maqubela, Partner at Collaborative Fund, an early stage investment firm focused on mission-driven technology businesses, headquartered in New York City.
From the Investors
Nick Chirls of Notation Capital opens up about the challenges of living with depression in a world of social media and constant connectivity in “Always On” “Always On”
Tim Devane of NextView Ventures writes about the need-to-know legal and financial implications of different stock option grants for employees and founders in “Startup employees, before you buy your options…”
Craig Shapiro of Collaborative Fund describes his method for assessing a company’s value on the basis of a consumer’s self-interest in “The Villain Test”
Hunter Walk of Homebrew Ventures interviews Jacob Jaber of Philz Coffee, where they discuss the challenges and opportunities with scaling a venture-backed retail business in “Five Questions With Jacob Jaber of Philz Coffee”
From the Operators
Makinde Adeagbo of Pinterest admits that the appearance of expertise and the reality of it often look very different, and offers tips to help people fight imposter syndrome in “Nobody Knows What they’re Doing”
Liza Conrad of Hopscotch explains how they are building company culture to focus on successful communication, recognizing that too often important details are lost in “The Entrepreneurial Power of Embarrassment”
Yancey Strickler of Kickstarter argues that when everyone optimizes for money and graphs that are up and to the right, the effects are strongly negative to society in “Resist and Thrive”
Ryan Sheffer of Momunt reflects on his experience launching his app, and the new challenges mobile apps face with discovery, driving downloads, and building brand in “Nobody Wants Your App”
Brenden Mulligan of LaunchKit makes the case for founders to send regular investor updates, and outlines TL;DR easy steps to do it in “Every seed stage founder should send monthly investor updates.”
Ellen Pao of Reddit describes a life of learning about diversity in business, reflects on the discrimination she has faced, and strikes an optimistic note in “Silicon Valley Sexism IS Getting Better”
Ben Thompson of Stratechery pens a provocative post about the power of openness in the digital era as Google announces that it is open-sourcing its machine learning algorithm in “TensorFlow and Monetizing Intellectual Property”
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