Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
36.9 million active customers. 100,000 merchants served in first quarter of 2012. Revenue of $559 million. And a profit at last. Is this the turning point for Andrew Mason's beleagured daily deals website? Watch this space
Four college students plan to take on Facebook, with a decentralised social network. They hit Kickstarter for funds. It goes crazy. They make front page of the New York Times. 600k users join. Then comes the suicide
Huge feature on Internet Marketing scams. Here's how they work: "Find customers, sell them useless products and then send the leads on to industrial strength 'boiler rooms' that separate them from what little money they have left"
Big profile of Zuckerberg, in advance of Facebook IPO. Was he lucky? Did he have the right idea, at the right time? Yes, on both counts. But he's also a talented leader. A much more impressive man than many are prepared to admit
Best piece yet on the notorious Kim Dotcom, and file-sharing website Megaupload. "His plan was to create a more artist-friendly distribution platform where creators would get paid more than they do when Apple sells their product"
Perhaps not yet, but soon. We'll see a computer win a Pulitzer within five years, says Kristian Hammond of Narrative Science. And he just might know; his algorithms already automate stories for Forbes and others
Interview with Marc Andreesen, who at 22 invented early graphical web browser, Mosaic/Netscape, and staged the first dotcom IPO in 1995. Now he's a big-time venture capitalist. His firm just made $800m on Instagram
Monumental essay on origins, development of The Huffington Post. Excellent analysis throughout. "It iterated. It did not try to eliminate the possibility of failure. It did something different. It embraced it"
How a 28-year-old entrepreneur made $400m in 18 months. "In Silicon Valley, there's still too much money chasing too few ideas. If your idea is brilliant and your timing is right, you can become a multimillionaire overnight"
Xu Xiaoping, prominent angel investor, doesn't think China will be able to produce an equivalent of Steve Jobs or Bill Gates from the current generation of entrepreneurs. A surprising claim. Here's why he believes it's true
Profile of Jeff Bezos as tech world's alpha-animal after Steve Jobs. "Most importantly, he shares with Mr Jobs an innate understanding of the importance of thinking about high-tech products from the customer’s point of view"
"The most admirable entrepreneurs are those with original ideas, ja? It's a unique gift that you either have or you don't." Says Oliver Samwer, one of three brothers who do not have ideas. They just copy others. And make billions
