Age of Product food for thought for September 27th, 2015 on the best podcasts for founders, why you should play with LEGO® at agile workshops no more, that we got the unicorn thing wrong, top interview questions from Firstround, click fraud is killing the online advertising industry, feature fallacy, and blitzscaling by Mr. Reid Hoffman:
(via The Pitch): The ultimate collection of podcasts for startup founders
I recently polled our team at The Pitch and asked, “What podcasts are you listening to that feed your inner founder?”. And yes, your inner founder is a thing. It’s the little voice inside that says ‘Do It’ far too often. But I digress. So the team got back to me with their favorite podcasts. All 1,700 of them.
(via Age of Product): No More LEGO® At Agile Workshops – I Am Tired Of Building Airports
However, what is bothering me utilizing LEGO® to practice agile software development processes is the following: LEGO® is too abstract: Most of the participants of the agile workshops mentioned before are professionals from the software industry. Building a ski resort with LEGO® is only remotely related to the various challenges that product people–for example engineers, UX/UI designers, or product managers–are facing.
(via Medium): We’ve Got This Whole Unicorn Thing All Wrong! — What’s The Future of Work?
“Unicorn” is the term du jour in Silicon Valley, used to describe a startup with a valuation of more than a billion dollars. Fortune Magazine started keeping a list of companies with that exalted status. Techcrunch has a constantly updated “Unicorn Leaderboard.”
: Why no one has solved event discovery
My attempt to describe my understanding of event discovery and the fundamental difficulties presented by events as a content type.
(via First Round Capital): Hire a Top Performer Every Time with These Interview Questions
Hiring the right people is extremely hard. Not only is the market tightly constrained — especially for tech companies, but the unwritten rules for how to hire are often plain wrong. With more candidates who “look good on paper” going on to flounder at startups, it’s time to rethink what qualities actually make someone a great employee.
(via Bloomberg): The Fake Traffic Schemes That Are Rotting the Internet
Marketers thought the Web would allow perfectly targeted ads. Hasn’t worked out that way. An exclusive investigation into the bots that will cost companies over $6 billion this year.
(via Medium): Reid Hoffman, John Lilly, Chris Yeh, and Allen Blue’s CS183C Technology-enabled Blitzscaling …
Here is an essay version of my class notes from Class 1 of Stanford University’s CS183C — Technology-enabled Blitzscaling — taught by Reid Hoffman, John Lilly, Chris Yeh, and Allen Blue. Errors and omissions are my own. Credit for good stuff is Reid, John, and Allen’s entirely.
(via Rocket Insights): The Next Feature Fallacy (or, the case for simple, working systems)
Tell me if this sounds familiar: You released the first version of your product some months ago and it was an exhilarating experience. You went through the highs and lows of launch and had moments of excitement and pride when people started using your product for the first time. But…
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