What We’re Reading
A few good articles the Collab team came across this week …
Cycles
Elad Gil on career advice:
Go work at a company with a great team and terrible market for 6 months. Realize that markets sadly matter more then teams in terms of success.
Then go work at a terrible company in a great market for 6 months. Realize that markets sadly matter more then teams in terms of success.
Finally, go work at an early Google or Stripe and watch magic happen.
Power
The shift in VC funding and what it’s done to founder power:
Twenty-five years ago, to go public you had to sell stuff – not just acquire users or have freemium products. People had to actually pay you for your product. This required a repeatable and scalable sales process, which required a professional sales staff and a product stable enough that customers wouldn’t return it.
Freedom
Yes:
Here’s a short list of things I value in terms of my career:
Working with good people that I respect and get along with.
Helping others (both clients and colleagues).
Aligning my work with my personal value system and principles.
Staying away from products or services I don’t believe in or wouldn’t personally recommend to others.
Working on projects I’m interested in.
Working with the right clients and avoiding the wrong ones.
Doing work that keeps me engaged.
Continuing the learning process on the never-ending path to self-improvement.
Keeping stress levels to a minimum.
Avoiding micro-managers.
Time
Scientists have even coined the term “time famine” to describe the pervasive feeling of being overwhelmed with the demands of work and life.
People who report frequent feelings of time scarcity are less happy and more prone to anxiety and depression than people who report feeling time affluent. Public health researchers have ranked time stress as one of the most important social trends underlying rising rates of obesity.
Future
More of these popping up around the world:
One of Bill Gates’ investment firms has spent $80 million to kickstart the development of a brand-new community in the far West Valley.
The large plot of land is about 45 minutes west of downtown Phoenix off I-10 near Tonopah.
The proposed community, made up of close to 25,000 acres of land, is called Belmont. According to Belmont Partners, a real estate investment group based in Arizona, the goal is to turn the land into its own “smart city.”
“Belmont will create a forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs,” Belmont Partners said in a news release.
New wave
The new generation of consumer companies, featuring our own Sophie Bakalar:
Startups that cannot undercut incumbents on price must differentiate themselves in other ways. Casper won over many shoppers by getting rid of the worst bits of the bed-buying process, including choosing among dozens of similar products and haggling with pushy salesmen. Allbirds, a two-year-old San Francisco-based firm that makes all-wool trainers, has tweaked the design of its shoes 27 times based on feedback from customers.
Have a good weekend.