Auren Hoffman

Keep your identity small

If you are going to read one thing in life, read this piece.  I like to re-read it once a year to remind myself that one should not be beholden to one’s past self.  

The ORIGINAL Netflix slide deck on culture

100+ slides. Best doc on culture. This is the deck that kicked of the Silicon Valley HR revolution.

The only thing that matters

“In a great market—a market with lots of real potential customers—the market pulls product out of the startup.”

Rich and Anonymous

There’s an ideal net worth for everyone, after which money becomes a social liability. People get rich to buy status, but the truly wise stay anonymous. 

7 techniques to do email marketing

Email is the best communication medium invested in the last century. Yes, it is massively under-rated. Susan Su goes through her techniques to get noticed.  

How to give a great presentation

Storytelling is one of the most important business skills … and I am terrible at it.  Calacanis breaks down how to simply tell a story.

“Winners Take None”

Most software markets are winner take all. Some of the most (over)hyped VC-backed “tech companies” of the past decade are probably winner take none, and maybe never were tech companies.

Corry Wang on Ozempic

A fascinating thread on the wide-ranging implications of a real anti-addiction drug. An underappreciated number of consumer categories depend on a tiny cohort of super-consumers (including gambling, alcohol, candy and soda). What happens when addiction is curable? 

The age of average

In the 1990s, two Russian artists paid polling firms to create surveys on the “ideal” painting in a dozen countries around the world. The paintings all turned out more or less the same. Three decades later, that phenomenon has crept into all corners of style and culture around the world.