Early Work

A great mental model for how to evaluate and embrace new ideas and business models.

  • Challenging your imagination to understand how the idea could work versus why it won’t is harder than you think.

  • Judge the initial results of a new product with a lower standard. Understand it is a sketch of what will become a final painting.

These are just a few tips from legendary angel investor Paul Graham. As the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, it is critical executives embody parts of this framework as they navigate the business landscape.

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Author: Paul Graham. Read: 11 min

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To Boldly Go Where No Internet Protocol Has Gone Before

One of the founders of the internet, Vinton Cerf, has a new protocol to improve interplanetary communications.

“If you’re trying to steer a vehicle on Mars and it takes 20 minutes for your signal to get there, you might turn the wheel and, 20 minutes later, the car turns and goes over a cliff. Then, 20 minutes after that, you discover that you just lost your $6 billion vehicle. “

“TCP/IP doesn’t work at interplanetary distances,” Cerf said. “So we designed a set of protocols that do.”

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Author: Quanta Magazine. Read: 22 min

QR Codes: Cities and Eyes

Hara Masahiro’s invention would be defined by speed, conveying thousands of characters in a fraction of a second. The “quick response” or “QR” code was born.

Scan the monochrome box and engage with a number of possibilities: the prompting of a URL or vCard, the revelation of a message or image, the scanning of a ticket, the movement of data.

 

Does this invention lead to cameras being the new browser? Understanding the amount and type of information a QR code can generate, it is now appending data to tangible objects. Hard linking the digital to the real. Adding a new information layer to reality.

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Author: The Generalist. Read: 19 min

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