1. From Winner Take All to Win and Help Win: The Original Vision of the Internet is Making a Comeback by Sari Azout. “We’re witnessing a renaissance of individualism on the internet – a breakup with institutions and the rise of the individual and, with that, an unbundling of internet communities. For the creator middle class to rise, we need to see higher resolutions of taste preference and a breakup with singular, discriminatory platform algorithms and the opinion of the ‘few’ that arbitrate taste and force today’s dominant aesthetic.”
  2. The Great Online Game by Packy McCormick at Not Boring. From Gamestop to Musk’s tweets — McCormick argues that it’s no coincidence that recent activities are bizarre and unreal: The internet as a video game played by three billion people. “The Great Online Game is an infinite video game that plays out constantly across the internet. It uses many of the mechanics of a video game, but removes the boundaries. You’re no longer playing as an avatar in Fortnite or Roblox; you’re playing as yourself.”
  3. New AI Regulations Are Coming. Is Your Organization Ready? by Andrew Burt for Harvard Business Review. Over the past few weeks, regulators across the globe created new rules on how companies can use AI. Three trends are emerging: Assessments of AI risks and documentation of risk minimization, accountability and independence, as well as continuous review of AI systems.
  4. The New Era Of Digital Therapeutics by Nikhil Krishnan at Out of Pocket. Nikhil dives into digital therapeutics, which have seen a significant push (and less FDA scrutiny) due to the pandemic.. There’s still quite a bit of uncertainty how one should introduce digital therapeutics and test their efficacy. 
  5. Machine Vision, Robots, and Endoscopes with Matt Schwartz by Nikhil Krishnan at Out of Pocket. Virgo founder Matt Schwartz on the challenges of data annotation and modelling to create software that helps gastroenterologists. Interesting (but not surprising) to see that a lot of focus is placed on making there experience frictionless for the doctors — and thereby capturing far more data than competitors could.
  6. Shein — The Tiktok of Ecommerce by Packy McCormick at Not Boring. Given the hype around Chinese tech companies, Shein has remained eerily low-profile (and that while being one of the most valuable startups in the world). The company transcends fast fashion to the point of “real-time fashion” — but at a time when we should really reconsider how much we want to support underpayment of workers with mindless consumption. “Shein relies predominantly on data and algorithms, supplemented by human insight. It’s a bit like GPT-3 for fashion.”
  7. Be Decision-Driven Not Data-Driven at Techno Sapiens. The allure of objectivity propels a data-driven organization. But too much is lost by the wrong questions asked, or forgetting unknowns in the face of available data. The article shifts the focus from data-driven to decision-driven (and right into the pen of all of Annie Duke’s decision-making work, which I can highly recommend).
  8. The Future of Nudging Will Be Personal by Stuart Mills for Behavioral Scientist. You can personalize a nudge in two ways: personalizing the choices or personalizing the delivery.  Tech progress has made these personalized nudges more feasible. 
  9. What Is an Entertainment Company in 2021 and Why Does the Answer Matter? by Matthew Ball. Entertainment companies of today are complex ecosystems monetizing the love for their stories.“Businesses based around storytelling franchises excel based on an intangible sort of operating leverage. Because it doesn’t actually ‘cost more’ to make someone ‘love your content more’ […]”
  10. Gamification of Chinese Consumer Tech by Lillian Li at Chinese Characteristics. Anyone analysing Chinese tech has come across the mini-games that often seem barely related to the core product. It’s a clever way to bind users to the company, lower CAC, and learn more about the users and their surroundings.”In China, every super-app plays an infinite game by getting its users to play finite games.”