The Efficiency-Destroying Magic of Tidying Up
In his seminal book Seeing Like a State, James Scott describes what he calls “high modernists:” lovers of orders who mistake complexity for chaos, and rush to r...
Author: florentcrivello
Software, the Tough Tomato Principle, and the Great Weirdening of the World
Marshall McLuhan’s theory that “the medium is the message” famously describes how media are not neutral. Rather, a medium’s nature has a...
Five Promises of Micromobility
Disclaimer: I’m a product manager at Uber. This piece represents my views only, and not those of people working on behalf of Uber. A wave of electric scooters a...
The best companies to start a career in tech
Every time someone, and especially a new grad, asks me for recommendations of companies they should apply to, I point them to the excellent yearly “Career...
Own the Demand
Disclaimer: I’m a product manager at Uber. This piece represents my views only, and not those of Uber, fellow employees, managers, customers, clients, sup...
Go West, Young Man
If you’re in tech, you need to move to San Francisco. The advice holds especially if you’re a student, not having dug your roots too deeply anywhere...
Mind the Moat, a 7 Powers Review
The Lindy Effect has become my top heuristic to decide what to read next. This phenomenon describes how some things tend to live longer, the longer they’v...
Nobody Cares
A friend was commenting on how active I was on Twitter, telling me how he held back from posting anything online, out of shyness. I answered that that was my de...
A Long Week-End in Mexico
I took a trip to Mexico City over the long weekend — it was my first time there, and I absolutely loved it. The city surprised me in many ways, and didn’t...
Favorite Books of 2017
Biographies Einstein: His Life and Universe Definitely the best biography I’ve read this year. It combines details into what’s probably the most inc...
Heroes on the Shoulders of Giants
Epistemic status: I’m outside of my circle of competence when it comes to AI. That said, most of this post is just logical reasoning, independent of AI-specific...
Book Review: Exit, Voice and Loyalty
Exit is an important part of capitalism: by allowing consumers to take their money anywhere they please, it trims out inefficient firms, drives productivity and...