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The story of textiles IS the story, history, and evolution of technology and science (across all kinds of fields, from biology to chemistry); of commerce (as well as management, measurement, machines); but most of all, of civilization (vs. just culture) itself. That's what Virginia Postrel's new book, The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World is all about. But it is in fact a story of innovation, of human ingenuity... which is also the theme of the a16z Podcast.
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For better or for worse, we tell the stories of entrepreneurs as one of the mythical hero's journey: that's there's a call, a test, a destination... But are we indulging in hero worship or failure porn? Where does and doesn't optimism come in for building? Storytelling IS business -- whether it's a company or a community or a product or a movement -- and is not just about the stories we tell others but the ones we tell ourselves.
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A number of features were announced at Apple's WWDC/ Worldwide Developers Conference this week, but this episode of 16 Minutes on the News focuses on just one: Apple's "App Clips" coming to iOS14.
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In this special "2x" episode (#32) of our news show 16 Minutes -- where we quickly cover the headlines and tech trends, offering analysis, frameworks, explainers, and more -- we cover the tricky but important topic of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The 1996 law has been in the headlines a lot recently, in the context of Twitter, the president's tweets, and an executive order put out by the White House just this week on quote- "preventing online censorship". All of this is playing out against the broader, more profound cultural context and events around the death of George Floyd in Minnesota and beyond, and ongoing old-new debates around content moderation on social media.
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It’s a podcast about podcasting! About the state of the industry, that is. Because a lot has changed since we recorded “a podcast about podcasts” about four years ago: podcasts, and interest in podcasting — listening, making, building — is growing. But by how much, exactly? (since various stats are constantly floating around and often out of context); and what do we even know (given that no one really knows what a download is)?
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Beyond the overly simplistic framing of trade as “good” or “bad” — by politicians, by Econ 101 — why is the topic of trade (or rather, economies and people adjusting to trade) so damn hard? A big part of it has to do with not seeing the human side of trade, let alone the big picture across time and place… as is true for many tech innovations, too.
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In business, mistakes of omission may be just as bad as (if not worse than) mistakes of commission — simply because of the loss in potential upside: new companies, new products, new opportunities for growth. Or eve...
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In this episode of the a16z Podcast — recorded as part of our podcast on the road in Washington, D.C. — we (Sonal Chokshi and Hanne Winarsky) discuss all this and more with Ross Andersen, senior editor at The Atlantic who wrote “Welcome to Pleistocene Park“, a story that seems so improbably wild yet is so improbably true. And while we focus on the particulars of what it takes to make this seemingly Jurassic Park-like story true, this episode is more generally about what motivates seemingly crazy ideas — moving them from the lab to the field (quite literally in this case!) — often with the help of a little marketing, a big vision, and some narrative. And: time. Sometimes, a really, really, really long time…
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In the age of virality, what does it actually mean to be popular? When does popularity — or good product design, for that matter — cross over from desire and engagement… to addiction? Journalist and edi...