Are we about to see a Facebook bank run? Building trust is hard because trust has to be built incrementally, and it only takes one (perceived) mistake to undo years of trust-building. Facebook is very publicly dealing with this issue today, but the problem they face goes beyond locking down developer access to user data and … Continue reading What will it take for us to trust Facebook again?
When I moved from Taipei to Los Angeles at the age of 11, I had already heard much about “America” and how it’s the best country in the world. My dad and I got off the airplane, got in a car, and went on the 405. I saw the vast freeway traversing through bald, brown … Continue reading A San Franciscan tries the future of mobility — LimeBike, SPIN, Bird, and JUMP Bike
Mark Zuckerberg’s news feed in 2006 (source: Slate) Last Friday, Facebook’s Head of News Feed Adam Mosseri announced that Facebook will begin prioritizing content created by friends and family over content from the media, brands and other Pages since space in the News Feed is limited. This is a good long-term move for Facebook and I … Continue reading How Facebook saved the news industry
A new approach to storytelling One of the most frustrating aspects about being a maker is telling the story of what you’re making. You toil away for years obsessed with your project. You want the world to know about it so you post something here on Medium and nobody reads it. You pay a fee … Continue reading Why Upbeat is building the future of PR
Why “few successful startup founders grew up desperately poor” My co-founder David and I both grew up in poverty and can call ourselves “battle-tested” when it comes to both life and startups, so when the talk in the Valley turned to income inequality, our ears perked up. For a moment, our two worlds were colliding. … Continue reading Privilege and inequality in Silicon Valley
What does it mean for someone to "grow up" in your organization? What kind of values would the person possess? What would the person be really good at? I started thinking about this after attending a board meeting for BASES (Business Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students) as an advisor. In that meeting, we elected Ruby Lee to … Continue reading Growing up in BASES
What Steve Jobs meant to me. Having just learned about his death, I'm mustering something together to try to articulate Steve Jobs' impact on my life. Unlike many people here in the valley, I wasn't much of a geek, let alone an Apple fanboy. I came to Stanford because they offered me a great financial … Continue reading What Steve Jobs meant to me
Many people ask me, "YC is over, now what?" I guess I'll make that a blog post. Y Combinator is never really over. Why would you want it to be? I want to build a serious business, and that was very clear in the beginning especially when we traded company stock for a small amount of money … Continue reading Y Combinator is over, now what?
School year is coming to an end, and I am graduating have graduated (I waited before I published this one)! Right before the end of the year is usually transition time for many student organizations because smart leaders understand the need to spend time transitioning and ramping up their young and fearless replacements. During this … Continue reading Recruiting for Your Student Organization
At Startup School late last year, Tony Hsieh talked about motivation vs. inspiration. He said that when running a company, most people think about motivation, whether it's through incentives, threat, recognition, etc., but if a company strives to inspire its employees, motivation becomes less important. That's a great concept. A couple of weeks ago Zynga's … Continue reading Scaling Myself
Ricky Yean 