ak
342 posts
ak
@arthurkolayan
808s & adtech | sales @adMarketplace
Since May 7th, ChatGPT began surfacing more prominent links to brands in its answers. The results: • Referral visits from ChatGPT increased ~150% (week before 7th May vs after) >>
Someone asked what advice founders ignore. That they: 1. Should change their name. 2. Should launch fast. 3. Shouldn't treat fundraising as success. 4. Shouldn't assume they can raise because it's time to. 5. Should fire bad people quickly. 6. Shouldn't talk to acquirers.
I've been working on this essay for a while, and it is mainly about AI and about the future. But given the horror we're seeing in Minnesota, its emphasis on the importance of preserving democratic values and rights at home is particularly relevant.
Today I had to go the Netherlands Embassy to renew my passport and had to print a form I was wondering why my new Brother printer kept printing everything double sided? So I tried to disable it in the printer's own display menu where it's hidden 6 levels deep: > Settings -> All Settings -> Printer -> 2-sided -> 2-sided Print -> Off But it still printed everything double-sided, then I Googled and discovered it's a forced default by the European Union, of course for 🍃 Eco reasons: "To comply with EU ecolabel, the default setting is expected to be duplex (double-sided) in new printers sold in the EU since 2022” I then discovered it's defaulted at both levels, AGAIN in the printer's drivers too, where you have to disable double-sided too on MacOS, again hidden 6 levels deep: > System Settings -> Printers & Scanners -> Brother -> Options & Supplies -> Driver -> Disable duplex Realistically few people will go 2 menus 6 levels deep to disable this and are just stuck with printers that print double-sided in the European Union This is another example of their famous "nudging", they don't make it impossible to print like a normal printer, they just make it highly annoying and difficult for most people to change the defaults Thank you @vonderleyen, very cool!
The amount of bloat in most large orgs is staggering. I know several people who work W-2s for UMich (25K non-faculty staff) who make 6-figs and do maybe 5-10 hours of actual work per week. Many F500 companies are the same. This is why people struggle making the transition from Corp to SMB/Entreprenuership. They have little appreciation for how much has been figured out in these large orgs and how easy their jobs are. I’ve been through this myself. When I was leading Heinz Ketchup I thought I was the linchpin. Hilarious in hindsight. The reality is the business was largely on rails. Built on the work of others for many decades, thus drastically tightening the range of outcomes (usually +/- 2-5% annually). Getting thrown into a SMB can be truly jarring. There’s no $, everything can be on fire at once, the work doesn’t just stop at 5pm, etc. Some can make this transition. Many can’t. The SMB space has been overly romanticized recently. People don’t want to work for Corp America, but they’re often trading that feeling of moderate discontent for much larger, more stressful problems.
A German AI startup called N8n is now valued at $2.5 billion after a $180 million funding round bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
