5. Jack's: Let's reconsider our "users"

    jacks:

    us·er
    /ˈyo͞ozər/

    Noun
    1. A person who uses or operates something, esp. a computer or other machine.
    2. A person who takes illegal drugs; a drug user.

    Synonyms
    consumer

    During a Square Board meeting, our newest Director Howard Schultz, pulled me aside and asked a simple question.

    “Why…

    This has always bothered me, it’s great to see Jack talking about something most people would dismiss as trivial. 

  9. Did Blowing into Nintendo Cartridges Really Help?

    parislemon:

    Chris Higgins:

    So, dear readers, all signs point to no: blowing in the cartridge did not help. My money is on the blowing thing being a pure placebo, offering the user just another chance at getting a good connection. The problems with Nintendo’s connector system are well-documented, and most of them are mechanical — they just wore out faster than expected.

    So much oxygen wasted in my youth…

    I could never get my beat up copy of Goldeneye to run without doing that.

  10. White Label = be anyone’s bitch

    soundboy:

    I like that quote from Fred Wilson about the dangers of being overly dependent on one platform:

    When Schonfeld asked him about the Twitter ecosystem, and the company’s recent moves to discourage app developers from building Twitter clients, he replied with this one liner, “Don’t be a Google Bitch, don’t be a Facebook Bitch, and Don’t be a Twitter Bitch. Be your own Bitch.”

    For me going white label is the extreme example of this: being anyone’s bitch.

  11. “The first problem is that everybody learns to be a CEO by being a CEO. No training as a manager, general manager or any other job actually prepares you to run a company. The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company. This means that you will face a broad set of things that you don’t know how to do that require skills that you don’t have. Nevertheless, everybody will expect you to know how to do them, because, well, you are the CEO.”

    What’s The Most Difficult CEO Skill? Managing Your Own Psychology // ben’s blog (via pegobry)

  12. fred-wilson:

    such a funny ad

    i love it when the young man’s parents show up

    Considering I just waited 4 hours for an iPhone 5 this is pretty funny