Issue #33: Vint Cerf, Pricing, Water and Arjen Robben.
Surreal. That’s how it felt meeting Vint Cerf and Elise Roy a few months ago. As a technology optimist (and, mostly, an optimistic realist) it was great to interview the man widely known as one of the “Fathers of the Internet,” a co-designer of the TCP/IP protocols and the architecture of the Internet. And I’d been immensely enlightened by Elise Roy’s TED talk on access and inclusion in technology when I watched it last year.
Vint and Elise, both deaf, have spent their careers designing and building solutions that serve the disabled or marginalized amongst us. I’m not an interviewer, my day job is building technology for the water utility industry, but I’d say it was an enlightening conversation shot in one long take. There’s a section of the interview that’s quite self-referential considering the topic we were discussing. Vint and Elise’s message to the rest of us is that it’s time to start designing with empathy. Gone are the days when we could design products, make some ‘slight’ modifications/additions and slap on the inclusive tag. In the age of Glassbox brands, that will no longer fly (says the optimist in me).
Enjoy the video here and the newsletter links below.
Articles
’Not caring what happens’ is a powerful skill to have in most situations.
There are only six degrees of inequality separation. This GQ post from 2012 will stay with you.
I’ve never made it past the first few minutes of the 2nd episode of Game of Thrones but I do recognize the cultural icon that Daenerys Targaryen, also known as Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Lady of Dragonstone, Breaker of Chains, Mother of Dragons is. This is her at her most vulnerable.
Cape Town, Mozambique and all of Africa is running out of water (the many headlines blare), but so is England for different reasons (the one article quietly suggests).
The ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ packs a lot of lessons in the simple text. And that explains its popularity even after 50 years.
Uniqlo, the brand, is as enigmatic as its customers want you to think they themselves are.
For the 15 years I’ve watched Arjen Robben play soccer for Chelsea, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, he’s always cut left. It’s one of the most predictable moves in the sport. But yet it’s unstoppable.
Are we truly out of big ideas? Is that why we are in the state we are in right now?
Deep dive on Google’s DeepMind. [Longread]
Self-driving cars will most likely take hold in the edge cases. Like this video of a self-driving car navigating a retirement community shows.
Product pricing stumps every founder I know. The product is either priced too high or too low. Even when you get your segments right.
The black start. Not a disease or the name of a band. It’s what makes bringing back up a power grid that shut down so hard.
Books
It was a big week for the ride-hailing industry with Lyft’s IPO. And right before Uber’s expected IPO in April I’d suggest you read ’Uberland’. In the book, Alex Rosenblatt shares her learnings from four years of learning more about Uber/Lyft etc like no one else ever has.
’The Ministry of Utmost Happiness’, by Arundhati Roy, would have excelled even more if it was unrelated stories of the three main characters. I’ve picked up her other book, The God of Small Things.
’Where The Water Goes’, by David Owen, reveals a lot of unfortunate truths about the water system in the US. Amongst those truths is that paper water, the legalese that surrounds the allocation and usage of water, actually matters more than real water that flows from rivers and wells. And that is just one of the many problems impacting the water industry in the west.
Have a fantastic April!
Seyi