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Y Combinator (YC) is seen as the world's best, and most prolific, three-month accelerator program. Upwards of 7,000 founders have taken part. Yet, no…

Three rare and powerful skills…

This is a guest post by Guilherme Mori, CTO at zMatch, about his experience using Akita to quickly understand his API endpoints pre-launch and to easily monitor them post-launch.

Chris Dixon's blog.

Plus! Pensions; Customer-Facing; Use Cases; Making a Market; Reflexive Energy Politics; Diff Jobs ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌Open in browserWelcome to the weekly free edition of The Diff.

Plus! Parity; Work from Home; Surgery; Buffett and Energy; Splinternet Update ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌Open in browserWelcome to the weekly free edition of The Diff.

Using ACT to move toward what matters.

Plus! The China AI Stack; Closing the Loop; Ads and Addiction; The Second-Order Costs of Inflation; Fraud and Transaction Costs ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌Open in browserWelcome to the weekly free edition of The Diff.

In the two decades I've been managing people, there's never been a termination that didn't sting. Acting on the knowledge that someone isn't working out is probably the hardest task for any conscientious manager. It's only natural to meet that difficulty and that sting with regret: I could have done more. But the hard truth is often a ...

"Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing", intones Tyler Durden in Fight Club, as his alter-ego is screaming from the chemical burn. It's a profound scene that taps into a well of philosophical thought that humans have been struggling with forever. And it's applicable to more mundane affairs too. I like to think of this ...

Lately I’ve been studying Andrew McConnell’s new book Get Out of My Head: Creating Modern Clarity With Stoic Wisdom and listening to his interview on The Atlanta Story podcast. With a n…

In 1990, the New York City Transporation Commissioner closed 42nd Street for Earth Day. Everyone expected that closing a major cross-town artery would cause historic traffic jams. Instead, traffic flow improved. One of Seoul's busiest freeways, the Cheonggyecheon Freeway, was built over the Cheonggyecheon River and ran through the heart of the city. It carried 168,000 cars per day. In an effort to restore the river, the city demolished it and built a 5-mile public park. Travel times improved, a

Long term, will v8 Isolates become the basis of a generalized computing platform, or will containers1 (or some other type of software container)? Or will there continue to be separate infrastructure, application, and edge runtimes? The isolation technologies are complementary today – they make different trade-offs with cold starts, security boundaries, and resource profiles. You'll find v8 Isolates powering edge functions like Cloudflare Workers (but not Lambda@Edge). However, there are many pu

The end-to-end principle is a design pattern used in the early Internet that suggests that Specific application-level functions usually cannot, and preferably should not, be built into the lower levels of the system – the core of the network. It was formalized in a 1984 paper, End-to-End Arguments in System Design, by Saltzer, Reed, and Clark. The paper uses an example of securing a file transfer between two computers. There are many steps during the transfer where the file could get corrupted

Most web3 applications will probably be more off-chain than on-chain. And I think that's OK. Sufficiently decentralized technologies have a reasonably low cost of participation, a reasonably low level of censorship, and a reasonably low level of trust among actors. What's reasonably low? It depends. Take a look at how the web works today. Sufficiently decentralized – it may be difficult to become a domain registrar, start an ISP, or run your own DNS infrastructure (that others use), but anyon

Open-source developers are rarely compensated relative to the impact that their code has. So how should we fund code that might be considered a public good? Gitcoin is a platform that funds open-source development, mostly in web3. It's funded about $64m in open-source development since 2017. Fund are allocated through grants, bounties, and contests. The funding model is unique as it relies on something called Quadratic funding0. Quadratic funding is where the amount received by a project is pr

A new wave frontend toolchain is emerging, and it's extremely performance-driven. I'm talking about Deno and bun (runtimes),  esbuild, swc, and Rome (bundlers), to name a few. These tools were built as a response to the slowness and complexity of Webpack. Some traits that separate them from the pack * Written in compiled systems languages like Rust, Go, C++, or other languages like Zig that expose low-level constructs. * Maximize parallelism * Take advantage of cache locality * Edge native

Fred Brooks observed in Mythical Man Month that adding more programmers to a project often slowed it down. The effect works in reverse, as Paul Graham noted in a 2001 essay, The Other Road Ahead: as groups get smaller, software development gets exponentially more efficient Graham was observing the early effects of SaaS and web programming. No need for porting applications to different operating systems or physical releases (floppies, CDs, or software appliances). SaaS removed the dependency h

Technology companies were right to care so much about vendor lock-in in the last two decades. In the past, developers were burned by IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle services, often with few alternatives and price gouging. But to align your strategy so vehemently against the same type of lock-in in the cloud era would be wrong. Vendor lock-in still exists (switching costs will always be one core driver of competitive advantage), but the calculation is much different. Lock-in is a trade-off between po

Functional and event-driven programming – for the masses. Or how I once wrote a Kubernetes-based CI/CD system in Excel0. Functional programming has been around forever. Lisp is the second oldest programming language1. Now that Excel is Turing Complete with the LAMBDA function, it might finally be the time that Excel and spreadsheet languages might be the trojan horse for introducing full lambda calculus to the masses. Visual Basic and Excel built-in functions are limited in their expressivenes

Adverse selection happens when there is information asymmetry between buyers and sellers. One side takes advantage of information that isn't known to the counterparty. It's one of the most important economic ideas to think about when starting a company or buying or selling anything. A few examples of adverse selection in technology markets: * SaaS. Complicated technology can be difficult to evaluate ahead of time. For decades, companies dealt with shelfware – enterprise software that was purc

Kubernetes is also becoming more embedded in other systems, so its adoption may not be as visible as it once was.

Chances are you’ve never heard of Igalia, the open source consultancy. Yet you’re almost certainly using something that Igalia helped build.

YC's library of startup advice: essays and videos that teach you how to start a company.

Chips are the clearest example that economic efficiencies will not be the ultimate decider of technology’s end state: politics will play an important role.

An asset you don’t deserve can quickly become a liability.

The US is fundamentally rethinking its approach to regulating competition, and M&A, and tech, and big tech buying startups. The FTC’s attempt to block Meta from buying Within is a test case for all of this. So, how many interesting problems can we count?

Two weeks ago, Mitt Romney wrote an opinion piece in The Atlantic titled, “America Is in Denial”.