Tech Knowledge - Take Notes

O'Reilly's Mary Treseler chats with Microsoft designer Cindy Alvarez about how design is changing, how the approach to design at Microsoft is changing, and user research misperceptions and challenges. She also offers advice to those who are insisting all designers should code.

Design is How Users Feel When Experiencing Products

Messaging app WeChat tells us a lot about mobile and business in China. In a recent deep-dive primer on the WeChat phenomenon, a16z partner Connie Chan analyzed WeChat and the notion of app-within-apps, payments as a gateway drug, platforms vs portals, and what happens when utility is more important than being "social". Wired senior writer David Pierce also describes the power of conversational messaging as the main interface, further arguing that “A great messaging app could be to the web browser what the browser was to the internet before it.”

So what happens when a messaging app essentially becomes an operating system for our lives? What conditions made the mobile, business, and cultural environment in China so ripe for a phenomenon like WeChat? How does voice change everything? And, let's face it, what are the tradeoffs users (both consumer and business) as well as developers may have to make when one app does in fact rule an entire ecosystem? Connie and David discuss on this episode of the a16z Podcast. Plus what happens to loneliness, work-life balance, and more.

a16z Podcast: Messaging As the Interface to Everything

Can digital work fight poverty? Can companies be profitable and also do social good -- especially in a society where the proxy for value is capital and much of that value accrues to platforms? And finally, what's the difference between a mission-driven and 'social' entrepreneur?
 
Samasource, a nonprofit that uses technology to connect marginalized people around the world to digital work, is one attempt at answering those questions. In this segment of the a16z Podcast, we talk with founder and CEO Leila Janah about employment of all kinds -- from sweatshop work to the gig economy to remote work. Janah also argues what the nonprofit world should borrow from for-profit startups -- including attitudes around failure and better measures of success.

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a16z Podcast: Connecting People with Digital Work, the Gig Economy, and More

O'Reilly's Mary Treseler chats with Suzanne Pellican, VP and executive creative director at Intuit, about three core principles of design thinking and about Intuit’s journey to become a design-driven organization.

Reconciling Design Thinking With the Craft of Design Doing

Ben Einstein chats with David Cranor and O'Reilly's Jon Bruner about critical issues for hardware startups.

Ben Einstein on Accelerating Hardware Startups

O'Reilly's Jon Bruner and David Cranor chat with Brady Forrest, vice president at Highway1, and Renee DiResta, vice president of business development at Haven, about hardware startup success stories, pitfalls, and best practices.

Brady Forrest and Renee DiResta on Advising Hardware Startups

Julia Ko, founder of SurePod, talks about entrepreneurship, niche product development, and spotting business opportunities.

Julia Ko on Developing a Different Kind of Smartphone

"The most boring yet valuable podcast in a16z history" -- he (our guest Joe Grundfest) said it, not we!

That’s because in this episode of the a16z Podcast, Stanford law professor and former SEC commissioner Grundfest -- and securities litigation lawyer Nicki Locker of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati -- discuss not just the importance, but the almost literary balance ("somewhere between haiku and Tolstoy") behind doing board meeting minutes just right.

Yes, that's right: this is a podcast all about board minutes. But it is arguably the most "valuable litigation insurance you can buy for free” ... especially if you learn to create a record that can survive an attack by a conspiracy theorist. 

a16z Podcast: 'The Most Boring Yet Valuable' 20 Minutes, All About Board Minutes

In this episode of the Hardware Podcast, we talk with Mengmeng Chen, head of U.S. operations at Seeed Studio.

Tech Knowledge - Take Notes

Averi Thomas-Moore