Nick

@holgate
121 Followers
127 Following
494 Posts
failed academic / technology person // semi-failed writer // florps are now likes // moderate or poor, occasionally good
an actual websitehttps://nicksweeney.com
pronounshe/him (ish)
Show threadNickSep 19, 2024

@alexelcu I think Dan Davies taps (in a better way) into precisely where “founder mode” holds up and breaks down, and I also think he rightly identifies Graham’s essay as a maybe tacit, maybe unconscious criticism of the last handful of years of Sand Hill Road culture:

https://backofmind.substack.com/p/i-am-a-mode-you-are-a-syndrome

i am a mode, you are a syndrome

founder mode, in even more abstract terms

Dan Davies - "Back of Mind"
Show threadNickSep 19, 2024

@slightlyoff Post two, to which I responded elsewhere “[ pats self on head ] this bad boy can hold an entire company” (and you should absolutely read “The Unaccountability Machine” because that’s the direction you and our broad cohort have been heading these past years):

https://backofmind.substack.com/p/i-am-a-mode-you-are-a-syndrome

i am a mode, you are a syndrome

founder mode, in even more abstract terms

Dan Davies - "Back of Mind"
Show threadNickSep 19, 2024

@slightlyoff I think Daniel Davies’ two posts on that essay — built from his recent focus on management cybernetics — are also worth a read. They’re more generous to Graham while not being especially generous. Post one:

https://backofmind.substack.com/p/the-general-theory-of-founders-managers

the general theory of founders, managers and systems

notes on “founder mode”

Dan Davies - "Back of Mind"
Show threadNickSep 12, 2024
@hotdogsladies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUf1ili4Zew
ME! Behind The Scenes: The Story of Benjamin Button

YouTube
Show threadNickAug 15, 2024
@overcastfm Hi Marco: I like the redesign a lot but I miss the ability to seek within chapters as I used to. (I think this is heightened by the progress indicator in the chapter view, which out of habit I keep trying to swipe and tap.) Maybe it’s there somewhere and I haven’t discovered it?
Show threadNickMay 21, 2024
@migurski @darius I remember very little of 2014 but I remember XOXO and the thing I remember most about that XOXO was that talk.
Show threadNickApr 22, 2024

@mwichary The Sinclair ZX Spectrum character set is probably better known to a certain cohort than the PC fonts. It has a particular… friendliness? to it that distinguished it from the VIC-20 and C64.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum_character_set

ZX Spectrum character set - Wikipedia

NickApr 18, 2024

Over the last five or so years lots of smart people around me started taking an interest in systems thinking and management cybernetics from the immediate post-WW2 era. I was being drawn in that direction too, perhaps as a reaction to the current [flailing hands] of tech

Anyway, my old mucker* Dan Davies wrote a book called ‘The Unaccountability Machine’ that spends a lot of time on Stafford Beer. Here’s Henry Farrell talking about it.

* he mostly beat me at pool

https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/cybernetics-is-the-science-of-the

Cybernetics is the science of the polycrisis

What Stafford Beer and Dan Davies say and why you need to read them

Programmable Mutter
Show threadNickApr 13, 2024
@peterme I’m totally fine with Hover. (Which is Tucows in disguise.) Before that I was with Gandi which was also fine.
NickApr 13, 2024

@mwshook @ernie

1. It’s a piece of dot-com era history.

2. It’s a good bag. I’ve traveled with mine as a carryon. And this is one that was actually used by Kozmo messengers vs the ones Chrome sold (to people like me) after Kozmo went bust.