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Articles by Chris Saad
I am wildly excited about AI. It’s clear we are watching the foundations of a new era of industry and civilization being laid, and few people have done more to make that future possible than Jensen Huang. His optimism is infectious. His command of technology, business, and ecosystem building is extraordinary. NVIDIA’s contribution and long-term prospects are hard to overstate. That is why I find parts of his recent arguments about AI risk so frustrating.
The Startup podcast
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8 Reasons Why Productive Debate And Progress Has Stalled
I've been thinking about the varied and interrelated reasons why we can't have constructive conversations anymore. What follows is what I've got so far. Throughout, I use examples from two hot-button issues that are sure to upset many people - Israel/Palestine and Gun Control. Submit your own ideas and constructive debate in the comments below. 1.
How LLMs like ChatGPT are Further Ripping Apart Our World.
In a previous article, I introduced and labeled a massive cross-generational technology-powered trend I call " Unbundling." Unbundling refers to breaking down traditional systems, industries, and products into their constituent components, enabling people to have more personalized experiences. In the post, I highlight several historic examples across various industries that showcase the transformative power of this process.
The AI Revolution has outgrown The Turing Test
Context As AI becomes a transformative part of our technology landscape, a common vocabulary about the capabilities of each new tool and technique is essential. Common vocabularies create shared intellectual spaces allowing all stakeholders to accelerate understanding, increase adoption, facilitate collaboration, benchmark progress, and drive innovation. So far, the most widely known tool for benchmarking AI is the Turning Test.
The 19 character traits of an intentional and impactful leader
What follows is a complete summary of the new book "The Leadership Lens: Part 01 - Character Traits". By most definitions, leaders are the people in charge of others. Instead, I define leaders as people who are in charge of themselves. Leaders may be your most dependable friend, your favorite boss, your dearest aunt, an esteemed political figure, or a brave first responder who has inspired you. They are any individual who is intentional and impactful in their lives.
On Curiosity
One of the defining characteristics of the modern world is a rapid and increasing rate of change. Curiosity is the way you learn and adapt more quickly. Over the next ~19 days I'll be sharing the key character traits of leaders from my book "The Leadership Lens". These snippets are the key descriptions of how leaders think and act within the book.
40 tips for building a startup after 19 years of success and failure
I've been working on startups in one form or another since about 1999. I started hanging out in Silicon Valley informally in 2008, and moved formally at the beginning of 2009. After building a number of startups, products, brands and ecosystems my journey so far has culminated in heading up product for the Uber Developer Platform and now, helping growing startups as a Strategic Advisor. In Silicon Valley there's a particular flavor of startup that gets built.
On Intention
On Intention setting Leaders are diligent about determining medium to long-term goals for themselves. They then ensure that their intention is consciously and deliberately aligned with those goals as new contexts arise. On elevating intention Leaders work to elevate their intentions to match with their highest aspirational and moral imagination. Before setting their intentions, they take a moment to consider whether they might broaden their focus or increase their ambition.
America, the land of the free.
An essential part of the value I bring to the companies I work with as an external advisor and fractional executive is simply having the emotional and tactical distance from the day-to-day details, people, and politics to see things just a little bit more clearly. When you have some distance from anything, your perspective changes, and you're able to see a broader view.
6 essential things that democracy and capitalism need to repair themselves
1. Measuring the right things GDP and Stock market growth are not the only measures of success. We need to measure violence, happiness, equity and so much more. What you measure you pay attention to. What you pay attention to, you work on and change. 2. An explicitly agreed minimum standard of living Any group of any size - including a society - will determine (either implicitly or explicitly) a set of basic rules and goals.
NFTs have the wrong name
People are so confused about NFTs. Part of the confusion is that they're being misrepresented by the current hype cycle. The first problem is that they have the wrong name. They're named in contrast to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies instead of being called what they really are. It would be like calling money "Currency" and cars and homes "Non-fungible Stuff". But that's not what we call them. We just call them "Assets". So, similarly, NFTs should be simply be called "Crypto Assets". Let me explain.
Tips and Tricks for Building a Great Developer Platform
As a serial entrepreneur, strategic adviser, former Head of Product @ Uber Developer Platform, Co-founder of Echo (grew dev platform from zero to 85 Billion API calls a month), co-author of APML, and co-founder of the DataPortability Project I've spent my career building products that developers love.
Media companies and whistleblowers falsify narratives for their own gain
That's called lobbying. That's how people and companies get governments to re-think outdated or ineffective rules. There's nothing unusual or inherently bad about it. Was it? Or was just effective and efficient lobbying - a key part of the democratic process? Isn't adding more choices for drivers and riders more democratic? Isn't fighting against Taxi cartels democratic? Maybe Uber was simply seen as an important company with something valuable to say?
For startups, Scale is the priority
Scale is the most important goal for any startup. But how do startups scale? How do large companies act and disrupt like startups do? That's the number one thing that most founders and companies I encounter struggle with. They're often moving too slowly or building technology that is too hard to sell, support, and use.
Clubhouse is mostly a distraction if you're a startup founder or product builder
In all my years building and operating startups, the most important lesson I’ve learned is this… Those that build the right product and broadly market it most effectively, win. This might seem obvious to some. But in my experience, too many founders spend too little time building and too much time hesitating, philosophising, pontificating, and/or getting bogged down things that don’t really matter.
Clubhouse is mostly a distraction is you're a startup founder or product builder
In all my years building and operating startups, the most important lesson I’ve learned is this… Those that build the right product and broadly market it most effectively, win. This might seem obvious to some. But in my experience, too many founders spend too little time building and too much time hesitating, philosophising, pontificating, and/or getting bogged down things that don’t really matter.
Australia is trying to shake down Facebook: here's why it's wrong
In case you haven’t heard, Australia is proposing a new law that will force Facebook and Google to pay news orgs for linking to their content. In response, Facebook has stopped allowing the sharing of links to Australian news sites. As one would imagine, the response has been shock and horror at the power and overreach of “big tech”.
The 19 character traits of an intentional and impactful leader
What follows is a complete summary of the new book “The Leadership Lens: Part 01 — Character Traits”. By most definitions, leaders are the people in charge of others. Instead, I define leaders as people who are in charge of themselves. Leaders may be your most dependable friend, your favorite boss, your dearest aunt, an esteemed political figure, or a brave first responder who has inspired you. They are any individual who is intentional and impactful in their lives.
Why you shouldn’t delete Facebook
The backlash against Facebook for its complicity in Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data to affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election threatens to undermine and roll back some of the gains that we’ve all made for an open and interoperable Web. There’s a lot about the backlash that misses the point. Let me explain: The ability to log into new apps with your Facebook or Google account and share some of your data is called data portability.
Welcoming the Era of Deep Neuroevolution
By Kenneth O. Stanley, Jeff Clune On behalf of an Uber AI Labs team that also includes Joel Lehman, Jay Chen, Edoardo Conti, Vashisht Madhavan, Felipe Petroski Such, & Xingwen Zhang. In the field of deep learning, deep neural networks (DNNs) with many layers and millions of connections are now trained routinely through stochastic gradient descent (SGD). Many assume that the ability of SGD to efficiently compute gradients is essential to this capability.
Breaking News: Your website is not an iPad App
The big trend in website redesign right now, particularly in news media, seems to be: Some of these things (like making it clean) are great. Most are not. As shocking as it might be to hear, your website is not an iPad App. Also shocking is the fact that most iPad apps are not successful because they have iPad App layouts. They are successful because most of them offer rich engagement.
Quick take: 3 things for a successful Dev Platform — These are the essential factors you need to consider
Quick take: 3 things for a successful Dev Platform - These are the essential factors you need to consider
The Driver API: Get the Most Out of Every Mile
Tax season is in full swing, and while we can all agree that it’s not the most wonderful time of the year, it doesn’t have to be the most stressful, either. That’s why we’re excited to announce new API-powered partnerships with Intuit TurboTax, H&R Block, Stride Drive and Credit Karma that are designed to minimize stress and maximize savings for people who drive with Uber in the US.
Trump Supporters: You’ve been deliberately misinformed.
This video above is not a mistake. It’s just the most recent and blatant example of a deliberate and dangerous reality distortion field that’s been coming from the right for a long, long time. Most notably from Fox News and most recently from the Trump campaign. It’s designed to scare you into voting Republican. Because any population that’s afraid is easy to manipulate and subjugate. To anyone who still supports the Republican Party and/or Donald Trump.
Introducing the Driver API – Uber Developers
The Uber Developer Platform has had a series of important milestones. From its initial launch of the Rides API to the release of the Ride Request endpoint, the Trip Experiences API and most recently the UberRUSH API. In each case, we’ve tried to push the boundaries of what’s possible for developers and offer meaningful opportunities to build moving experiences. Today, we are pleased to announce another powerful new capability: the Driver API.
Unbundled
How the breaking apart of traditional, rigid structures is creating a personalized, on-demand future and changing the everyday interactions of people, politics, and profit. This post is based on a theory and a book outline I’ve been chipping away at since 2010. Since I’m probably going to be too busy to ever finish the full thing, I figured I would massively truncate and post it here so that it’s finally out in the world in some form.
Unbundled - ART + marketing - Medium
In Silicon Valley we’ve used the term “Unbundling” to describe the phenomena of mobile apps breaking apart into multiple separate apps, each essentially providing more focused, single purpose features. Think of the Facebook app being separated into Facebook + Messenger. I believe this Unbundling phenomena is happening almost universally across all aspects of life. It’s a meta-trend that has been happening for decades (or more) and will continue for decades to come.
Announcing the Ride Request Widget
The complete Uber ride experience in your app, with just a few lines of code In December we introduced the Ride Request Button. The button provides a quick way to deep link into the Uber app, bringing the promise of “Tap a button, get a ride” to users everywhere, in any app. Since then we’ve dug in with developers in India, China and Australia to learn how they engage with the API and what tools they need to be successful.
Alexa! Your Uber is Arriving Now
The simplicity of ordering an Uber can be a magical experience and one that we continue to iterate on it. Today we are excited to take it one step further by allowing you to request an Uber ride with just your voice. This is all made possible thanks to our the Uber API and our integration with Alexa, the brain behind Amazon Echo. Now you don’t have to rely on your phone when you’re ready to go. You can simply ask Alexa to order an Uber for you, and she’ll request a ride right to your door.
Uber Trip Experiences Connects Riders and Apps
We opened our API to developers globally over a year ago. Since then we’ve seen the creative ways that other apps have used Uber’s API to help get riders from A to B. Buy baseball tickets on StubHub and you’ll get a reminder to book your ride when it’s time to head for the game. It’s the same with United Airlines for flights and OpenTable for restaurant reservations. And Facebook’s Messenger lets you and your friends request a ride right when you are chatting.
Uber + MedStar = Driving Towards a Healthier Future
Patients who miss medical appointments or have to reschedule at the last minute frequently cite transportation as a factor. That’s why we’re excited to announce a collaboration with MedStar Health, the largest healthcare provider in Maryland and the DC metro region, to help ensure reliable and convenient rides to medical appointments. MedStar is focused on becoming a premier digital healthcare organization.
39+ tips for building a startup after 15 years of success and failure
Added on February 21, 2015 by Chris Saad. I’ve been working on startups in one form or another since about 1999. I started hanging out in Silicon Valley informally in 2008, and moved formally at the beginning of 2009. In Silicon Valley there’s a particular flavor of startup that gets built. One where you “raise money, grow fast and make an impact”. In Silicon Valley “Success” is about being validated by a large market (most important), investors (less important) and “making the world a better place”.
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