In the world of startups, the “Founder Mode” concept has sparked considerable debate. This leadership style, where founders are deeply involved in day-to-day operations, is often hailed as a crucial ingredient for success. However, as startups evolve into more complex enterprises, the suitability of Founder Mode comes into question. This essay delves into the intricacies of Founder Mode, contrasting its benefits in the early stages of a company with its limitations as the organization grows, and explores alternative strategies that may better suit mature companies.

“Founder Mode” is a term popularized by Paul Graham, describing a leadership approach where founders maintain direct control over daily operations. Proponents like Airbnb’s founder and CEO Brian Chesky argue that this hands-on involvement is essential for startup success, fearing that reliance on professional managers might dilute the company’s core values and impede long-term achievements.

As a four-time startup founder deeply committed to the hands-on approach, I firmly believe in the necessity of direct involvement in the early stages of a company’s journey. Early-stage startups do need a founder who interacts with the teams directly. However, this management style is not scalable for more mature companies. Companies mature like Airbnb should explore alternative strategies for growth.

Before I delve into my argument, let’s start with the facts: Nobody disputes that when companies grow, more people must be brought in to run them. AI might change the slope of this equation, but directionally, this will stay true for the foreseeable future.

Ultimately, founders decide who to hire, especially in the early days. They have a choice between hiring Missionaries and Mercenaries. Missionaries fully subscribe to companies’ missions, will endure the uncertainty of starting a business, and will stick around longer than regular employees. Sometimes, they are even willing to accept lower pay, which is usually what early-stage companies can afford. However, Missionaries are rare because there might not be enough people who genuinely believe in your mission to support it as it grows.

Therefore, as founders scale companies, they will need to rely more and more on the second type of employee, Mercenaries. Mercenaries are incentive-driven individuals who join companies looking at what they will get from it, usually financially. Because founders are hiring fewer employees who are naturally aligned with the company’s mission, they will need to devote more energy to maintaining the company culture as they scale. The problem is that typically, early-stage companies don’t have the bandwidth to invest in their culture, though, and they see an evident erosion on that front.

When a company’s culture begins to falter, it has a ripple effect across various aspects of the company. Employees who are inspired by the company’s mission are the ones who put in the extra effort, think about the company even outside of work hours, and go above and beyond to contribute to the company’s success. However, when the mission loses its strength, employees’ performance tends to suffer, especially when faced with complex challenges. This decline in individual performance can spread like a contagion if not addressed promptly, affecting other employees, including Missionaries, who may become disheartened and leave, further exacerbating the decay of the company’s culture.

Founders should act to mitigate the natural process of company culture deterioration when a lower proportion of Missionaries are in the company. If there is no way to avoid bringing in non-Missionaries, companies should make sure that the employees they hire are legit Mercenaries. However, as Chesky and Graham claim (even without saying that way), hiring the right Mercenaries is easier said than done. It’s hard because companies fail to create proper alignment between the employees’ goals and the company, as I’ll explain later.

If you look at that angle, Founder Mode applied to later-stage companies is nothing but a way to fix the low performance driven by company culture degradation. It would be much better for founders to look for structural ways to fix the root cause of the low performance: culture dilution.

As we navigate the scaling challenges, it’s crucial to understand that simply increasing numbers isn’t enough — how to grow matters just as much. The shift from early reliance on Missionaries to a balanced integration of well-aligned Mercenaries is not just a hiring strategy but a vital pivot to sustain companies’ core values during expansion. This strategic evolution in hiring practices is essential to maintain the integrity of the company’s mission and ensure the company culture thrives regardless of size.

So, what hiring strategy should companies adopt? Early-stage companies should over-index on hiring Missionaries to defend the culture. Tip: Many former founders are Missionaries by nature, plus they bring a holistic view of businesses since they typically understand other founders’ unique challenges. Founders in later-stage companies should set up generous compensation packages tied to concrete performance goals to force alignment throughout the company.

In conclusion, it’s evident that the responsibilities of founders dramatically transform as their companies mature. This evolution requires a shift from hands-on tasks to strategic leadership, emphasizing the development of a resilient culture and a well-aligned team. By mastering this transition, founders can ensure their companies not only survive but thrive in competitive environments. The future of any company depends significantly on the founder’s ability to foster an adaptable, enduring culture and ensure alignment across all levels of the organization. To keep companies thriving long-term, founders should take responsibility for maintaining their company culture flourishing and align the team with the company’s success through any means necessary: purpose or greed.

Introduction

Navigating a growing list of LinkedIn contacts can become a daunting task rather than an opportunity for professional growth. This shared challenge amongst myself and my two co-founders led to the inception of CherryPick, a solution built to transform your LinkedIn networking experience into a streamlined, enjoyable journey.

What is CherryPick?

CherryPick is a Chrome extension designed to simplify and amplify the potential of your LinkedIn network. My co-founders and I, each with an extensive network on LinkedIn, felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of connections. People we knew well, individuals we encountered once at conferences, investors we pitched, former clients — our LinkedIn connections held immense potential for professional growth, yet the lack of effective organizational tools stood as an obstacle.

That’s where CherryPick steps in. With CherryPick, you can effortlessly categorize and tag your connections, crafting an organized network that’s easy to manage.

CherryPick integrates smoothly with LinkedIn, enabling you to tag contacts as you navigate the site. With just a click on the CherryPick box or the add tag button, you can either create a new tag or select from existing ones. The process is intuitive and user-friendly, simplifying the way you manage your LinkedIn contacts.

CherryPick also offers a comprehensive dashboard to navigate and manage your tags, review your contacts, and even export these tags to any system of your choosing. The best part? You’ll enjoy all these features in an ad-free environment.

Why We Created CherryPick

Our motivation to create CherryPick originated from a shared need. As users with sizable LinkedIn networks, we found ourselves constantly grappling with an overwhelming list of contacts that was tough to manage efficiently. Traditional methods of contact management were cumbersome and ineffective, leading to missed opportunities and a subpar networking experience.

With CherryPick, we’ve created a tool that streamlines and enlivens networking efforts. Not only does it allow users like us to efficiently categorize and manage contacts, but it also makes the process engaging and fun. By transforming the often mundane task of networking into an interactive experience, CherryPick converts LinkedIn networking from a chore into a compelling opportunity, opening doors for strategic professional interactions.

Overview of Use Cases

CherryPick is a versatile tool designed to enhance the networking experience for everyone from HR professionals and recruiters, to freelancers, entrepreneurs, and even students and job seekers.

Whether it’s mapping out talents for job openings, tracking potential clients, following up with leads or managing prospects and investors, CherryPick is the tool that ties it all together.

While we’ve given you a glimpse of how CherryPick can revolutionize your networking experience, there’s a lot more to explore. In the coming weeks, we’ll share in-depth use cases, revealing how you can fully leverage CherryPick’s features.

Our Plans for CherryPick

Though CherryPick began as a side business, our vision extends far beyond mere profitability. We aim to create a tool that adds significant value to our users, one that evolves and improves based on user feedback.

While profitability is certainly a goal, user experience will never take a backseat. CherryPick will always be an ad-free tool, ensuring an optimal networking experience free of distractions.

Conclusion

CherryPick is here to revolutionize LinkedIn networking. With it, you’re not just organizing your contacts; you’re strategizing for your professional growth.

We invite you to try CherryPick and experience the difference it can make in your networking endeavors. We’re confident that once you’ve tasted the ‘cherry’ of an organized network, you’ll never look back.

So, give CherryPick a whirl, and start your journey towards mastering your network. We promise — you’ll be ‘picking’ the best out of your LinkedIn contacts in no time!

Join our Beta

Introducing CherryPick: Your Ultimate LinkedIn Networking Companion was originally published in useCherryPick on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introduction

In their article, “The Coronavirus Could Cause a Social Recession,” Dr. Vivek H. Murthy and Dr. Alice T. Chen discuss the widespread problem of loneliness and the negative impact it has on our health and well-being. They argue that the COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the risk of a “social recession,” a fraying of social bonds that further unravel the longer we go without human interaction.

The Loneliness Crisis

Recent data highlights the severity of the loneliness crisis. Studies have shown that 22% of adults in America struggle with loneliness, and 35% of people over the age of 45 are lonely. Even more alarming, health insurer Cigna conducted studies in 2018 and 2020, showing the loneliness rate at greater than 50 percent, with particularly high rates among young adults. Chronic loneliness is associated with a greater risk of heart disease, dementia, depression, and anxiety, as well as a shorter life span. Social isolation, in turn, has been linked to a range of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and substance abuse.

The importance of social connections cannot be overstated. Strong social bonds are not only vital for emotional well-being, but they also play a crucial role in physical health. Research has shown that people with strong social connections live longer, have lower rates of chronic disease, and enjoy better overall health outcomes.

Dr. Vivek Murthy, who is our current Surgeon General, has published a book around the topic of human connection and, more recently, has been on a crusade to make us all aware of this Loneliness Epidemic, and how our society should treat this seriously.

15 Minutes to Connect

Murthy and Chen’s recommendation of spending 15 minutes each day communicating with loved ones is a simple yet powerful practice that can have a significant impact on one’s emotional well-being and help counteract the effects of loneliness. By setting aside time each day to engage in meaningful conversation or shared activities, individuals can strengthen their relationships, reduce feelings of isolation, and improve their overall mental health.

Introducing Grape: The AI-Powered Solution

Grape is an AI-powered platform designed to combat loneliness and foster meaningful social connections. By making it easier for people to know who to engage and providing ideas for meaningful interactions, Grape aligns with the recommendations set forth by Murthy and Chen. The platform leverages AI to help users manage their relationships and cultivate deeper connections with friends and family, fostering stronger relationships and combating the loneliness crisis.

Friend Relationship Management (FRM)

Grape starts with a Friend Relationship Management (FRM), which includes information about users’ friends, such as interests, types of friends, and scores based on Aristotle’s friendship types (as we covered in our last article). By leveraging this data, Grape’s AI generates personalized activity suggestions that cater to each user’s unique friendships, enabling them to engage in meaningful social interactions.

The AI Advantage

One of the key advantages of using AI in a platform like Grape is its ability to process and analyze large amounts of data quickly and efficiently. This allows the platform to continually adapt and evolve, offering users tailored suggestions and nudges that are relevant to their specific needs and preferences. As a result, users are more likely to feel engaged and motivated to participate in social activities and maintain connections with their friends and family.

The Role of Technology in Fostering Social Connections

While technology has undoubtedly contributed to the rise of loneliness in some ways, it also has the potential to play a significant role in fostering social connections. Platforms like Grape demonstrate the potential for technology to be used as a force for good, by helping individuals to nurture their relationships and feel more connected to others.

Conclusion

In conclusion, loneliness is a pervasive and damaging issue that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. By offering a platform that encourages users to spend time nurturing their relationships, Grape is poised to play a vital role in combating the loneliness epidemic. By leveraging AI to generate personalized suggestions and nudges for meaningful interactions, Grape empowers users to engage in at least 15 minutes of quality communication each day, as recommended by Murthy and Chen.

By prioritizing social connections and providing the tools needed to cultivate and maintain them, platforms like Grape offer a promising solution to the loneliness crisis. As technology continues to evolve and integrate more seamlessly into our lives, it is crucial that we harness its potential to foster meaningful connections and improve mental and emotional well-being.

Ultimately, the success of Grape and other platforms in combating loneliness will depend on widespread adoption and a commitment to nurturing our social connections. By actively participating in this effort and embracing the potential of technology to foster deeper relationships, we can work together to counteract the loneliness epidemic and improve the overall health and well-being of individuals and communities.

As we wrap up our discussion, we invite you to share your thoughts on this topic. Do you believe that AI-powered platforms like Grape can effectively combat loneliness and foster meaningful social connections? Remember that Grape currently has a waitlist at https://joingrape.com, where you can sign up for early access and be part of the solution to combat loneliness. We look forward to hearing your opinions and experiences in the comments below.

Loneliness Epidemic: How Grape’s AI-Powered Platform Can Foster Meaningful Social Connections was originally published in usegrape on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In his philosophical work “Nicomachean Ethics,” the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle introduced three types of friendships: Friendships of Utility, Friendships of Pleasure, and Friendships of Virtue. He believed that these friendships contribute to a person’s happiness and well-being. In our modern world, where technology has become a vital part of our lives, Grape, an AI-powered Friend Relationship Manager (FRM), can help us cultivate and maintain these friendships to lead a more fulfilling life.

Aristotle’s Three Types of Friendship

1. Friendships of Utility

These friendships are based on the mutual benefits that friends provide each other, typically involving business contacts. They are formed out of necessity and convenience, often arising in professional or business relationships. In these friendships, individuals help each other accomplish their goals, making their lives easier.

2. Friendships of Pleasure

These friendships revolve around the enjoyment that friends derive from each other’s company. They are formed through shared interests, hobbies, and activities, providing a sense of belonging and fun. Friends of pleasure are those friends that you love to hang out with and that lift you every time you meet.

3. Friendships of Virtue

These are the most profound and long-lasting friendships based on a mutual appreciation of each other’s character and shared values. In these relationships, friends support and encourage each other’s personal growth and moral development. Friends of virtue are those few friends that you can really count on during tough times.

The Role of Grape in Enhancing Aristotle’s Three Types of Friendship

Grape can help users cultivate and maintain Aristotle’s three types of friendships through its unique features, such as personalized activity suggestions, conversation starters, and its innovative Friend Relationship Manager (FRM).

1. Facilitating Friendships of Utility

Grape can help users strengthen their friendships of utility by suggesting professional events to attend with their business contacts. By recommending events related to their shared professional interests, Grape enables users to maintain their valuable professional friendships while working towards their goals. Additionally, Grape can provide articles for users to share with their friends of utility, fostering an exchange of valuable information.

2. Nurturing Friendships of Pleasure

Grape focuses on helping users rekindle and foster their existing relationships rather than meeting new people. The platform can recommend activities such as hanging out, traveling together, going for drinks, or playing sports, which align with users’ shared interests, allowing them to bond with their friends of pleasure over enjoyable experiences.

3. Cultivating Friendships of Virtue

Grape’s FRM can analyze users’ communication patterns and provide insights into their relationships’ health, highlighting areas for improvement. By offering tailored suggestions for deepening connections, Grape helps users invest time and effort into their friendships of virtue. Users can receive nudges to check in on their friends, share their feelings, or engage in meaningful conversations, fostering mutual support and personal growth.

What We’re Looking for from Each Type of Friend

1. Friendships of Utility

In the long run, we seek to do business together, sell, hire, get hired, receive or make investments with friends of utility.

2. Friendships of Pleasure

We desire to date, hang out, travel together, go for drinks, play sports, attend concerts, or engage in other fun activities with friends of pleasure.

3. Friendships of Virtue

With friends of virtue, we seek deep conversations, emotional support, shared growth experiences, and a lasting connection based on trust and mutual respect.

In an increasingly connected world, loneliness remains a pervasive issue. Grape, which leverages AI to help users build and maintain meaningful relationships, can play a significant role in addressing this problem. By enhancing Aristotle’s three types of friendships, Grape empowers users to create and maintain deeper connections, contributing to their overall happiness and well-being and achieving what they want from each type of friendship.

By utilizing Grape’s Friend Relationship Manager (FRM), users can effectively manage their friendships in a way that is similar to Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for businesses. This innovative approach allows individuals to keep track of their relationships and ensure they are investing the appropriate time and effort into each friendship category.

Moreover, Grape’s commitment to privacy and security ensures that users can trust the platform with their personal and professional connections, allowing them to focus on what truly matters — building and nurturing meaningful relationships.

In conclusion, Grape offers a unique solution for people seeking to enhance their personal and professional connections based on Aristotle’s three types of friendships. By leveraging artificial intelligence and its innovative Friend Relationship Manager, Grape provides users with the tools they need to nurture and maintain their relationships effectively. As a result, Grape is poised to transform how we approach our connections, creating a happier and more connected world.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be among the first to experience this groundbreaking platform and unlock the potential of your relationships. Join the Grape waitlist today at https://joingrape.com, and stay tuned for exciting updates from the team behind this incredible journey! Together, let’s create a more connected and meaningful world, one friendship at a time.

Aristotle’s Three Types of Friendship was originally published in usegrape on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introduction

Loneliness is a growing public health concern, with an increasing number of people in the United States experiencing feelings of isolation and disconnection from friends and loved ones. Combating loneliness is essential for mental and physical well-being. In this article, we’ll explore three effective strategies for overcoming loneliness that can make a difference in your life and help you build lasting connections.

Three Life-Changing Strategies for Overcoming Loneliness

1. Immerse Yourself in Social Activities

Join clubs and organizations, or attend events that align with your interests. Engaging in social activities not only helps you make new friends but also allows you to enjoy meaningful experiences with like-minded individuals.

2. Rekindle Old Friendships and Connections

Reconnect with people from your past, such as old friends, classmates, or colleagues. Don’t be afraid to reach out and rekindle relationships that may have gone stale over time.

3. Foster Deeper, More Meaningful Connections

Invest time and effort in developing strong, meaningful connections with others. Be present, actively listen, share your experiences and emotions, and show genuine interest in their lives.

How a Revolutionary App Can Help

For those with busy lives, a revolutionary app called Grape makes it easier to combat loneliness and maintain strong connections. Here’s how Grape supports you in staying connected:

1. Personalized Activity Ideas and Conversation Starters

Grape encourages engagement by providing personalized activity ideas and conversation starters tailored to your relationships. This feature helps you stay connected and engaged with your friends, both old and new, while fostering deeper connections.

2. Consistent Engagement and Connection Maintenance

Grape’s platform ensures you never miss an opportunity to engage with your friends and loved ones. The AI-powered system provides gentle reminders and suggestions, allowing you to be more present and engaged in your relationships without overwhelming your contacts.

3. Strengthening Personal and Professional Relationships

Grape is designed to nurture and grow all types of relationships, whether you’re looking to deepen existing connections or make new friends. Grape empowers you to take charge of your social life.

Conclusion: Transform Your Social Life Today

Overcoming loneliness is crucial for overall well-being, and these life-changing strategies can help you strengthen your connections and lead a happier, healthier life. Grape is the catalyst for positive change in your relationships, making it easier to maintain and grow your friendships, especially for those with busy lives. Don’t miss your chance to be among the first to experience Grape — join the waitlist today and take the first step towards a more connected life.

Join the Grape Waitlist Now

The Ultimate Guide to Overcoming Loneliness: 3 Life-Changing Strategies was originally published in usegrape on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Introduction

In today’s fast-paced world, maintaining strong personal and professional relationships can be a challenging task. People often find themselves struggling to balance their work, family, and social lives, leading to the deterioration of their connections. Grape, an innovative new platform, aims to revolutionize how we nurture and maintain our relationships by offering personalized activity suggestions and conversation starters.

The Grape Difference

While there are numerous platforms and tools available for managing connections, Grape sets itself apart through its unique approach to solving the problem. It focuses on providing personalized and meaningful suggestions that help users stay engaged with their contacts, creating more meaningful connections over time.

By combining artificial intelligence with user input, Grape delivers a tailored experience that caters to the specific needs and preferences of each user. This ensures that the recommendations provided are relevant and genuinely helpful in nurturing relationships.

Key Features of Grape

Grape offers a range of features designed to strengthen connections, including:

Personalized Activity Suggestions: Grape’s AI-driven system generates customized activity ideas based on users’ interests and preferences. This helps users bond with their contacts through shared experiences.

Conversation Starters: Grape provides conversation starters tailored to each relationship, taking into account both personal and professional connections. This feature helps users engage in meaningful conversations and stay in touch regularly.

Intelligent Relationship Nurturing: Grape’s AI finds the right balance to keep relationships healthy. Its alerts ensure users are present and engaged without overwhelming their contacts.

Flexible Communication Channels: Grape recognizes that communication preferences vary among users, allowing them to choose their preferred methods. This can include in-person meetings, phone calls, or digital channels.

Privacy and Control: Grape puts users in control of their data, explaining why it collects information and ensuring it’s never used for advertising purposes.

The Power of AI in Grape

Artificial intelligence is crucial in Grape’s ability to provide personalized suggestions and improve the user experience. Grape’s AI can generate meaningful recommendations that cater to each individual’s needs by analyzing user preferences, interests, and communication patterns.

This AI-driven approach not only ensures that users receive relevant suggestions but also helps them discover new ways to connect and engage with their contacts. By leveraging the power of AI, Grape is revolutionizing how we approach our relationships.

Grape in Action: Reasons for Joining the Waitlist

Rekindling Old Friendships

When Sarah moved to a new city for work, she left behind a tight-knit group of friends from college. Over time, they lost touch as everyone got busy with their careers and families. Sarah heard about Grape and decided to join the waitlist, hoping that it would help her rekindle those precious friendships. With Grape’s personalized activity suggestions and conversation starters, she believes that she can reconnect with her old friends and maintain those relationships despite the distance.

Strengthening Professional Relationships

As a freelancer, Jack relies heavily on his network to find new clients and projects. However, he often struggles to keep in touch with all his professional contacts, making it difficult to maintain strong working relationships. Jack joined Grape’s waitlist after learning about its potential to help him nurture his professional connections. With Grape’s assistance, Jack hopes to stay top-of-mind with his contacts and be the first person they think of when they need a freelancer for their projects.

Connecting with New People

Marie recently attended a networking event and exchanged contact information with several potential collaborators. She was excited about the possibilities but worried about how to effectively follow up and establish strong connections with these new contacts. After hearing about Grape’s waitlist, Marie decided to join, believing that Grape’s personalized approach could help her turn those potential collaborators into lasting professional relationships.

Maintaining Long-Distance Family Connections

For Emily, family is everything. However, with her relatives scattered across the globe, she finds it challenging to maintain strong connections with everyone. Emily joined Grape’s waitlist, hoping that the platform’s features would help her stay in touch with her family members more effectively. Grape’s personalized activity suggestions and conversation starters would make it easier for Emily to connect with her relatives and ensure that those relationships remain strong, even over long distances.

Balancing Busy Lives and Relationships

As a busy entrepreneur, David struggles to find time for his personal relationships. His hectic schedule often leaves him feeling disconnected from friends and family. When he learned about Grape and its mission to revolutionize personal and professional connections, David decided to join the waitlist. He believes that Grape’s intelligent relationship nurturing can help him maintain and strengthen his connections without adding more stress to his already demanding life.

These real-life examples demonstrate the potential impact of Grape on various aspects of our personal and professional lives. By joining the waitlist, individuals like Sarah, Jack, Marie, Emily, and David are taking the first step towards transforming their connections and creating a happier, more connected world.

Grape’s Future Plans

The team behind Grape is continuously working on refining and expanding the platform’s features to provide an even better user experience. Future plans include enhancing the AI algorithms to generate more personalized suggestions, improving the interface, and incorporating user feedback to tailor the platform to serve their needs better.

Privacy and Security

Grape is committed to ensuring user privacy and security. The platform gives users complete control over the information it collects and explains why it needs the data. Grape will never sell user information to advertisers, ensuring that users can trust the platform with their personal and professional connections.

Additionally, Grape employs stringent security measures to protect user data from unauthorized access and data breaches. This commitment to privacy and security sets Grape apart from other platforms in the market.

The Importance of Nurturing Connections

In our increasingly digital world, the importance of maintaining strong personal and professional relationships cannot be understated. These connections directly impact our mental health, happiness, and overall well-being. Grape recognizes this and aims to provide users with the tools they need to nurture their relationships effectively.

By offering personalized activity suggestions, conversation starters, and intelligent relationship nurturing, Grape enables users to stay engaged with their contacts, preventing their connections from going stale or being forgotten. In doing so, Grape is creating a more connected world, benefiting everyone involved.

Conclusion

Grape is an innovative platform designed to revolutionize how we manage and maintain our personal and professional connections. By combining artificial intelligence with personalized recommendations, Grape provides users with the tools they need to nurture their relationships effectively.

With its unique features and commitment to privacy and security, Grape is poised to change how we approach our connections. By joining the Grape waitlist, you can be among the first to experience this groundbreaking platform and unlock the potential of your relationships.

Don’t miss the opportunity to transform your connections and create a happier, more connected world. Join the Grape waitlist today and stay tuned for exciting updates from the team behind this incredible journey!

Revolutionize Your Connections: Introducing Grape was originally published in usegrape on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

With the advent of the internet, there was a belief that it would be a powerful tool for making new friends. In the early days of the internet, Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) and other platforms provided an opportunity to connect with people from all corners of the world and learn about different cultures. The problem is that the internet was conceived with anonymity at its core, so we could not know who we were talking to. As a (back then) famous cartoon by Peter Steiner says: “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog”

Over time, the internet has evolved significantly, and the way we communicate and interact with others has changed. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become the norm for staying in touch with friends and family, as well as making new connections. But they were still allowing anonymous users. The results? Tons of fake profiles, stalking, harassment, and trolling.

Facebook attempted to address this problem by implementing a real-name policy for user profiles. The idea was to make the platform safer, but in practice, it did not work, as evidenced by the proliferation of misinformation campaigns on the platform.

Despite the prevalence of fake users, trolls, stalking, and other problems, people continue to use social networks to find new friends and maintain existing relationships. This is largely because there are no viable alternatives available, forcing people to compromise their privacy and expose themselves to intrusive advertisers. Here’s the deal: Social media sold to us that they were connecting people, helping us make friends and stay in touch with our friends. But that’s a farce.

The truth is that social media companies convinced us to post publicly about ourselves, promising us that our friends would see what we’ve been doing and engage with our posts. This is such unnatural behavior. Would you broadcast in real life about the dish you ate? Or about the workout you did? Aside from narcissists, a regular person has no need to brag about mundane things. Now, influencers and brands do want to reach prospects and customers. Facebook and others might’ve started as Social Networks, but they morphed into Social Media companies. Emphasis on Media.

Do you see where I’m getting here? By pretending to still be social networks (or at least not being transparent they are media companies) those companies are in fact hiding their real agenda. They have successfully tricked us into becoming broadcasters, so we create enough organic posts to dilute the ads they sell. Basically, they normalized this weird behavior of broadcasting our private lives so that they could sell more ads. And by making this habit of oversharing mainstream, they also grabbed tons of data from us, which they passed to advertisers so they could sell more ads.

How many times have you posted something legit: like your kid’s graduation, and not many people engaged? Maybe it’s because they don’t care. Or, maybe, just maybe, is because they didn’t see your post at all because your post got scrambled into a torrent of garbage ads.

It’s time to be anti-social. It’s time for us to stop pretending that the pros of the current model of social media outweigh the cons. Teen depression, election influence, radicalization. The list of externalities from social media is immense, and the problems they cause to our society are profound.

Meta anticipated this trend and hedged their business by acquiring WhatsApp years ago. Zuckerberg is a visionary and realized that the days of social networking are ending. As he said in 2019: it’s a switch from the town square to a more private “living room”. The problem is that Meta shouldn’t be the one guiding this change. They have too much at stake to drive anything meaningful.

To solve for making new friends, what we need is a brand new model, a tool to help us find new people with shared interests with us. It’s more like dating apps than social media. Once we find those people, we can engage in private conversations using whatever service we want to.

We still have the problem of maintaining friendships. I bet you lost contact with good friends. I, for one, have so many friends I lost contact with, people I love and care about much. I moved countries, there’s the time zone difference, work, and taking care of kids. Ultimately, life got in the way, and I couldn’t keep those friendships alive.

So here’s my concept: Friend Relationship Management (FRM). Simply put, FRM will create prompts to prevent your friendships from going stale. It would provide alerts and nudges to promote conversation starters with your friends, from things you both like. It would suggest activities you could do together. Again, you would be in charge of picking the communication service you want to use to talk to your friend. Maybe you want to call them, who cares.

I’m considering building this company. Should I? Is this a stupid idea? Let me know your thoughts! Also, let me know if you want to get involved!

Update: I AM starting a business around this concept. It’s called Grape, and you can join our waitlist here!

The dirty little secret of Big Tech is that they’ve built their empires on the backs of small businesses and individuals, who invest their time and money in giving away the content that ultimately fuels these platforms.

Take Google, for instance. Of course, Google delivers a lot of value to users. Because it’s the de facto global data repository, every content creator must be in Google. Here we have a classic network effect in play: users rely on Google because it has all the content, and new content providers join Google because all users are there.

Google makes most of its money by selling ads on search result pages, and it’s not exactly incentivized to give users a quick and precise answer to their queries. They’d rather inundate users with a barrage of results and hope they’ll click on as many paid ads as possible. It’s a conflict of interest, plain and simple.

Now let’s look at the distant second search engine: Bing, from Microsoft. It basically copies Google — from the product to the business model. Nothing weird in it — as even Google copied its sponsored search ads model from another company. However, Microsoft’s Bing is finally bringing something new to the table. After investing in OpenAI, they’re integrating ChatGPT into their search engine to provide users with a single answer, cutting down on the endless clicking and scrolling that Google forces on its users.

Google and the original Bing might have been exploiting content creators all these years, but at least those creators could get some visitors from time to time. And with those visitors, creators could make some money (by selling stuff, subscriptions, etc). But now, with Bing generating a text response by repurposing content from millions of sources, how will creators get paid? Bing shows the sources of the text, but frankly, who will click on a citation? Microsoft should pay creators who provided the content OpenAI used to generate results. It’s that simple.

Maybe it will take years, maybe a whole generation, but I’m positive that without a new business model that values content creators, we will get to a point where there will be no original content anymore. AI will be creating content based on AI content. Are we prepared to give up our creativity to machines? I, for one, am not.

We have been having nightmares about Skynet and robots annihilating humans. We’ve been wrong all these years. They are coming for our souls, not our bodies.

Last week I had the honor and the privilege to join an amazing group of people at the European Innovation Academy Portugal 2018 Program. In my opinion, it is by far the best short-program I have ever seen.

What is EIA?

No worries if you have never heard about the European Innovation Academy (EIA) yet — I have to admit I had never heard about EIA before either. Being from Brazil and living in the Silicon Valley for the past 4 years, I guess I wasn’t their main target audience anyways. Luckily, someone mentioned EIA at our 500 Startups mentor group and got me intrigued.

Turns out EIA was founded back in 2011 in Estonia as a non-profit and, according to their website, has the mission to guide current and future professionals in innovative, entrepreneurship education and accelerate both individuals and companies towards successful digital growth. During these years, the program has evolved tremendously, and breached out from Estonia to have editions around the globe: Italy, Portugal, China, Qatar. So far, more than 15 thousand people participated in the program from over 85 countries.

About the program

What caught my attention about the program was its depth. You can think about its methodology as a practical and actionable Lean Startups manual. In the course of three intense weeks, aspiring entrepreneurs learn the theory, but most importantly, are guided to apply that theory in practice to start a tech company.

EIA created a comprehensive guide that combines theory with tasks in a logical and sequential way. Along all the phases, mentors like myself, coach and validate teams’ progress, giving feedback as they advance their startups’ development. All in a healthy balance between academia and business.

After participants submit their startup ideas, they group into 5-people teams, balancing all required capacities necessary to develop an idea into something more concrete, and later pitching it to investors. Each team should have these skills covered: design, programming, marketing and business.

Once groups are formed, it’s time for them to validate their ideas by interacting with real people, their future clients. After the validation, they start building the prototype, and later, thinking about how to acquire their first customers.

The final step is preparing the team for pitching investors and judges at the end of the program.

Mentoring at EIA

As a first-time mentor at EIA, I also enjoyed the fact the EIA had also a structured approach it gives to mentees to us mentors. Having a defined workflow, allowed me to focus on my task in hand and to optimize my impact on the teams.

Every day, mentors would meet before starting the mentoring sessions. The Chief Mentor Jeff Abbott led those mentor meetings, when EIA would share knowledge and collect feedback from mentors in order to improve the program’s own workflow.

There were a few types of mentors and my role was Marketing Mentor. I worked alongside Daniel Vila Boa, who was a Chief Mentor and we were assigned to mentor 6 groups and help them with validating their idea, creating their website/landing pages, defining customer personas, and launching their first customer acquisition campaigns.

After the mentoring session, all mentors should validate what was delivered by each mentee team and write comments to help them for the next day.

My Beloved Teams

All teams were made of young people, mostly students. They flew from all over the world to participate: people from US (Berkeley, Green Bay, Florida Universities), Qatar, and many from the top local Portuguese Universities. I loved how diverse teams’ composition were and happy to see many women on all teams.

Also, was very interesting to see those young students dealing with relationship problems and overcoming them. Some of my teams had serious disagreements over ideas and how to divide tasks among them.

One team in special felt they needed to pivot after receiving strong feedback against their initial ideal. We called assistance from the Life Coach Mentors, and Sebastien Nuñez came to rescue us. He conducted a series of exercises and conversations that brought their energy level from less than 4 on average to over 7. Basically, the team was concerned they couldn’t conduct a full pivot on time for the nest stage in the program. In the end, they were able to finish up reviewing the business plan and coming up with their marketing plan in time.

As I am writing this article, all my 6 teams were able to qualify for the next phase, where they will be assisted by Software and Hardware Mentors. As a mentor, I just assisted them, and they should have all the merits!

Besides Mentoring

Being a mentor at EIA Lisbon per se was a blast! I have been mentoring in small scale informally and at 500 Startups for quite a while and participated on a few Startup Weekends before, but the intensity of this program was something special.

Also, mentoring in the same place you live means that you are not meeting with many new and diverse set of people. Yes, Silicon Valley is a hub that pulls great minds from all over the world, but with some exceptions, younger people tend to go study at the same schools, what sort of makes them similar in the end. However, being abroad means that almost everyone is coming from a more diverse background and that is lovely!

As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I had the opportunity to meet such an incredible group of people, people who also volunteered their time to participate in the program. Here is a shoutout to some of them, with their LinkedIn links and descriptions. I apologize in advance if I let some of you out, but those were the ones I had the chance to know better:

· Charles Goguet: Venture Partner; Fund Advisor (Impact Investing); Blockchain passionated, Alt coin investor; Fintech Consultant.

· Daniel Vila Boa: CEO at Chilltime

· Daria Vodopianova: Personal Branding & LinkedIn Strategist | TEDx Speaker | Keynote Speaker | Author | #LinkedInLocal Lisbon Host

· Dirk Lehmann: Inspiring and Connecting Innovators | Advisor | Coach | Speaker

· Emad Saif: Entrepreneurship Educator | LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator | Speaker

· Jeff Abbott: Managing Partner of Global Scaling Academy

· Patricia Soares da Costa: Partner/ Branding Consultant MARQUINISTA — a locomotiva das marcas | branding | comunicação | turismo

· P.J. Leimgruber: Lecturer at University of Southern California | USC Blockchain | district0x

· Rene Rumberg: Multi-award-winning international marketer looking for new challenges

· Rodrigo de Alvarenga: Entrepreneur, Mentor, Professor, CEO and passionate about tech & social entrepreneurship, innovation and education.

· Ross Kingsland: Managing Partner at Social Media Thunder | NED at GIA | Tech Advisor and Growth Hacker | Writer at FAST Company | CMO

· Ryan Kauth: entrepreneurship & small business ownership advocate

· Sébastien Nuñez: Transforming Entrepreneurs into Superheroes 💪 Keynote Speaker & Coach | Superhero Institute Founder | 3*TEDx Speaker

· Tõnis Ostrat: Technical Director @ Paladin Partners

And I need to thank Karin Künnapas, Head of Program Development at EIA for all the impressive event and for inviting me to participate.

Next Steps

I am writing this article in the plane from Lisbon back to San Francisco. As I have told Karin, I would love to bring EIA to Brazil, to try to help the next generation of South-American entrepreneurs.

Hope my article was able to convey how awesome EIA program is, and how it is by far one of the best ways to really capacitate students, making a real difference in any startup ecosystem.

If you want to know more, please visit EIA website to learn more and get in touch if you want to help!

I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting roundtable at GDC 2018 presented by IGDA. The event was called Professional Ethics for Game Designers and was hosted by Sande Chen, Writers Guild Award and Grammy-nominated Writer and Game Designer (you should check out her interesting review of the event, by the way).

The roundtable beckoned readers to voice an opinion “as to whether or not game designers need a professional code of ethics much like the Hippocratic oath for doctors.” Here is the event description:

“With gaming disorder a mental health concern, do game designers have an obligation to refrain what would be considered ‘exploitative design,’ that is, game design that takes advantage of player addictions and/or mental defects?”

I expected to leave that event with some sort of consensus. What I really wanted was to see a core of game designers starting a movement that could culminate with a positive change in the industry. After all, we’ve seen similar movements on adjacent industries such as Social Media, where industry luminaries and even former Facebook executives complained about the addictive nature of social media (even implicating themselves). We’ve also seen organizations such as the Center for Humane Technology which was created to demonstrate how this technology could be used for good.

[Read our article about Social Media and Depression]

However, it seems that the gaming industry hasn’t reached that stage of enlightenment yet. Sadly, the roundtable ended with no consensus. What we saw instead was gamers split into three groups, which I have categorized:

1. The Concerned: Game designers very concerned with the wellbeing of players, and with addiction and its consequences.
2. The Skeptics: Those that were refusing to see the danger that games could cause. They attempted to blur the lines between an engaging experience with an addictive one.
3. The Pragmatists: Those who took a more profit-driven focus. This group believes that exploiting addictions and vulnerabilities is the nature of the industry, and that those who refuse to do so will be less competitive.

Prisoner’s Dilemma

What I realized after leaving the event is that the industry is facing what is called a Prisoner’s Dilemma, which is a psychological experiment that tests self-interest. Basically, if two criminals betray each other, they each receive two years in prison. If one betrays the other, the betrayer walks free while the betrayed gets the maximum sentence of three years. If they cooperate, they each receive only one year on lesser charges. The criminals must make this decision without any knowledge of what the other will do.

Game designers seem to be faced with a similar dilemma, and few are willing to cooperate. They want to betray each other (and their consumers by proxy) by making their games more addictive than their competitors’. The harsh consequence they would receive by the betrayal of their competitor would be loss of revenue or even their company’s economic viabilities. Alternatively, game designers could cooperate and do what’s in the best interest of everyone involved.

Choosing to betray one another and continuing to design games to be more and more addictive can lead to very frightening consequences (such as the kid who had a seizure in China after playing the mobile game, Honour of Kings, for 40 straight hours). If something like that becomes the norm, it is likely that there will eventually be social pressure for the government to step in. The outcome could be harsh limits imposed by laws, which could mean compliance costs that will only benefit large corporations that can absorb those costs.

Professor Ian Schreiber, from Rochester, NY, talks about these potential government limitations, mentioning that gridlocked US politicians looking to score easy political points with their constituents could do so by regulating loot boxes (we will talk more about them below). “It is an easy bipartisan political win that’s almost sure to happen in the near future,” says Schreiber. He pointed out that the gaming industry must work on self-regulation, and take a proactive role to stop psychological exploitation of users before it’s too late. Using the Honour of Kings case again, the Chinese government stepped in by setting a strict 1-hour-a-day limit on gaming for kids 12 years old and younger.

But Pragmatists and Skeptics don’t see it this way, so they don’t see the need to self-regulate. They tend to view it as a simple supply and demand scenario, firmly believing that if they don’t offer this addictive service, someone else will.

It’s really no different than when criminals justify their actions by claiming that they hold no personal responsibility for providing a service that people demand. You hear this over and over in movies, usually when a criminal is caught by the good guy and justifies his actions by claiming he is just one among many, a cog in the machine. “If I don’t sell, some other drug dealer will. People are looking for this anyway.”

In real life, many famous gangsters used similar lines. Otto Berman, an accountant for the mafia in the 1930s coined the phrase “Nothing personal, it’s just business”. By ignoring the wellbeing of its players, aren’t game designers ultimately subscribing to this idea as well?

Or maybe, Pragmatist game designers prefer a quote from another mobster from the 1930’s called Lucky Luciano (he ordered Berman’s death, by the way). His phrase was “There’s no such thing as good money or bad money.There’s just money.”

Personally, I think it’s really hard for game designers to argue that they’re not only in it for profit, especially when you consider another topic we discussed at the roundtable: video games and gambling. It turns out that there are a lot of disturbing similarities between the two.

Loot boxes and gambling

Take for example loot boxes. For those who don’t know what loot boxes are, they are treasure chests with random items. Players do not know what’s in loot boxes, and the chances of finding valuable items inside them are very low. Players can buy more loot boxes with real money, and are incentivized to do so, with the promise of huge payoffs, just like in casinos. The difference is that, with technology, game designers can actually personalize the payoffs depending on the individual player’s appetite for risk and reward, maximize their attractiveness. As Robert de Niro’s character in the movie, Casino, says: “In the casino, the cardinal rule is to keep them playing and to keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose, and in the end, we get it all.”

Some countries, such as Belgium, are already classifying loot boxes as gambling. In the UK, regulators admitted that “the line between video gaming and gambling is becoming increasingly blurred”, but have not made any moves to classify loot boxes as gambling. Here in the US, some regulators are increasing the scrutiny over loot boxes, but the practice is still permitted. It doesn’t help that ESRB, the self-regulatory organization founded by gaming companies, considers loot boxes to be no different than any other paid content, refusing to classify it as gambling. For me, ESRB is just another Skeptic, and is being willingly blind to the negative effects this feature could have on children.

To add to the pile of evidence that game mechanics are inspired by gambling, Consider that video game companies use the term “whale” to define a user who spends lots of money on virtual items. The same term is used for casino players who bet (and lose) great sums. And, like in casinos, game companies focus their marketing efforts to extract the most from those whales.

And like gambling, video games can be extremely addictive. But many Skeptics tend to use misleading language to convolute the argument and blur the line between what is compelling and what is addicting. For example, Aaron Marshall, a video game designer from LA summarizes how Skeptics think: “Video games are akin to most legal products and pastimes today. They can be responsibly consumed, or they can be abused. We do not condemn books because an avid reader is spending an irresponsible amount of time reading fiction novels. Why should video games be singled out when a player is playing too much?”

His point is valid, but I would argue that his conclusion is false. If someone reads so much that her life is affected, that person should seek “rehab,” just like any other addiction. In fact, there are rehabilitation facilities for digital addiction. But the reality is that children don’t spend that much time reading — less than 30 minutes a day. However, they do spend many hours per day on screens. According to Common Sense Media, even kids as young as 0 to 8 years spend over 2 hours a day on screens. According to another study from Common Sense media, for tweens (8–12 years old), this time triples to almost 6 hours a day on average. Teenagers (13–18 years old) spend an astonishing 9 hours per day interacting with screens.

However, it turns out that there is a scientifically measurable difference between a desire to play a video game, and an addiction to video games. With a focus on internet games, the North American Psychiatric Association (APA) has defined this addiction as Internet Gaming Disorder. It is disturbingly similar to gambling addiction (which is the only recognized addiction besides substance addiction). It basically states that a person is addicted to gaming if it interferes with other aspects of their lives and the pursuit of their goals.

Game Addiction and Cigarette Addiction

No discussion of addiction would be complete without mentioning tobacco, and some Pragmatists are not even embarrassed to make the connection between gaming and tobacco. Take for instance how this game publisher shamelessly recommends the use of celebrity endorsements: “For generations, celebrity power has been used to sell everything from soda and cigarettes”.

But there were also Concerned participants who made the same connection between gaming and smoking, specifically pointing to how some gaming companies employ similar practices used by the tobacco industry in the past. And gaming isn’t the only industry that is faced with these issues, nor is it the only industry where people are concerned with the effect that these tactics are having on children. For example, at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this year, Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff was interviewed and voiced his concerns. Later on, he made the following statement via Twitter:

But again, we see the Prisoner’s Dilemma. Do game designers betray each other in a never ending cycle, continuing to make video games more and more addictive in an effort to stay ahead of the curve? Or will we eventually see an era where the industry cooperates to create better, safer games? The biggest question is whether or not game designers would be willing to potentially lose some profit in order to self-regulate.

Professor Schreiber summarized this dilemma well, saying: “If the goal of game designers is to maximize the revenue a game brings, creating addictive experiences might be required”. He added, saying, “Trying to ethically monetize a game might impact the company’s profits.”.

Solving the Dilemma

But what if there were a way for Concerned game designers to create non-addictive experiences, without abandoning the goal of maximizing monetary profit? Well, there is.

Saferize offers a way for designers to eliminate this trade-off between profit and ethics. By implementing our SDK, apps have an area specific to parents, so they can set up controls such as screen time. To have access to those controls, parents pay Saferize a monthly subscription that is shared with the app publisher. While parents get the tools to effectively curb digital addiction for their children, game designers are incentivized to implement our software, since they receive extra revenue from Saferize. It’s truly a win for everyone involved.

We hope that Concerned game designers and publishers embrace our vision, so kids have a balanced life, enjoying games without succumbing to addiction. If you are a game designer, or app publisher,, please visit Saferize to learn more. Or feel free to send our site to anyone you know who may be interested.