Amazon was a bookstore. But it was not Barnes & Noble digitized. You still got physical books in the mail. What was amazing was the largeness of the offering that simply was not possible in any physical store. This was new.

The idea of militarily pushing out the Russian forces from Donbas and Crimea is not the best approach. The political approach has to be first and foremost.

One amazing thing Alibaba did was it built credit histories for the average Chinese consumer who had no credit history at all in the American sense of the term, and that was not going to change anytime soon. Alibaba used a person’s e-commerce activities on its very website to vouch for their creditworthiness. And it has worked like magic.

No, not a Facebook killer. That is not what I have in mind. Facebook does not need help.

To go from Zero To One is where the action is. A rocket does not start as a drone, or a helicopter, it starts as a rocket. A rocket pre-launch is still a rocket. It just is not moving yet. But the motion is all there, bottled up, just waiting to come out.

Yesterday I formally applied for a 1M raise with Afore. I saw a Jack tweet a few days ago. I sent him a DM. He messaged me back. I attended a Zoom call (also attended by many others) yesterday. One tweet that did not even mention Afore by name started this.

The New York Times is still here and it is my favorite newspaper. But Web 1 set out to displace the New York Times around 1994. It largely succeeded. There are rich social media. People and places from various segments of my life spread out over geographies manage to inform me about what’s going on, and all that news is not coming to me via the New York Times. Most people are not trying to become influencers with mass followings. A few dozen followers might be enough. Too much is too much.

In eastern Ukraine, to seek only a military solution is dangerous. I admire the work of military strategists, intelligence officials, and governments who have stepped into supplying the needed hardware. Most of all I admire the brave men and women of the Ukrainian military who make the ultimate sacrifice daily. But we can never lose sight of the larger purpose and the higher ground. Ultimately this is about peace, liberty, and justice.

Sometimes you have to fight for a just peace. That is what Ukraine is doing. It is the underdog. A dictator needs to invade or his regime will collapse. The Ukraine invasion has to be seen in that light.