Mihir Bhanot

This is so so so so so on the money!

David Jaxon has a new post up that summarizes a very important article about how useless pageviews are as a metric. I've long held that pageviews are completely useless for almost all real analysis and this article explains (with data) why that's true. Please read it if you are optimizing anything.

He also has some great links up at the bottom of his post. Just reading through those will give you a much better understanding of how you should be thinking about pageviews.

Also see:

1. David Jaxon's post on Vanity Metrics (here).
2. Morgan Brown's post on the things he learned researching the world's fastest growing startups (here). In particular, see "Lesson 8".
3. (Added 02/03/2015) Also see TheInformation's Jessica Lessin's excellent post (warning, pay-wall) "Is Time the New Click Bait".

Paul Graham (@paulg) wrote a fantastic post titled Mean People Fail that has sparked a number of conversations on Twitter. Read it now. Seriously, stop reading this and read @paulg's post.

After reading it, and re-reading it, I had a few thoughts:

1. Based on my experience, he is SPOT on. I've worked with or known a handful of REALLY mean people in my life, and so far, every single one of them has "reaped" the reward of being mean to their peers, teams, friends, etc... Nothing good.
2. I liked Mark Suster's comment below which seems related/in-response-to this post. Regardless of why he said it, it adds to the discussion on mean people. The below is true, but the way I read Paul's post, he wasn't identifying people who are sometimes mean/etc. We are all mean/rude/angry sometimes. It's more about who the person is the majority of the time. I do agree that there is a lot of nuance here though and people ARE mercurial.

   I have seen some our industry's nicest / most helpful people be mean-spirited when cross. Humans are more mercurial than we want to admit

   — Mark Suster (@msuster) November 30, 2014

3. If you work for or with a mean person, you know it. Be honest. You KNOW if your co-worker or boss or friend (or spouse?!) is a mean person. Based on what I've seen, experienced, and heard, people in such situations feel like they have no option but to continue to engage with the problematic person. But you always have an option. ALWAYS! Work on your exit strategy. It is astounding how much of a difference it can make to no longer work for or with, or to stop hanging out with a person who is genuinely mean.
4. Being frank, honest, direct is NOT the same as being mean. If you have a frank/direct conversation with someone and give them directed, clear negative feedback, that is not the same as being mean. You'll know it when you see it. (See this for context)

I came across a really interesting analysis on tech used by startups by @lpolovets via @benedictevans' weekly newsletter. 

http://codingvc.com/which-technologies-do-startups-use-an-exploration-of-angellist-data

My thoughts (with the usual caveats that this is based on the analysis above, which is based, as the author calls out, on a limited data set):

1. Clustering around a set of key technologies for the "best" startups - Might seem kind of obvious, interesting for startups to look at as they think of what tech to adopt. Mass adoption leads to mass learning which leads to a massive amount of real-world experience out there and lots of experts who have really done the work vs read a manual. Also, in a virtuous cycle, the more a tech is used, the more it is improved because customers ask for features, find bugs, etc. In short, more sunlight makes a technology brighter, so this suggests that much like cities with massive numbers of people start behaving differently and providing more services/value add and allowing folks to produce more, more rapidly, technologies with massive adoption are better for the startups using them.
2. To counter my first point, I wonder if startups start moving to the technologies that are used by the "best" startups as they get product/market fit, get traction and scale. In other words, I wonder if there is an inherent bias in this since the startups that have higher signal are the ones who (might) have been around a bit longer, and hence tried and moved on from some of the technologies that are easier to start out with, but that don't scale.

Anyways, a really interesting and thought provoking analysis. Thank you @lpolovets and keep them coming!

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Disclosure: This is a personal blog and these opinions are completely my own, are for fun, and do not reflect the opinions of any of my current or past employers. And probably future employers too, though it is hard to say since we don't yet have a time machine.

Today someone asked me what I thought was the biggest "moat" that @uber has built up. This is a hard and complicated question that someone who knows a lot about company strategy and/or Uber can probably write a book (or books) on.

My extremely simplistic and personal view though is that Uber's biggest "moat" that prevents me from even trying anything else is TRUST.

I, quite simply, TRUST Uber and Uber's service. They do what they say they will, when they say they will.

How did they get there for me? By consistently and reliably providing the exact service I expect at a reasonable cost and by working, every single time. 

I've probably taken 80-100 Uber rides over the years - by no means prolific, but then I only use them when I travel and I haven't been traveling that much. In all this time, I've only had 2 Uber rides cancelled on me and probably <5 that were delayed beyond the time that Uber predicted.

One time (a while ago) I literally waited for a "company taxi" for 1 hour and 30 mins because I was told that nothing else was allowed. I finally got tremendously fed-up, called an Uber, and said to hell with it, I'll pay for it myself if they won't reimburse me. The Uber arrived in exactly 3 minutes and I was on my way. The really interesting follow-up to this story is that the "company taxi" owner called me about 3 hours later when I had already had dinner with friends, checked into the hotel, and was getting ready for bed. He asked me if the cab had come on time and if I was satisfied with the service. I was so shocked that I think I told him what happened. He offered to give me a free taxi ride the next time I was in town and wanted me to take down his number. I hung up. After this, I never took a "company taxi" again and have been Uber'ing it everywhere when I travel.

So yes, Uber's moat, for me, is a Trust Moat more than anything else. As an entrepreneur or in life, a Trust Moat seems to be a good thing to build.

1. Do less, more
2. Question all assumptions 
3. Read more & eclectically 
4. Travel
5. Sleep more
6. Eat better
7. Exercise 
8. Carve out at least one hour per day to be by yourself with no interruptions or distractions (at the gym, driving to work, talking a walk, reading, meditating, writing, ...) 
9. Spend time with people you care about and people who care about you
10. Repeat

http://lifehacker.com/5715912/how-to-plant-ideas-in-someones-mind

The ever faithful LH has some good quick tips on how to avoid being taken for a ride by folks practicing the "dark side of manipulation" ...