Divinations

Get smarter about business strategy.

Jan 20, 2022

Year Two

A messy slog that changed everything for me

May 19, 2022

Mastering the Market Cycle, by Howard Marks

My chapter-by-chapter summary, with notes and reactions

Sep 6, 2022

Book Review: Slouching Towards Utopia

The origins of economic progress, and what comes next

Feb 25, 2022

Peloton’s Next Move: Become a Platform

Opening up to external content is the only way to ensure durability, scalability, and defensibility.

Nov 1, 2022

What to Do After You Launch

Say you just launched a product to a group of users for the first time. What now?

Apr 25, 2023

The Boy Who Cried Unicorn

Rating my predictions from 2020: what worked, what didn’t, and what I learned along the way

May 11, 2022

Why Sh*t is Hitting the Fan

How the Fed accidentally scuttled your Series B, simply explained

Nov 8, 2022

Status as a Disservice

The blue check fiasco reveals a shallow understanding of how status motivates participation in social networks. Here is a deeper look.

Nov 29, 2022

My Philosophy of Product Building (Part II)

Building your v1

Jul 15, 2021

The Product Wedge: How To Scope Your Initial Product

How and why early-stage startups sacrifice power for growth

May 3, 2020

Finding Power

An introduction to Clay Christensen’s most underrated idea: “The Conservation of Modularity”

Jul 9, 2021

The Inner Ring of The Internet

Hi, Nathan here! It’s been too long, I know!! I’ve got a big piece on product wedges coming out next week, but today I am so excited to shar

Dec 16, 2021

Is Axie Infinity a Ponzi Scheme?

To Axie Infinity And Beyond!

Nov 4, 2021

How Valuation Works

A guide to the “right way” (discounted cash flow analysis), and why “everything is dumb right now.”

Aug 16, 2022

How Every Executes: two tweaks that generated ~54% more paid subscribers

Real data from our business showing how execution is exponential

Oct 4, 2021

What is “Intrinsic” Value?

And does it matter?

Jul 15, 2020

Means of Creation #2: Greg Isenberg

On the unbundling of Reddit into vertical communities

Apr 14, 2022

Elon is Right: Twitter Should Open Up the Algorithm

Commoditizing tweets’ complement (the algorithm) will increase usage and rebuild trust

Sep 30, 2021

The Market Wedge: How to Pick Your Initial Market

How and why early-stage startups sacrifice growth for power

Aug 19, 2021

Twitter’s Longform Strategy

What does the future hold for readers and writers on Twitter?

Aug 26, 2021

Spotify Bets on Apple Antitrust

Their new paid podcast feature only makes sense in a world where in-app purchase rules are relaxed.

Sep 6, 2021

How Power Works in Venture Capital

Is being Sequoia actually pretty easy?

Dec 5, 2021

The Three Systems Beneath Network Effects

An exclusive excerpt from a16z general partner Andrew Chen’s new book, The Cold Start Problem

Jan 28, 2020

Inside Overstock’s strategy shift from horizontal to vertical

Geoff Atkinson, the former SVP Marketing at Overstock, explains how strategy shifts can emerge through experimentation