Product & Startup Builder

Apple Watch: Breathe App

Added on by Chris Saad.

Random thought:

I saw an ad that highlighted the new 'Breathe' app on Apple Watch.

My immediate reaction is: Neat. Baking in Zen/Mindfulness into technology seems like a fun little Silicon Valley idea.

It occurred to me, though, that a much more cynical POV is that as the wealth gap continues to widen and the 'working class' continues to get leveraged for more and more productivity for less and less pay, this is an interesting way for the powers that be to give the peons a false sense of control and serenity so they can continue to survive the inhuman monotony and pressure on their lives.

Or maybe I'm overthinking it

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Foursquare and Uber To The Rescue

Added on by Chris Saad.

I love that the Uber Dev Platform team has evolved to a point where not only is it doing great product and Eng work, it's also able to tell the story about the great work in a much more consistent and thoughtful way through articles like this one.

Article: “A perfect match — Foursquare’s recommendations and Uber’s rides” via UBER Developers.

Originally posted on Facebook

Take Action

Added on by Chris Saad.

You don't need to ask for permission. You don't need a piece of paper or a number In a spreadsheet to justify your goals, dreams and intuition. If you want to be an engineer, start coding. If you want to change the landscape, start planting flowers.

"One can begin to reshape the landscape with a single flower" - Ambassador Spock

Originally posted on Facebook

Blink-and-you'll-miss-it

Added on by Chris Saad.

When you're in a startup or a founder there are these wonderful, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments where it feels like everything has aligned and everything is working perfectly. It's beautiful. It's like a high.

Very quickly, though, that feeling gets yanked away and the chaos and speed of the agile development process hits you and you have to start running at full speed to catch up.

The image I have in my head is what I imagine it's like to take Virgin Galactic to the edge of space. You suddenly hit orbit after a loud, exhilarating rocket launch. The rocket engines turn off and you are in a blissful silent weightlessness - you get to see Earth clearly and enjoy the view for a few fleeting moments. Then suddenly the shuttle starts falling back to the ground and you need to take control of the stick to wrestle with the air friction, heat and noise to get it to land on the runway safe and sound.

Or something like that

Originally posted on Facebook

Introducing the new UberRUSH API

Added on by Chris Saad.

This changes everything. Again.

Once in a while new platforms emerge that reduce the cost and complexity of infrastructure by 10x or 100x

Think of what AWS did for the emergence of Web 2.0 and the Social Web. Instead of having to invest millions in data centers like we did in the dot com bubble, the latest generation of startups could rapidly experiment and iterate - succeed or fail - without burning money on setting up servers.

The result was more experimentation and a greater chance to succeed and scale. The result was a Cambrian explosion of innovation and prosperity on the web.

How many times have you heard "This startup will be Uber for X". Well now Uber can now help you power the on-demand logistics of your next, big Uber for X idea.

This is a big part of the reason why I joined Uber. The executive team and the entire culture really understands the power of giving developers access to the core resources of the company and letting builders #buildmovingexperiences.

I'm so very proud of the Rush and Developer Platform teams for making this new platform available for all developers everywhere. I can not wait to see what they do with it.

More on this article: “Making on-demand businesses scalable and sustainable with the new UberRUSH API”

Originally posted on Facebook