Product & Startup Builder
Sonic Branding
It’s interesting how effective (and underestimated) sonic branding is. The right sound effect at the right time can really lock things into the mind of the user/viewer and create a Pavlovian response each time it’s repeated.
Think the intel audio/brand tag, the Apple startup sound, THX, or the walking dead/amc feature presentation sound to name but a few.
Google Maps takes on Facebook Pages with ‘Follow’ Feature
This feature is long overdue. The way Google creates a social network is by leveraging existing entities and surface areas - not creating a big G+ style push/destination. I hope this is the start of something bigger. Probably not though.
Microsoft's 60,000 Patents Are Open Source
Wishful Thinking
UberEATs should allow me to wishlist meals
How Toyota Changed The Way We Make Things
Facebook: New Desktop Web UI Dark and Light Mode
New Facebook Desktop Web UI! Dark and Light mode included. Not sure how I feel about it yet. I'm sure it will grow on me.
There's still some glitches since it's still in testing. For example, when editing this post, when I click somewhere into the text the cursor always jumps to the end of the text. I have to use the arrow keys to move around and insert text.
Tips and Tricks for a Great Developer Platform
This is a deck for a talk I often give to teams and accelerator cohorts. Sharing here for others to use.
Facebook's fight against misinformation
This Facebook work against misinformation is very very impressive and critical work. So glad this is being done. Also, crazy that some people tend to believe "False" news MORE when it's been flagged as false. Amazing.
Disney Buys Fox
Disney now owns all the content, the second biggest streaming service (Hulu) and now has net neutrality laws off the books. Wow.
Australian Financial Review
I'm in the Australian Financial Review today.
Very proud to be #payingitforward with Julia and Marcus via Founders for Founders.
The Founders For Founders mentors include Chris Saad, the Brisbane-born founder of several software design start-ups who most recently spent two years running Uber's platform for third-party developers.
…
Mr Saad there was no substitute for budding founders interacting with experienced founders.
"When I arrived in San Francisco in 2007, after years starting things in Australia with really no ecosystem to speak of, it felt like coming home," he said.
"Suddenly you're talking to founders everywhere, overhearing them, and your brain gets rewired. You recalibrate your expectations around scale, quality and hustle. It raises the bar of what you are striving for."
VIDEO: Ideas are worthless
Ideas are worthless
Podcast interview on the Abundance Mindset
Rohit Bhargava interviewed me about my career and startups at Techcrunch Battlefield Australia. I love doing radio. Miss it!
Robots replacing jobs?
Great little piece by Vox. What do you think? Will Robots really replace all the jobs or will new jobs be created to fill the gap?
History Is Rhyming: Fitness Functions & Comparing Blockchain Tokens To The Web
Everything will eventually become unbundled. Blockchain/tokenization is a major step towards that inevitable future
History Is Rhyming: Fitness Functions & Comparing Blockchain Tokens To The Web
Thoughts on Uber's new cultural values
I’m glad to see the new cultural values at Uber preserve some of the most important aspects that made the company so amazing. Especially “We make big bold bets”.
This new set are a great consolidation of the core themes, clarification of the intent and addition of some empathy of/from/to the original set.
That being said, it's a shame that "Let builders build" and "Optimistic Leadership" were dropped.
Constantly reminded how a great Developer Advocate is worth their weight in gold
Available for Advisory work
I’ve set aside some time to work with just a few companies to help them fast-forward to the future.
My areas of expertise include developer platforms & ecosystems, on-demand economy, future of media, data portability and the silicon valley ecosystem. Learn more at http://chrissaad.com/consulting/
Drop me a line at me@chrissaad.com if you're curious to learn more. Please be sure to include information about what you’re working on and the kind of challenges or opportunities you’re facing at the moment.
Facebook Is a Media Company
I’ve been saying Facebook is a media company (not a platform company) for 10 years. When you monetize eyeballs you have to take (at least some measure of) responsibility for what those eyeballs see.
Growing Silicon Valley Resentment
Why is anyone listening to Tim O'Reilly
This is the most scathing article I’ve read about Silicon Valley in a long time. A lot of anger and blistering resentment here.