The writing that got me into Stanford
It’s been such a long time since high school. At some point in my final year, the idea of getting into Stanford became my singular obsession. Even though I only first learned…
Tim O’Reilly on the topic of Unicorns
A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself…
Video Game’s Place in History
Video Game’s Place in History When it comes to video games, there are good games and there are great games. The good games provide entertainment. They are challenging but not unfair. They show…
Identify the right problems
Of all the problems that a startup faces in its early days, nothing is more fundamental than spending time doing the wrong things. Unlike a large company, a startup has limited access…
Too much noise in Silicon Valley
First published in The Stanford Daily. Startups are often thought of as a risky business. We imagine founders to be fierce visionaries who can see a better future and are willing to…
Why I made Image to Brick
A few weeks ago, I was cruising the Reddit procrastination superhighway when I stumbled upon Legoizer, a web application to convert uploaded images to a mosaic constructed out of LEGO bricks. It’s…
Microsoft and our virtual future
First published in The Stanford Daily. Microsoft is buying a small game studio called Mojang for 2.5 billion dollars. Mojang is a small company with fewer than 50 employees, but they are…
Dota 2: The face of professional gaming
First published in The Stanford Daily. Just over a week ago, history was made when a team of five young Chinese men left Seattle with $5 million in winnings. The game they…
The Transhumanist Wager is a terrible book
I regret paying for The Transhumanist Wager on Kindle. It has worse writing than a Dan Brown novel and its handling of the philosophical discussion is no more insightful than if you…
Ukraine: A question of history
First published in The Stanford Daily. Be it the devout crusaders whose convictions grew from absolute faith, the American G.I. who died on a beach in France for the patriotic ideals of…
Locked into Bitcoin
First published in The Stanford Daily. A huge part of the appeal of Bitcoins is its promise of being decentralized yet secured, but what happens when the system requires fundamental adjustments? In…
RSS Reader Wars: It’s a Trap!
Google, the company who conquered the Internet by making a business out of giving things away for free, decided to drop its Google Reader service a few months ago. The official reason…