When the math and business model don’t quite work out for a tech startup, even if the product is beloved: While its talented team obsessed over the look and features of its product, user growth failed to keep pace. Starting in June, Latour tried to raise $5 million to give Everpix more time to become […]
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Posted inEditor's Pick
Letter To A Young Programmer Considering A Startup
Words of caution from the former CTO of Twitter. The startup life isn’t rebellious—it’s the new corporate ladder: “The machine doesn’t care about you. In fact, the machine is designed with the understanding that most startups will fail, or at most offer unremarkable returns to investors. The majority of the companies in many VC portfolios […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Story of Tim Armstrong, Patch and AOL
Another exhaustive biography from Nicholas Carlson and Business Insider, this time on Tim Armstrong, his hyperlocal startup Patch and his leadership at AOL: “He’s a very loyal guy. He made a commitment to different parts of that matrix organization, and damn it, he’s not going to let them down. And even though we brought in […]
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction
How to Fail in Business While Really, Really Trying: The True Story of J.C. Penney
This week, we’re thrilled to share a new Longreads Member Pick from Fortune magazine. “How to Fail in Business While Really, Really Trying” is Jennifer Reingold’s definitive account of what really happened inside J.C. Penney—from the dramatic reinvention of the company, led by new CEO Ron Johnson, to its disastrous unraveling (and Johnson’s firing) less […]
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The Story Of A Failed Startup And A Founder Driven To Suicide
How financial and personal pressure took a toll on an entrepreneur: “Before the fundraising, Sherman would push himself and others to raise as much money as possible for their businesses. After the financing closed, he began referring to venture capital as a ‘fraud’ and a ‘sham.’ “Employees could tell something was off when Sherman announced […]
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“The Story of a Failed Startup and a Founder Driven to Suicide.” Alyson Shontell, Business Insider.
Posted inMember Pick, Nonfiction, Story
How to Fail in Business While Really, Really Trying: The True Story of J.C. Penney
Jennifer Reingold | Fortune | March 2014 | 29 minutes (7,108 words) Download as a .mobi ebook (Kindle) Download as an .epub ebook (iBooks) When you find a savior, you don’t quibble over details. So it was that J.C. Penney, the long-stagnating mid-tier department store chain, announced in June 2011 that it was hiring Ron […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
An Intimate Portrait Of Innovation, Risk, And Failure Through Hipstamatic’s Lens
They were the vintage photo app that came before Instagram—but failure to take advantage of social, infighting among the leadership and indecision about their product caused the company to miss its opportunity: “Fast Company reached out to a slew of top-tier VCs but was unable to find one who had met with or even looked […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How Much Tech Can One City Take?
The takeover of San Francisco by tech companies prompts some soul-searching by Talbot, a longtime resident and veteran of the first dotcom boom as founder of Salon.com: “One recent Friday evening, a single mother named Fufkin Vollmayer found herself at a Shabbat service started by two young Jews who work in the tech sector. The […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?
An excerpt from Stross’s new book, which goes inside Y Combinator, Paul Graham’s Silicon Valley startup incubator: “The Kalvins are attempting an improbable thing, making a case for a nondigital product: ‘Having a physical product that you flip through and have on your coffee table and show your friends—it’s really valuable! We’ve actually bought photo […]
