This is our bi-weekly newsletter of interesting stuff in business, design, and tech. If there is something you’d like more of or things we could be doing better then get in touch with lauren@eli5.io.
From, Eli5
💼 Business
No-one wants to be "singled out as the owner of a particular failure". Meaning "innovation can only happen when a failed outcome doesn’t mean failure overall". Why corporate innovation isn’t working by Brendan Kearns. Link.
An oldie but a goodie from Paul Graham of Y Combinator. This piece explains how rapid growth sets startups apart from other new businesses. Link.
We use the ICE methodology to efficiently rate product ideas. I still think it’s fit for purpose but this article raises some interesting arguments against it too. Link.
✏️ Design
For those designers wanting to get further down the no-code rabbit hole - here is a great list of Webflow hacks. Link.
I’m going to be honest, our lead designer has been on holiday for a few weeks. So the only other design stuff I have to share are these three links to icon pages that were shared in another group and I keep on my bookmarks bar. Link. Link. Link.
🖥️ Technology
An inside look at the Uber app rewrite. Even if you’re not a technical person, this story is astounding and shows how even the big boys can make mistakes. Link.
A post-mortem by the Google DevTools team on refactoring the dev tools panel using Javascript modules. Link.
Pretty cool new work in the GPT-3 area with a workable demo with UI soon. Basically, the machines are learning how to understand and manipulate human faces better (e.g. a different angle, glasses v no glasses, beard v no beard, even age and gender). There is also a good video to help explain it here (because I had to ask the dev team to noob-splain it to me). Apparently, they’re mostly excited about the user-interface element because it’ll be easier to make funny memes of each other. Link.
🕹️ Cool stuff
The story of the long-overdue breakthrough in cracking the Zodiac Killer’s 340-character cypher. Link.
In The Big Lessons from History, Morgan Housel explains how we humans tend to try and predict the problems of the future - but are often instead floored by the unexpected (see: Covid 19). Link.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Team Eli5