Twitter Founder Reveals Secret Formula for Getting Rich Online

Ev Williams argues that the internet is not a utopia but a system built to satisfy people’s wants with speed and cognitive ease. In his view, the companies that thrive are the ones that strip away extra steps from ordinary activities and make common tasks simpler.

Reading notes

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• Williams says the internet is a giant machine designed to give people what they want.
• He argues that people usually want to keep doing familiar things, only with more speed and less effort.
• He rethinks his earlier view of the internet as computers, information, and people, and now sees connections as the key element.
• He describes the web as a hive of connections, with follows, likes, and other interactions linking people, machines, and actions.
• He says convenience is the organizing principle that helps explain what thrives online.
• He defines convenience on the internet as speed and cognitive ease.
• He says major companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple succeed by removing steps from complex activities.
• He uses Blogger as an example of removing steps from publishing content online.
• He gives a formula for building a billion-dollar internet company: take a long-standing human desire and use modern technology to take out steps.
• He cites Uber as an example of reducing steps in getting from one place to another.
• He says the internet is not magical or utopian, but another technology that improves quality of life.
• He compares the internet to agriculture, which improved life and freed people for other work.
• He warns that convenience can go too far, comparing internet metrics to unhealthy extremes in industrial agriculture and food access.