Sources of information and inspiration

Today we continue my list of tech resources. After last week’s post about the main newsletters I use, I’ll be sharing which tech blogs I use to get information and inspiration.

Newsletters are my primary source of information, but blogs can be great too and provide additional insights. The main difference between newsletters and blogs lies in that the latter provide a more personal view. Newsletters, as their name suggests, tend to focus more on the news. Blogs often provide an additional level of analysis and insight.

Furthermore, they tend to be tied to a specific person and their insights. As such, if you value their views on matter X, it’s interesting to get their take on story Y as well. A narrative starts to form. You start to see the world through their eyes.

I subscribe to a number of different tech blogs, but there are really only a few that I consistently read. Adding more would quickly result in information overload. And there is definitely such a thing as too much information.

Let’s do this..

Blogs
  • Azeem Azhar’s Exponential View. Azeem is the godfather of tech blogging. The blog consists mostly of curated links to key stories, but with Azeem’s comments to provide all the relevant background and views on the different topics. In addition to the the blog, there is a podcast in collaboration with Harvard Business Review. And there is a paid version for $100 per year, which delivers interactive briefings with experts, bespoke insights and analyses as well as other ‘goodies’. I haven’t tried it yet, but if you have and recommend it please let me know in the comments below.
  • Benedict Evans. Working at a16z, where he joined in 2014, Ben is a one man curation and insights machine. His weekly blog is released on Mondays, making it the perfect follow on to Exponential View. Each blog contains a section on the main news, proposed readings, and a section on cool things of the week.
  • Fred Wilson’s AVC. Azeem Azhar’s and Ben Evan’s blogs require a decent amount of time. Fred Wilson’s blog on the other hand is perfect for a quick nugget of wisdom. The Union Square Ventures (USV) founder writes daily on a range of different topics. Special editions include Funding Friday and Audio/Video Of The Week on Saturday. Writing and maintaining an online presence are very much an integral part of USV’s culture, with everybody actively present online (see below).
Tech blogs
Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
Selected others

The above tech blogs, alongside the newsletters, provide ample information to stay up to date with all the goings on in the tech world. At times I have come across posts from Albert Wenger and Nick Grossman (both from USV), which have always been interesting too. At some point you have to say no to more information though.

Where did Tim go?

This post would not be complete without mentioning Tim Urban’s Wait But Why blog. His writing has been some of the funniest, most amusing and original content I have come across. His TED Talk on procrastination resonated with more more than anything I’ve seen. Hardly surprising that it’s been watched over 20 million times already.

His blog post series on Elon Musk, combined the size of a book, is incredible. In particular, his description of Neuralink single-handedly revived my love for neuroscience and resulted in me diving down the rabbit hole of brain computer interfaces.

As of the time of writing this though, no articles have been posted on the WBW blog for over a year. Tim and co-creator Andrew Finn have migrated to Patreon, which requires a minor monthly contribution to subscribe to. However, as of May 2019, there have only been a handful of videos and no further posts. Hopefully I’m reading too much into the situation, but I hope nothing is amiss and that we’ll soon be able to enjoy Tim’s amazing mind more extensively again.

Lastly

Last but not least, one non tech blog. Part of my inspiration to start writing came from reading David Perell’s blog, Monday Musings. He’s written a great article about writing and also has a writing course (which I clearly haven’t taken yet!). If you’re interested in blogging as well, I’d highly recommend having a look.

What tech blogs do you use?

I once again hope you’ve found something useful in the list of tech blogs above. As with the other resources, I’ll be adding new sources to the list over time. And I’d definitely really love to hear of any additional sources you use. So please add them in the comments section below.

Next week, podcasts.

While you’re here…

As always, I hope you will have a look at my recent posts and look forward to hearing your thoughts on the different topics.

Cover photo by Radek Grzybowski on Unsplash