Ben Thompson at Stratechery follows up his 2015 post defining “Aggregation Theory” with examples of what it takes to become an aggregator and an updated definition based on the changes in the world since companies like Uber, AirBnB, and Netflix have prospered in “Defining Aggregators”

From the Operators

Julia Grace of Slack recounts the first time she fired someone, sharing advice received and emphasizing that you should treat everyone with honesty and respect in “Firing somebody terrified me — but the advice I got made a huge difference.”

Madison Kanna of CityBldr shares her story of changing careers and becoming a software engineer with some down-to-earth tips about learning how you learn in “How I went from fashion model to software engineer in 1 year”

Kris Gage brings the realness in explaining that taking care of yourself, knowing your audience, and staying iterative are not just traits of great writing, but traits of great startup operators in “Everything I know about startups I learned from writing”

Chris Savage of Wistia explains how taking a break from hiring after each company growth spurt is akin to resting after a sprint in “High Intensity Interval Growth (For Startups!)”

Vincent Lofranco of Even might surprise you when explaining the perks they’ve decided not to have (like allowing pets) in their office in “Anti-Perks”

From the Investors

James Cham of Bloomberg Beta is excited for the day when AI can help company leaders automate decisions, emphasizing that “We’re Waiting for the Peter Drucker of Machine Intelligence”

Amit Karp of Bessemer Venture Partners reminds founders that no one will sell your product the way you will, and therefore there is an inherent problem with channel partners in “The false promise of channel partners for startups”

Linda Xie provides a list of direct suggestions (applicable in any conversation, not just those related to cryptocurrency) to ensure “Women in crypto” are included in the conversation.

Jason Lemkin of SaaStr shares his top list of tasks that don’t scale he personally made happen as CEO of his startup in “Things I Did That Didn’t Scale”

David Beisel of NextView Ventures cites their internal portfolio data as motivation behind “The New Series A Fundraising Playbook for Seed-Funded Startups” which continues to emphasize that startups should always be raising.

Alex Clayton of Spark Capital has a great breakdown of MongoDB’s S-1 in “MongoDB IPO | S-1 Breakdown”

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From the Operators

From the Investors

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