Catalyst

The new entertainment system: On this week’s episode of Track Changes Paul is flying solo without Rich. He is joined by New York Times writer Taylor Lorenz. Taylor answers all of Paul’s questions about influencers, including how they actually monetize their brand in such a crowded online market. Taylor addresses stereotypes about influencers being vapid and shallow and shows us just how hard influencers work. 

LINKS

New York Times - Taylor Lorenz 

Tumblr 

Tyler Oakley - Youtube 

Hannah Hart - Youtube 

Vine 

Instagram 

Lilly Singh - Wikipedia 

Noah Centineo - Wikipedia 

Tik Tok 

Patreon 

Rosanna Pansino - Youtube 

United Talent Agency 

WME 

Community 

Forget DMs. Celebrities Want You To Text Them - New York Times 

Discord 

The Rise and Fall of the Jeremy Renner App, Which Was a Real Thing - New York Times 

Kim Kardashian: Hollywood 

Taylor Swift’s mobile app, The Swift Life, is the latest celebrity app to shutter - TechCrunch 

The Instagram Aesthetic is Over - The Atlantic 

Teens Are Being Bullied ‘Constantly’ on Instagram - The Atlantic 

Pewdiepie - Youtube 

Taylor Lorenz - Twitter

Taylor Lorenz - Instagram 

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Software is like people: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss software baggage. We chat about how a simple software idea can morph into layers and layers of product features and about how implementing use-cases can lead to confusing and bloated software. We also share our many HR software gripes.   

Links: 

Recruitment Software Market Size, Share and Industry Analysis - Fortune Business Insights 

Scala 

JQuery

Jira 

SAP 

Basecamp 

Slack 

Dash for Slack - Postlight  

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Removing Friction: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down with Noah Brier and James Gross ahead of a Postlight event to talk about the new trend that is taking enterprise software by storm, product-led growth. We discuss why the shift to PLG is as big as a transition for enterprise as the switch from on-premise to cloud software and how this move to more user-centric products removes friction from all levels of product implementation. 

Links: 

• Salesforce
• Lattice 

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Listen, don’t tell: Having trouble convincing your boss to invest in new software? On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich teach you everything you need to know about selling software services. We chat about changing the narrative to be about selling growth instead of products, and give some great sales tactics. Paul also shares some interesting car purchasing tips he learned from his brother. 

Links: 

Sarbanes Oxley - Wikipedia 

Chevy Blazer 

CarMax 

Google Analytics 

J.P. Morgan 

Amnesty International 

Node

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Adjust the quirks: On this week’s episode of Track Changes we ask the question, “is programming becoming obsolete?”. As user-friendly visual interfaces continue to get more and more popular, we discuss why programming remains so important to tackle complex tasks and long-term software challenges. Paul and Rich also come up with a new, nicer, way to talk about bugs. In this week’s Hello Postlight segment, we hear from product manager Jorge Mir Alvarez, who tells us how he went from a Track Changes listener to a Postlight employee.

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Constant tweaking and improving: This week on Track Changes we are joined by friend and tech writer Clive Thompson, to talk about his most recent book Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World. We chat about coder culture, its influence on society, and why the search for efficiency can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Paul and Rich also share their worst bug stories. 

Links: 

Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World 

Shift Magazine

This Magazine 

The Nation

Code for America 

Kickstarter

Tilde Club

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Beware the low-hanging fruit: On this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich share some industry warning signs. We chat about why you should be wary of long research phases and of people who have total faith in the product funnel. We also share some tips on how you can tell if your deadline is slipping and chat about the importance of long term product thinking. In this week’s Hello Postlight segment we meet Stephen Koch, a lead engineer who joins us to talk about his transition from marine biologist to musician to computer engineer.  

Links: 

GraphQL 

Big Spaceship Agency 

Frog Design

McKinsey 

Letter of Recommendation: Bug Fixes by Paul Ford 

Amazon

Dropbox 

Sketch

Adobe 

Athletic Brewing Company

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To scrape or not to scrape: In this week’s episode of Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss the recent verdict in the hiQ v LinkedIn lawsuit. We chat about the importance of this case and how it helped solidify a basic aspect of the web: public information access. But first, in this week’s Hello Postlight segment we hear from Thomas Rudczynski, our Director of Product Management, who shares advice on how to be a good product manager and how to get into the field. 

Links: 

Huge

LinkedIn 

Medium

Wired

HiQ

HiQ v. LinkedIn and the Legality of Web Scraping 

Common Crawl 

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The Fun of the Struggle: On this week’s episode of Track Changes we are joined by Netflix’s first CEO and co-founder, Marc Randolph. Marc talks about the origins of Netflix and how he helped grow the company from a Patsy Cline CD to a billion dollar publicly traded media provider. He shares some tips on how to stay flexible in the face of changing demands and talks about the importance of timing and luck when starting a business. He also shares some details about why he left the company and talks about his new book That Will Never Work.  

Links: 

• Blockbuster 
• The Netflix Prize: How a $1 Million Contest Changed Binge-Watching Forever
• How Netflix Lost 800,000 Members, and Good Will - New York Times
• That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea  
• Redbox 
• Looker Data

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There is no perfect freedom: This week on Track Changes, Paul and Rich sit down to discuss internet censorship on a global scale. We chat about how power impacts technology and information access and whether global software can really exist when countries have such different approaches to the internet. Also in this week’s Hello Postlight segment we meet Liran Okanon, a Senior Product Designer at Postlight, who talks about the importance of empathy in his work. 

Links: 

Life in an Internet Shutdown - New York Times 

Revel 

Getaway Bar 

‘You Stink’: The fight to get rubbish off Beirut’s streets

WhatsApp 

Trakt 

WeChat 

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