Featured
Architecture Before Allegiance: Liberalism, Pluralism, and Iran’s Political Future
Elections alone are not enough. Liberal democracy requires institutional limits and protected pluralism.
iran · politics
Iran: The Road Ahead
Iran's Islamic regime is a post-ideological dictatorship approaching collapse — the question is no longer whether it will fall, but how much violence and state failure will accompany its end.
Iran · Politics
The forever wars of the Islamic Republic
The Israel-Iran war won't end with a ceasefire — it's rooted in the Islamic regime's ideology, and each round will further polarize Iranian society and destroy its infrastructure.
Iran · Politics
All Articles
When Comedy is Not Funny
Late-night TV hosts who keep mocking Trump and the right are playing into the populists' hands, deepening political polarization instead of using their massive platforms to bridge the divide.
Culture · Opinion
Startups and the expert opinion fallacy
Startups live in Extremistan where past events cannot predict the future — don't trust experts who weave retrospective narratives and claim they can forecast what's coming next.
Startups · Opinion
How to waste $5M on containerized infrastructure
A 70,000-node Mesos cluster sat unused because containerization, unlike virtualization, requires developer buy-in and tools that bridge the gap between devs and ops.
Infrastructure · Cloud
SaaS economy in the age of containers
Containers and Kubernetes threaten to erode SaaS's key advantage — infrastructure arbitrage — by letting any company build highly available infrastructure at a fraction of the cost.
SaaS · Infrastructure
On cancer and startups
A near-death financial scare reveals that over-reliance on venture capital is the real cancer of startups — too much cash kills focus on what actually matters: building a profitable business.
Startups · Personal
Smart products, dumb designers
Daily inconveniences — not missing features — drive customer churn. Product designers must use their own products regularly to spot the friction they've become blind to.
Design · Technology
Party like it’s 1999
GitHub stars are the new dot-com eyeballs — startups releasing IP as open source without a monetization plan risk repeating the mistakes of 1999.
Startups · Technology
The startup pitch: It’s a short elevator ride
Elevator pitches fail for cutting-edge startups because they assume shared context — instead, find investors who already understand your field and don't waste time on priming.
Startups · Fundraising
Google's infrastructure for everyone else
Most startups aren't Google and shouldn't adopt Google-scale infrastructure tools like Kubernetes — premature optimization with oversized tools burdens your business unnecessarily.
Infrastructure · Cloud
Defining the 'open' in open source
Not all open source is equal — we should distinguish between genuine community-driven open source and vendor-controlled 'open trial' projects used as marketing tools.
Open Source · Technology
Why tech journalism needs more tech experience
Tech journalists who can't code consistently miss industry trends — the software world needs more commentary from people who actually build and use the products they write about.
Media · Technology
Europe’s Startup Groupies
A critique of the 'ecosystem builders' and 'community' people in Europe who exploit government grants and startup associations without ever building anything themselves.
Startups · Europe
Focus
Stop chasing VC metrics and growth hacks — the only thing that matters for a startup is a laser-sharp focus on building a great product.
Startups · Productivity