When Saudi Arabia revealed their plans for “The Line”, a 105 mile long skyscraper city, a lot of people scoffed. I have to admit I didn’t think much of it either, and may even have laughed it off. But now, as they are actually building it and making progress, I’m wow-ed by both how unique the idea is, and the audacity and conviction to pursue such a huge and innovative project. 9 million people in one connected complex in the middle of the desert, mirrored exterior and other features for clever temperature control, 100% renewable, underground water desalination, no cars, everything you need within 5 mins, a train that can go end-to-end within 20 mins, and a whopping $1T budget. That’s straight out of a science fiction novel, and I’d love to visit or even live there for some time! What a cool and interesting experiment for humanity! When people propose and pursue bold ideas, we need to default to cheering them on; not criticism or mockery. We want to live in a world of wonder and a...
Most capable and healthy people enjoy their autonomy and boundaries - a way to exercise their own way of being and creativity. It tends to bring out their best and make them feel good. Conversely, most people have a visceral reaction to domination and authority. Demanding and commanding may be apt when the situation is dire and answer is somewhat clear; like during a war. Or with a low-trust and low-agency audience where you have some leverage, power, or authority. But in most cases, asking and influencing well will have higher ceiling and longer-term outcomes. It’s also more pleasant for everyone involved. “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
Supabase announced today that they raised $200M at a $2B valuation. They offer “Backend as a Service” or BaaS. Essentially, building blocks like auth, database, push notifications, etc. so that you can focus on developing the unique aspects of your app instead of all the standard and annoying scaffolding. I used their competitor, Firebase, about 10 years ago to build a couple of side projects. I really needed what they offered, but it was painful to use because they only offered a document DB queryably with a clunky graphql. That’s a perfect startup opportunity - a product that you really want to use and are willing to invest weeks of effort and money into, but has a major and fundamental flaw, that can be easily fixed by starting afresh. Somehow incumbents get stuck to their path and can't backtrack to solve the issue. I clearly didn’t recognize or pursue that opportunity, but Supabase did and launched in 2020. Their pitch was literally “Firebase but with Postgres dat...