"The future of simplicity and usability in technology means connectedness. It means hardware devices that don’t operate as silos independent of our documents and media and communication channels. But that future is now upon us. Apple’s version has always been the most delightful, but now it is one of the more affordable offerings as well."

"Synchronizing buyers to improve efficiency and connection is a high-value endeavor, and it's right around the corner. It will permit mesh products, better conferences, higher productivity and less waste, while giving significant new power to consumers and those that organize them."

"But there are different kinds of risks. There’s the “1 in 10,000” or “1 in a 1,000,000 chance” of making something. And then there’s a “1 in 7 chance” or “1 in 14 chance.” I’m more in the “let’s take a 1 in 7 chance” rather than the “let’s take a 1 in 10,000 chance” category."

Fear, enterprise software, and the need to never give up in a startup.

Antonio Carusone details the backup system he uses for data. It's a combination of Dropbox, iDisk, Backblaze, and a RAID drive setup. Comes with a slick graphic as well.

"Many of you read those post-mortems and asked, what are the most common reasons why these startups failed? After a thorough analysis of those 32 start-up post-mortems, we compiled this list of the top 20 causes of startup failure."

Standards-based journalism with a semantic content management system is the future. Totally stellar essay.

Focus is a key to making your startup work long term.

To build a strong business you need to focus on the trunk first.

3 examples of smart people that can be bad employees.

A briefer on why Facebook may not have to go public.

"I think it means the mobile is slowly but surely moving to a web model. And as that happens, it is important to think of it as one big web and lots of devices and software accessing it."

"The strategy of looking at our past behaviors and repeating them might seem at first glance to be very reasonable. However, it suffers from at least two potential problems. First, it can make a few mediocre decisions into a long-term habit. For example, after we have gone to a fancy coffee shop three times in a row, we might reason that this is a great decision for us and continue with the same strategy for a long time."

Seth Godin gives some tips on how to organize a retreat/advance.

"The secret to classic industries is that each step in the plan must be simple. So simple that it's easy to explain and scale. But those simple steps can certainly add up to a complex web."

How Spencer Fry keeps himself busy as CEO now that Carbonmade is growing.

Paul Graham writes about the changing funding landscape for startups.

"The bulk of innovation is low-amplitude and takes place over a long period. Companies should focus on refining existing technologies as much as on creation."

Ideas for reducing churn in your startup.

Very smart analysis about Apple and the problem with conventional business "wisdom."

How to strategically manage content. Hint: The CMS doesn't solve anything.

Corporations don't have consciences. It's up the individual to work toward what is right.

"Presumably certain groups are more likely to use Facebook check-ins than others, but with Facebook’s scale they can let the users figure this out instead of having to plan it deliberately. That said, history suggests that big companies who rely on this “carpet bombing strategy” are often upended by focused startups who take over one niche at a time."

"Management and corporate hierarchies were invented to make work go faster and smoother. Maybe they still do. But not fast enough. Not smooth enough. And definitely not agile enough to adapt to the rapid pace of change the media industry is demanding."

"If you run a company, you will experience overwhelming psychological pressure to be overly positive. Stand up to the pressure, face your fear, and tell it like it is."

The case of second startup syndrome and how it can affect entrepreneurs.

Spencer Fry discusses his opinions and strategies behind a freemium model.

"Ask yourself: if you started over today, would you build the same product?  If not, consider significant changes to what you are building."

The challenges Chris Dixon has run into creating a startup in a new category.

Hoping for that one magical break in business is not a good gameplan. Instead, plan for a business that grows slowly through smart decisions and hard work.

An interesting, and apparently controversial, idea to conduct email audits as a method for making business more efficient.

37Signals interviews Campaign Monitor about their successfully bootstrapped business.

"The key risk for Google is that they are heavily dependent on online purchasing being a two-stage process:  the user does a search on Google, and then clicks on an ad to buy something on another site."

Spencer Fry gives some tips from his experience bootstrapping 4 companies.

Jason Fried talks about why business writing is so awful and how to make it better.

Caterina Fake discusses how, perhaps, it's better for software entrepreneurs to drop out of college.

Business may be all about who you know but that doesn't mean it has to be depressing. Take that as a challenge and work it to your advantage and toward change.