Last night, BuzzFeed hosted a party with Facebook in support of the Open Computer Project.  The goal of the event was to build awareness in the New York startup community for an open source hardware design for servers that are 38% more efficient and 24% less expensive to build and run.  So you get both cost savings and an environmental [...]

I’ve written extensively my belief that competition is seldom the cause of death for startups. Most companies are not competed out of business but rather fail because of flawed execution, lack of demand, or structural issues in the market. In tandem with this belief comes a second heuristic: point solutions win. A focussed team working exclusively on a specific problem [...]

The launch of our Facebook App represents a big step forward in what we’re calling “BuzzFeed Everywhere.” We want to create the strongest social content experiences in all the places people spend time and exchange. In talking to Inside Facebook yesterday, it occurred to me that the right analogy (how I love analogies) is that Facebook is a vibrant cafe with [...]

[Updated 9/19/11 AM with Netflix discussion] The greatest danger of innovation to incumbent businesses is often misdiagnosed as distraction.  Business people often state, “We can’t become distracted from our core focus by the latest shiny object.”  I believe this is like fearing acne in the face of what can often be terminal diseases. The greatest danger in innovation is not [...]

I got my haircut yesterday on Lexington avenue at my neighborhood barber shop. I hadn’t seen my barber in about 8 weeks, as friends, family, and co-workers can attest to, and we reminisced about the east coast hurricane. I was shocked to learn that the Saturday of hurricane weekend was incredibly busy. Despite public transportation closing at noon, my barber [...]

“Things take longer but break harder and faster than anticipated.”  Will Porteous, one of our board members, said this to me and Jonah in a meeting right around the time I joined BuzzFeed 15 months ago.  By “break,” Will meant change, as in when someone breaks off from the pack, or moves quickly left or right. The line stuck with [...]