Mummy, where do baby startups come from?

In the AI Boom, a Room of Their Own

FoundHer House, an all-female hacker house started by two students at the USC Iovine and Young Academy, aims to accelerate the growth of female-led, AI-driven tech startups.

Re:collection | Home

If the yardsticks of maturity are an understanding, respect and recognition of history, then we are still in utero.

Brainchildren

Minds are complex artifacts, partly biological and partly social; only a unified, multidisciplinary approach will yield a realistic theory of how they came i...

A new middle-class fraction with a distinct subjectivity: Tech workers and the transformation of the entrepreneurial self

With the rise of digital capitalism, a novel occupational segment has emerged: so-called ‘tech workers’. Members of this grouping render and encode the digital technologies that permeate contemporary social life. While there are many studies about highly precarious digital labourers, research on these digital professionals remains scarce. Based on 40 original interviews, the article explores the subjectivity of tech workers. Specifically, it asks whether understandings of middle-class employees as entrepreneurial selves with a holistic market orientation hold true for this grouping, or whether new cultures of subjectivation are emerging. The key finding from these interviews is that tech workers show contours of a post-neoliberal subjectivity. While the figure of the entrepreneurial self remains an alluring force, this study detected four transformative cultures of subjectivation: (1) a return of the critique of economic inequality; (2) a concern for diversity; (3) an ethic of mindfulness; and (4) a lifestyle that signals ordinariness. These distinct forms of subjectivity point to the formation of a new middle-class fraction. However, drawing on the sociology of critique, this article also considers how this transformation of subjectivity can be appropriated as yet another new spirit of capitalism.

Where are the field builders?

Appreciating the unsung heroes of technoscience.

Humanities in the Machine - Blain Smith

There is something quietly remarkable about the people who built the foundations of modern computing. Not their technical achievements, though those are extraordinary. What is remarkable is where they came from before they ever touched a machine.

The Market Curve

The market you choose to serve is one of the most important factors for an early-stage startup. And for most technologists, it’s a blind …

Matt Webb

I have worked with some of the world’s largest firms on design-led product invention using new technology for over 20 years. I was MD of two London startup accelerators with R/GA Ventures, and co-founder and CEO of pioneering design studio BERG, where we shipped connected products and got work into the New York MoMA.

Sidecar funds, corporate vehicles, club deals: how do startup studios get financed?

As explained in The Rise of Startup Studios, a white paper published by The Global Startup Studio Network in 2019, the term “startup…

"Last night I got an email from someone who said 'I'm 46, is it okay to start producing music?' I said 'yes, start now!'": How a 67-year-old pensioner went viral performing industrial techno at home

What started as a post-retirement hobby has led The Last DJ to runaway success and his first gig in 40 years. Now he's on a mission to inspire others to do the same

Local-First Software: Origins And Evolution

Developer interest in local-first software is continuing to grow rapidly in 2024. At the same time, it’s also apparent that developers currently have different views on what they consider to be ‘local-first software’, ranging from narrower to broader definitions. This prompted us to take a closer look at the origins and evolution of local-first.

Folk Tech – tech for life

Folk Tech is a solidarity-based movement among designers, developers, and people in communities who want digital technology that supports their daily life and interdependence without the extraction, exploitation, or surveillance found in most proprietary technology today.

Folk Tech – tech for life

Folk Tech is a solidarity-based movement among designers, developers, and people in communities who want digital technology that supports their daily life and interdependence without the extraction, exploitation, or surveillance found in most proprietary technology today.