Best blogs for tech people
Underrated blogs that'll make you think and learn something new
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AI-generated content is everywhere. My newsfeed. My discover page. My texts.
To be a bit blunt: I am getting pretty tired of it! And I bet you are too.
That’s why I put together this list of some of my favorite (human-powered) blogs. Some of these are “classics” in the tech world. Others are more under-the-radar. All of them I expect will make you think. I have personally spent multiple hours on each blog, and I can assure you there’s at least one insightful nugget you can take away from each one.
So the next time you find yourself craving something to read, try pulling a random essay from this list. I’d bet you’ll find something interesting. (Let me know what I’m missing!)
The best blogs for tech people
Sriram Krishnan’s List of Iconic Tech Memos
Why I like it: Very few people have actually worked with the “titans” of the tech industry. The Steve Jobs. The Zucks. Etc. Even if you cannot work with them, you can still read their writing. And this collection of memos showcase internal emails from the early days of companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Apple. Recommend reading to get a glimpse of what it’s like inside these companies.
Cate Hall’s Blog Useful Fictions
Why I like it: Cate was previously a supreme court lawyer and also the top-ranked female poker player in the world. She also lost everything to drug addiction and debt. She writes a lot about agency and what you can do to change your life. I find her stories inspiring and full of useful re-framings that’ll help you on your journey.
Aaron Swartz’s Blog
Why I like it: Aaron Swartz was one of the creators of Reddit and helped develop much of the early internet. He has a really unique perspective on many aspects of life, society, and culture. It’s the type of blog that is sure to make you think, even if some of the topics have nothing to do with startups.
Jeff Bezos Shareholder Letters
Why I like it: One underrated thing about Bezos is just how fantastic of a writer he is. He’s able to distill very complicated topics into extremely clear strategic documents. You can see this in his annual shareholder letters, which he used to send publicly to all the shareholders of Amazon, dating back to the very beginning of the company. If you want to see strategic excellence put into practice, notice his language.
Jessica Livingston’s Blog
Why I like it: Jessica Livingston is one of the founders of YCombinator. She’s given a number of interesting talks to startups over the years and this blog includes many of her transcripts. She also runs a podcast where she interviews founders, many of whom have never been interviewed before.
Delian’s lessons from Keith Rabois
Why I like it: Delian used to be Keith Rabois’ Chief of Staff. Keith, now a partner at Khosla Ventures, was an executive at Square and investor in many now unicorn companies. Delian took notes on company building from Keith and put them in this blog. There are a bunch of pieces of practical advice around how to run your company effectively that I think operators of all kinds can learn from.
Elad Gil’s High Growth Handbook
Why I like it: Elad Gil is an active investor in companies like Airbnb, Anduril, Coinbase, and many others. He also founded a few companies. He then wrote this book - High Growth Handbook - where he interviewed his friends and operators across his portfolio and collected best practices that can be useful for startup founders/leaders. I wouldn’t read the whole thing at once…I would use it more like a piece of reference material as you are diving into particular areas (e.g. product management or managing your board).
Ben Thompson’s Stratechery
Why I like it: I think of Ben Thompson a bit like the “business school” voice in the proverbial tech room. What I mean by that is he applies seemingly useful business frameworks as he studies many big tech companies like Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. His most popular series of frameworks fall under what he calls “Aggregation Theory” and I generally find it to be a useful lens for understanding companies.
Matt Mochary’s The Great CEO Within
Why I like it: Matt Mochary has been the executive coach for a number of unicorn founders like Brian Armstrong from Coinbase and Sam Altman from OpenAI. He wrote this book (now available for free in this Google doc) where he shared best practices about running a company and becoming a great CEO. A lot of the advice can be useful regardless of your role, and provide you insight into how he thinks about some of the top-performing companies.
Blake Masters Notes from Peter Thiel’s Course
Why I like it: Peter Thiel is known for lots of things including being a part of Paypal and an investor at Founders Fund seeding many now unicorn companies. He taught a course on all things startups back in 2012, and a student in his class Blake Masters took very detailed notes. You can read the notes here, and it’ll feel like you had a front row seat to the class!
Marc Andreessen’s Blog
Why I like it: Marc is the cofounder of the now popular venture capital fund a16z. Before that, he is credited for having played a large role in the invention of the web browser. He has lots of thoughts on seemingly everything. And you can read many of them in his blog, where he has interesting explainer guides to his thoughts on topics like productivity and company building.
Sam Altman’s How to Start a Startup
Why I like it: Long before Sam was the CEO of OpenAI, he was running YCombinator. And while he was there, he put together a course called “How to Start a Startup” where he had many leaders in the startup world - people running the biggest companies of the time - come in to teach a class at Stanford. This is that course. All the slides and videos are available here. If you are looking to break into startups, I think this course can really help you get started. (And it’s completely free!).
The Quarter Mile Blog
Why I like it: A collection of essays that should make you think about startups, life, and your career. Lots of rather quick reads.
Patrick McKenzie’s Blog
Why I like it: Patrick is one of my favorite internet people. Why? Just read his blog. He comments on a number of topics but most often things related to finance, company building, and career advice. An essay I recommend nearly everyone I meet who is exploring what’s next is his essay on negotiation. It’s really useful, in large part because Patrick is really good at explaining complicated topics using helpful metaphors. He has a way of framing things that really put things into perspective and can help you internalize a topic.
Chris Dixon’s Blog
Why I like it: Chris is a partner at a16z today. He’s known in many ways for being early to trends, like crypto, and I just find it interesting to see how he thinks about company building. He has a number of essays about navigating the “idea maze” and finding product-market fit that are memorable.
Some additional favorites:
Howard Marks Oaktree Capital Memos - one of the best performing investors of all time.
Paul Buchheit’s Blog - creator of Gmail.
Andrew Bosworth’s Blog - CTO of Meta.
Warren Buffett Berkshire Hathway Letters - one of the best performing investors of all time.
Kool Aid Factory - Brie Wolfson’s thoughts on company culture.
Want more? Be sure to check out Friends of Next Play.
And if you liked this please do upvote and
Thank you for recommending @Cate Hall! I was familiar with many others in the list but not Useful Fictions. I’ve gone on a deep dive into the archive and shared her posts with several friends because they’re both insightful and relatable. Really glad this wasn’t a tech-specific list.
Great great list. Thanks for sharing so generously!
Not a blog, but I'd add Dialectic podcast+ Substack (by Jackson Dahl) to this list because it's a mix of art + media + tech, which might be Interesting to people in tech.
Case in point is his recent conversation with Brie Wolfson: https://www.dialectic.fm/brie-wolfson
And also is conversation with Ryo Lu from Cursor is another interesting episode: https://www.dialectic.fm/ryo-lu ;)
Once again, thanks!