"The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another." - William James
Via (@GreatestQuotes)
Via (@GreatestQuotes)
What Might Change As A Result Of The Deal
Right now, the Goodreads site makes it relatively easy for users to download or purchase books from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other sites. It's sort of hard to imagine that Amazon will continue to allow links to non-Amazon stores going forward. Likewise, it's entirely possible that Amazon might begin, let's say, encouraging Goodreads members to sign in using Amazon IDs.
Similarly, it remains unclear whether Amazon will leave the Goodreads site itself largely untouched, or whether Amazon plans over time to assimilate -- OK, "integrate" -- it more closely with its main e-commerce site. We do know that Goodreads will continue to maintain its headquarters in San Francisco, which suggests that -- as with Amazon's Zappos acquisition -- the retailer intends to keep Goodreads as an independent entity.
What I hope to see during 2013, and the coming years, is a Flight to Substance. I want the best people– investors, entrepreneurs, engineers– to realize that they’ve been hoodwinked by VC-istan’s shallow reinvention of the corporate system as something different and “cooler”, and to demand a return to Real Technology. I want to see better ideas, better companies, and better cultures. I want to see funding for research and development, so that people can do intellectually interesting work without being thrown into the secondary labor market that academia has become. I want to see a world in which people actually care about solving hard problems and delivering real value. When this happens, the Technocrats can win again.