Jason Shen

The Outlier Coach—helping founders build conviction in what's next · 3x venture-backed startup founder (acq by FB) · Author of 'The Path to Pivot' & 'Weirdly Brilliant' · ADHD · Former NCAA gymnast

Feb 24

Introducing Headlight — Editor’s note: Headlight was acquired by Woven in March of 2019 [https://highalpha.com/developer-hiring-platform-woven-acquires-nyc-based-tech-screening-platform/] . In late 2017, I started a company called Headlight [https://www.headlightlabs.com/] with my friend and former coworker Wayne Gerard. We’re building a performance hiring platform that helps employers screen candidates for

Jul 28

The Fuzzy and the Techie — I just finished Scott Hartley’s new book The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World [https://www.amazon.com/Fuzzy-Techie-Liberal-Digital-World/dp/0544944771/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1501252541&sr=8-1&keywords=fuzzy+and+techie&linkCode=ll1&

Jul 26

Goodbye Etsy, Hello World — 💡tl;dr: I recently left Etsy and I’m working on some new projects: one around improving tech hiring, and another around personal excellence. I have some spare cycles to take on part-time consulting / contract work in product and marketing, so don’t hesitate to reach out. I joined Etsy

Jun 07

31 — It’s sort of a tradition at this point for me to do a post around my birthday (see: 30 [http://www.jasonshen.com/2016/30], 29 [http://www.jasonshen.com/2015/29], 28 [http://www.jasonshen.com/2014/28], 27 [https://www.jasonshen.com/2013/27], 26 [http://www.

Jan 11

Ridejoy: Lessons Learned — On April 24th, 2011, I sat down with my friends Kalvin and Randy for an intense 10 minute interview with Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Jessica Livingston and several other partners at Y Combinator (YC). We were hoping to convince the world’s most powerful startup accelerator to accept our Reloveit,

Sep 28

Remote: Office Not Required — I just finished reading Remote: Office Not Required [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0804137501/ref=as_li_ss_tl%3Fie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0804137501&linkCode=as2&tag=helpyour-20] , by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, partners at 37Signals [http://37signals.com/

Sep 24

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future — Today, we’re taking a look at the book The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly. I really enjoyed this book and if you work in technology or even have a passing interest in how technology will shape our world in the

Sep 20

Getting Turned Down By Google Helped Me Get Hired At Etsy — A product manager explains how trying to oversell his technical chops to Google helped him switch gears while interviewing at Etsy.

Aug 25

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging — I recently finished reading Sebastian Junger’s excellent new book Tribes: on Homecoming and Belonging [https://jason-shen.ghost.io/%22http://amzn.to/2bqyqJL/%22]. It’s a slim volume that addresses something really important: how hardship builds group cohesion and solidarity. In my keynote speech [https://jason-shen.ghost.io/%22https:

Aug 17

An Open Letter to Managers of Women — This article first appeared on Medium [https://web.archive.org/web/20180929094629/https://medium.com/@JasonShen/an-open-letter-to-managers-of-women-58b1655943ce#.i9jvjj4kq] , where it has received over 205,000 views. It has been republished to Quartz [https://web.archive.org/web/20180929094629/http://qz.com/771448/managers-its-time-to-pay-women-what-theyre-worth-with-titles-to-match/] , Upworthy [https://web.archive.org/web/20180929094629/

Jul 20

Product Insights from Pokémon GO — As you probably have heard, Nintendo has partnered with game developer Niantic to launch a wildly popular game for iOS and Android called Pokémon GO. The game has already reached over 21M daily active users [https://www.surveymonkey.com/business/intelligence/pokemon-go-biggest-mobile-game-ever/] , dominated the in-game purchasing market [https://intelligence.slice.

Jul 11

What the Black Lives Matter Movement Means to Me — The events of the last week have been horrifying, infuriating, and deeply saddening. Two black men, Alton Sterling, and Philando Castile, have been shot dead by police officers. Men who were not resisting arrest, not posing a threat, and who should not be dead. Their final, awful moments, filmed on

Jun 15

Beyond the 10,000 Hour Rule — We’re all familiar with the 10,000 hour rule, which was made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in his 2010 bestseller Outliers: The Story of Success [https://web.archive.org/web/20171128084400/http://amzn.to/1ZMKchl]. In it, Gladwell makes the argument that 10,000 hours of practice is a

Jun 01

Delivering My First Keynote Speech — The story of my first major paid speech and what I learned

May 31

30 — Photo by Martin Reisch on Unsplash About a week ago I celebrated a major milestone and turned *gasp* 30. Over the last few years, I’ve kept very careful track of how much time I had left until thirty, which was the age I thought I needed to have “made

May 24

The New Napster — There has been an explosive new development in how scientific research is read and distributed. It’s name is Sci-Hub [https://web.archive.org/web/20181007100235/https://sci-hub.cc/]. Founded in 2011 by Alexandra Elbakyan (who was, at the time, a 22 year-old graduate student based in Kazakhstan), the site

Jan 30

What Makes Effective Problem-Solving Teams — We all want to work in teams that exhibit high performance and solve problems effectively. But while it’s often easier to understand what drives individual performance, team performance is a more complex activity. There is some great research done by folks at MIT, Carnegie Mellon, and Google that shows

Jan 24

Readership Survey — Since it’s been a few years since my last readership survey [https://web.archive.org/web/20180407231456/https://www.jasonshen.com/2011/results-of-the-2011-readership-survey/] , I decided to poll members of the Art of Ass-Kicking insider’s list to see who they are and why they read the blog. Here are

Jan 15

Play to Your Strengths — Why you'll never win by staying on defense

Jan 11

The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else — I recently finished reading The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else [https://web.archive.org/web/20160921075050/http://amzn.to/1VCM2PO] in business by Patrick Lencioni. You’ve definitely heard Lencioni’s other books: Death by Meeting [http://amzn.to/1La6Uxa] and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team [https: