Medium announced today that we’re acquiring a company called Glose, which is based in Paris, France. Glose is an ebook reader and store, similar to Kindle (but without the hardware). Like Kindle, you can buy almost any ebook (on the web), download it and read it instantly on the web or in the iOS or Android app.

I’ll post more at another time about why this deal and how we got here, why books are still important, how they might be better, and some of the things we plan to do. …

If you’re interested in the future of EVs, batteries, and transportation, follow The Mobilist by Steve LeVine:

Twice a week — on Tuesday and Friday mornings — we will meet and speak with the researchers and engineers who are attempting to take batteries the added distance and make electric cars cheaper, go further, and charge up faster.

this week in highlights

From some stuff I read:

• But let me tell you what does get better as time passes: the relationships, the accrued knowledge, your own self-awareness. These compound like high-interest investments, as you shift from early career (time to learn) to later career (time to earn)
• It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, to tell my father goodby over the phone on a conference call.
• I got a Peloton last month. I’m one of those people now. I sit on my stupid little bike almost every day for as long as I can stand it and I pedal…

A few weeks ago, I set up a form to ask me questions, and I got a lot of them. Thanks! The vast majority are about Medium, which is an indication to me we need another forum where we can receive and answer more user questions. We are looking into that. Meanwhile…

Anonymous Medium Writer asks: Do you now have to have a paid membership as a participant in the partner program to earn? If not, why not given this means people are taking money away from a limited pot that they are not contributing to?

The answer is no…

We often think that people who don’t agree with us on issues have different values. And when someone doesn’t value the same things we do — things we hold sacred — it can seem like they are broken, distorted, corrupt in some fundamental way that’s hard to understand. I think that's rarely the case.

For example, I bet there are very few people in the world who don’t value freedom, fairness, and a healthy environment. However, one person, if forced to choose, may say the order for priority is:

1. Freedom
2. Fairness
3. Environment

While another would stack rank thusly:

1. Environment
2. Fairness
3. …

“What matters for the long-term health of cities in general and New York City in particular, though, is what happens next. The great pandemic-induced experiment in working from home seems certain to result in lasting changes in how (and how often) knowledge workers use their offices, but they won’t completely go away. White-collar employers also won’t necessarily abandon cities, to which they had been returning from suburban office parks in recent decades in large part because cities were where educated young people wanted to be — and will likely want to be once again when indoor dining, nightlife and other attractions return.”

The Big-City Exodus Isn’t Very Big (Yet) — Bloomberg Opinion

“The tendrils of current polarization in the U.S. can be traced back to the 1990s or even before. In parallel tracks, an increasingly paranoid and rigid worldview developed across much of the far-right that was driven by radio. On the left, increasing radicalization was spurred through academic channels, i.e., mostly through books and academia.”

How The Social Dilemma Got Social Media Mostly Wrong by Christopher J. Ferguson

There are many interesting ideas and developments emerging about how to fund companies in more sustainable ways. Four recent posts from thinkers I follow (which highlight that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution):

Reid Hoffman:

But an IPO isn’t the end of a company’s story. In many cases, it’s just the second inning. Yet once a company goes public, it’s typical for its VC board members to roll off, leaving the CEO without someone to play an analogous role as an experienced partner. What’s missing is a major financial investor with patient capital who will partner with the CEO for the…