“What plans are like depends on how they are used. The plan-as-program view gives plans a central role. Plan use is only a matter of execution. Plans-as-programs directly determine their users’ actions.

The plan-as-communication view gives plans a much smaller role. It requires an account of improvisation. An agent who does use a plan-as-communication does not mechanically execute it. Instead, the agent uses the plan as one resource among others in continually redeciding what to do. The mindset is of participating in the world, not controlling it.

“Being socially exposed is AOK when people cannot hold meaningful power over you. Such is the life of most of the tech geeks living in Silicon Valley. But I spend all of my time with teenagers, one of the most vulnerable populations because of their lack of agency (let alone rights).

Self-exposure is critical to the coming of age process — it’s how we get a sense of who we are, how others perceive us, and how we fit into the world.

Forced exposure puts this population at a much greater risk, if only because their content is always taken out of context. Avoiding exposure for them is not a matter of security through obscurity, it’s about only being visible in context.

“A founder who gives up more equity to attract cofounders, new hires, and investors builds a more valuable company than one who parts with less equity. However, those superior returns often come from replacing the founder with a professional CEO more experienced with the needs of a growing company. This fundamental tension requires founders to make “rich” versus “king” trade-offs to maximize either their wealth or their control over the company.

“Just because it was stimulating doesn’t mean it helped with our goal.

“Social networking inventory is not monetizing as well as we would like.

“Arc seems to embody the idea that language design is library design, and vice-versa.

“I usually don’t refute criticisms directly. Refutations tend to be more gratifying to write than to read.

“What’s the right word to use for when the great worldwide democratizing force that is the Internet collectively decides that your most important blog post is about smelly ducting?

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.