Best Articles I Wrote (2018 Edition)

Best Articles I Wrote (2018 Edition)

Best Articles I Wrote (2018 Edition)

I’ve already written up my favorite articles I read this year, and so it is time to talk about my favorite articles that I wrote this year.

I wrote 173 pieces for TechCrunch this year, covering a huge gamut of topics including the rise of China’s technological dominance, enterprise and infrastructure startups, and the changing nature of venture capital. It’s been quite a year!

Without too much ado, here are the top three articles and a couple of honorable mentions.

Top Articles

Subscription hell

Subscription is increasingly the default revenue model for software and media, but what happens to consumers when every single service we use requires an annual payment? Subscription Hell, basically. This was a cri de cœur for software developers and media executives to consider the anti-consumer nature of subscriptions, and in a follow-up piece, to consider the high costs of all of these aggregate subscriptions. I think subscriptions are vital for sustainability, but they also have to be aligned with consumer wallets. (1,420 words)

Digital nomads are hiring and firing their governments

Through a startup called Jobbatical, in-demand and talented workers are increasingly choosing where to work and live based on the amenities that are offered by governments. In the global battle for talent, the governments that do the best in attracting the top experts will see the most economic growth and status increase, which means that mobile talented workers have an unusually strong level of influence on these administrations. Expect to hear more about these changes in 2019. (1,840 words)

The death of once high-flying VC funds

This was a retrospective on the deaths of four well-known venture capital funds and what it says about Silicon Valley. A certain era of VC, with big images, audacious ideas, and bold agendas seems to have disappeared, and a new generation of managers is coming to the fore with a much more heads-down approach. That’s a healthy dynamic for the industry, but how long until these lessons are unlearned? (2,280 words)

Honorable Mentions

Image by Jo Morcom used under Creative Commons.