Skip to content
Not Only Luck
.
About
Writing
On X
The writing
Ideas
Writing about ideas.
Find an essay by title or topic
88 essays
2026
Sep 18, 2026
AI · From X
The World Is Ready for a Rewrite
2021
Apr 12, 2021
AI
The Compelling Vision of Internet Decentralization
2020
Sep 29, 2020
Health
Same Day Coronavirus Testing for Employers
2014
Oct 30, 2014
Fundraising
Hoverboards
Oct 28, 2014
Engineering
Startups Where Scientific Research Is The Bottleneck
Oct 27, 2014
Ideas
Training the Startup Brain to Spot Ideas
Oct 18, 2014
Ideas
Articles on Idea Generation
Oct 13, 2014
Engineering
Brinktop Needs Case Ideas
Oct 5, 2014
Ideas
Halloween Costume Startup
Sep 26, 2014
Ideas
YCombinator’s List of Startup Ideas
Sep 21, 2014
Education
State of the Art of Computer Vision
Sep 7, 2014
Ideas
Conditions for First Time Entrepreneurs to Consider
Sep 4, 2014
Ideas
The Customer Can Be Wrong
Aug 31, 2014
Ideas
Reimagining Existing Products or Services
Aug 27, 2014
Education
On Drones
Aug 16, 2014
Ideas
Dealing with the Big Question Marks
Aug 12, 2014
Ideas
Business and Personal Metrics by Gallagher
Aug 2, 2014
Acquisition
Thoughts on the Trunkclub Acquisition
Jul 25, 2014
Ideas
Is Hardware Hard?
Jul 18, 2014
Ideas
A Potential Pivot for Brinktop
Jul 13, 2014
Ideas
When Customer Discovery Breaks Down
Jul 12, 2014
Ideas
Costs of Customer Discovery
Jul 11, 2014
Ideas
Introducing Brinktop
Jul 10, 2014
Ideas
Killing Off Dyced
Jul 8, 2014
Ideas
Introducing Dyced
Jun 18, 2014
Ideas
Is Software the Solution?
Jun 17, 2014
Ideas
De-Risking Startups for Founders & Parallel Entrepreneurship
Apr 30, 2014
Ideas
Computer Vision for Vein Finding as a Biometric
Apr 19, 2014
Ideas
What Do You Do With Your Startup Idea?
Apr 14, 2014
Ideas
A Personal Entrepreneurial Thesis
Apr 11, 2014
Education
How My PhD Research Was Not Commercially Viable
Apr 10, 2014
Education
Why I Don’t Have a Direct Neuroimaging Startup
Apr 9, 2014
Education
Medical Image Processing and Meandering as an Entrepreneur
Apr 8, 2014
Education
Tagged Photos are Perfect for Surveillance
Apr 7, 2014
Engineering
Computer Vision
Apr 6, 2014
Engineering
Machine Learning
Mar 10, 2014
Events
B2C Startups in Atlanta
Jan 10, 2014
Ideas
Dreamy Startup Ideas
2013
Dec 26, 2013
Ideas
Fitness Trackers
Dec 20, 2013
Engineering
Cognition-as-a-Service
Dec 19, 2013
Education
Thoughts on Commercializing University IP
Dec 8, 2013
Education
Living in the Future with Mini Computers
Dec 7, 2013
Engineering
The Internet of Things
Dec 6, 2013
Ideas
Startup Idea Secret Keeping
Dec 5, 2013
Education
Instagram & Snapchat Are Lucky Jackpots
Dec 1, 2013
Engineering
Challenges for Amazon Prime Air
Nov 26, 2013
Ideas
The FDA and Balancing Innovation vs Regulation
Nov 25, 2013
Ideas
Wearable Computing and Augmented Reality
Nov 24, 2013
Education
My Bitcoin Mining Experiment
Nov 14, 2013
Education
Flipping Internet Privacy on its Head
Nov 12, 2013
Engineering
Tesla Motors Factory Tour
Nov 11, 2013
Ideas
Playing with New Technologies
Nov 10, 2013
Engineering
Dealing with Platform Risk
Nov 7, 2013
Ideas
Dependence on Luck Varies with the Type of Startup
Oct 31, 2013
Ideas
Thoughts on Not Starting an Investment Fund
Oct 24, 2013
Ideas
Get a Powerful Entrepreneurial Mindset
Oct 23, 2013
Education
Building Technology Barriers to Entry are Tricky
Oct 21, 2013
Events
Georgia Tech Startup Competition Kickoff
Oct 20, 2013
Engineering
3D Printing
Oct 17, 2013
Ideas
Startup Idea Case Study: Server Cooling
Sep 22, 2013
Ideas
Concoction Startups
Sep 20, 2013
Ideas
Fun Friday: Virtual Smell
Sep 12, 2013
Ideas
Parallel Entrepreneurship
Aug 30, 2013
Ideas
Startups Serving Startups
Aug 27, 2013
Ideas
Working On (Not In) Your Startup
Aug 15, 2013
Education
Disruptive Innovation in Technical Computing
Aug 14, 2013
Education
Disruptive Innovation
Aug 13, 2013
Education
Startup Blindspots from Quora
Aug 10, 2013
Ideas
From Investment Banking to Startup
Aug 2, 2013
Engineering
Fun Friday: Video Game Innovation with Microsoft’s IllumiRoom
Aug 1, 2013
Engineering
How Video Games Influence Computing
Jul 22, 2013
Events
WebRTC and the Rapid Pace of Browser Innovation
Jul 17, 2013
Education
Fostering Creativity
Jul 2, 2013
Ideas
Virtual Reality is Ripening
Jun 27, 2013
Engineering
How Far Will Browsers Go
Jun 21, 2013
Ideas
The Invisalign Story
Jun 20, 2013
Fundraising
NIH SBIR Review Process
Jun 17, 2013
Culture
Finding Your Passionate Dream Job
May 30, 2013
Culture
Celebrating Startups at the Technical Edge
May 29, 2013
Education
Highlights from Mary Meeker’s Slidedeck
May 23, 2013
Ideas
Startup Ideas that I Dropped During Grad School
May 22, 2013
Ideas
Startup Ideas that I Dropped During Undergrad
May 16, 2013
Education
Product Launch Experience Before Starting Up
May 9, 2013
Events
Opportunity in Uncommon Expertise Combinations
Apr 17, 2013
Ideas
Jonny Birdsong’s Predictions for Atlanta
Apr 6, 2013
Ideas
Betting on a Technology Trend
Feb 13, 2013
Ideas
Startup Idea – Egg Drop Soup in a Can
Jan 6, 2013
Ideas
Target Idea Brainstorming at a Familiar Audience