Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 23

The Flappy Bird Creator Once Did the Unthinkable. Now He’s Doing It Again.

In 2013 the inventor of a viral gaming app did the unthinkable. His name was Dong Nguyen, and he was the developer who created the popular game Flappy Bird. The game had taken over culture in a matter of months and was quickly getting attention for extensions like a movie, tv series and plenty more. Then abruptly, Nguyen shut down the whole project. At the time, he explained his reasoning this way in a rare interview with Forbes:

“Flappy Bird was designed to play in a few minutes when you are...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho

This is the best kind of book about important questions. One that doesn’t preach or try to convert with the answers, but rather focuses on how to ask the questions with empathy … and to really listen to the answers.

Should you call someone Black or African American? Is there a difference? When the author writes about really being Nigerian American – not African American, I could relate. I’m Asian American, but I’m also Indian American. Which is, of course, entirely different from being Americ...

UK Non-Profit Ties Baby Slings on Statues to Fight for Paternity Leave

Across London this week, people have been encountering an unusual sight. Statues of famous men are adorned with wraparound baby carriers filled with dolls. The exhibits are part of a campaign from non-profit Dad Shift to get the UK government to pass legislation allowing for greater paternity leave for new dads (the UK has the worst terms across Europe). Here’s how the founder describes the motivation and mission:

“We meant it to be a positively provocative sight. There’s such an imbalance in...

4 Ways Tupperware Could Have Saved Itself

The iconic food storage brand Tupperware just filed for bankruptcy protection. Officially, Tupperware aims to “protect its beloved brand as it shifts towards a digital-first, technology-led company … to enhance its omni-channel capabilities.” At the same time, the company has promised to retain agreements with independent sales consultants, who “remain a core part of the company’s sales strategy.”

Wading through all the corporate doublespeak, the demise of this once popular brand should becom...

How the Black List Changed Hollywood, and Might Change Publishing Too

Nearly twenty years ago, Franklin Leonard started publishing his Black List which collected “an annual survey of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays.” The goal was to help undiscovered projects find funding and backers. More than 400 of the forgotten works on his list were eventually produced, including blockbusters like Slumdog Millionaire and The King’s Speech. His efforts have had a dramatic effect in helping more diverse projects get made and The Black List even inspired a Harvard case s...

How the Japanese Anime Series One Piece Became One of the Biggest Entertainment Franchises in The World

The Japanese anime series One Piece just hit its milestone 25th anniversary and has run for more than 1,000 episodes. The show has become a worldwide phenomenon and is the most popular manga comic story of all time based on sales, with a Guinness World Record to prove it.

One interesting secret of its success may be its complexity. According to One Piece Podcast host Zach Logan, “One Piece changed the manga industry. When it comes to the sheer number of characters and ideas created by Oda-sen...

This Yogurt Brand Will Pay You $1000 To Stay Off Social Media Until After the Election Is Over

How will you avoid the toxic conversations that often come along with an election cycle? It might start with avoiding social media altogether. Yogurt brand Stonyfield is challenging their customers to do that and rewarding 100 winners with $1000 each if they can do it. The campaign’s website describes the intention of the campaign like this:

It’s election season. No matter what side you’re on, we all know that political conversations on social media can quickly become heated and tension-fille...

This London-based Pharmacy Prescribes Poetry as Treatment

For those of us who love poetry, it really can lift your mood or shift your perspective in a way other written words can’t. Now there’s a place that is offering it literally as a prescription for that effect. The Poetry Pharmacy is a two-location concept in England that is currently looking for a part-time barista and part-time bookseller. That sounds like a dream job.

The vision behind the retail concept is ambitious and beautiful: “We believe that poetry can do so much to match or alter a m...

The Non-Obvious Book of the Week: STFU – The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in An Endlessly Noisy World, by Dan Lyons

Fresh from hours of pundit cross examining and dissecting the first (and probably only) Presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, it’s hard to imagine a timelier read than Dan Lyon’s modern classic STFU all about why we might all be better off if we could just get better at staying silent:

Learning to shut the fuck up will change your life. It will make you smarter, more likable, more creative, and more powerful. It might even help you live longer.

People who talk less ar...

How To Get Hated by AI … and How to Get Someone to Fix It

Reporter Kevin Roose is dealing with a unique problem … AI chatbots hate him. It’s all thanks to an article he wrote back in February 2023 which was focused on the “death” of Sydney—the name that Microsoft had chosen for the AI chatbot they created and paired with their Bing search engine. The article was promptly scraped by AI and used as training data, which associated Roose’s name with the demise of an AI chatbot. The learning model put the pieces together and decided Roose was an enemy of AI...