The 5 Minute Tech Break : Mar 22

The "5 Minute Tech Break" is back ... after a week off.

Rest assured, we weren't resting on our laurels but instead working feverishly behind the scenes with some changes to CTO Academy, that we hope to be announcing in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, sit back, grab that beverage and enjoy our some of current thoughts on the world.

Jason & Andrew
https://cto.academy

Article of Our Week :

"If You're Working In A Start Up,
You're Always Short Of Money"

Many of our subscribers work in early stage companies, fast growth start ups.  A consistent theme within most of these companies is a never ending search for funds indeed, most startup CEOs are involved in a constant circuit of talking with, reassuring or meeting investors. 

We're in the process of recording a new course focused around the fund raising process but in the meantime, we posted an article this week looking at some of the strategies and channels for raising money.

Some of you won't recall Y2K

I was sat in a hostelry close to the City of London recently, and was reminiscing with a pal about Y2K.

Aside from the sudden realisation that it's essentially 20 years since peak Y2K I was reflecting my own situation in particular, living as I did at the time in Sydney.

To those unaware of the circumstances but, back in 1999 the world was going to end as the Y2K bug was going to kick in.

Simply for some systems, when the clock ticked over from 31st Dec 1999 to 1st Jan we were not quite sure what was going to happen as a lot of systems were not geared to going back in time.

There was a huge amount of press speculating about the impact with stories of food shortages, water running out and planes falling from the sky!

Within the industry, we knew it was coming years before and by the time we rolled over into 2000, most systems had been upgraded and/or were shiny new. There is a theory that one reason why tech investment slowed (along with the dotcom bubble) was that it was unnecessary due to being up to date.

The pal I was chatting with took some great cash and spend the night on standby, in a data centre.  

I decided instead to watch some spectacular fireworks across Sydney harbour.  Some experiences are priceless besides which, as the Aussie new year kicks in before almost everyone else, we already knew that Y2K was a non-issue. [JN]



Book of the week :
The Marshmallow Test

Understanding Self-control and How To Master It

Eat a marshmallow now or wait and get two. This book is based on decades of research and life examples to explore the nature of willpower, identifying the cognitive skills and mental mechanisms that enable it and showing how these can be applied to challenges in everyday life.

This is not the 'one idea that is expanded out into a long winded self help book' but instead explains more about the history behind these experiments, and the conclusions that have been developed from them.

Quote of the Week on "Overnight Success"

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. Overnight success is a fallacy. It is preceded by a great deal of preparation. Ask any successful person how they came to this point in their lives, and they will have a story to tell.
Mark Twain

This is already the 15th edition of 'The 5 Minute Tech Break'.

To those insatiable types and/or recent subscribers, you can always go visit our ever increasing and fabulously entertaining archives of previous editions.

Stay happy, heathy and have a super weekend.

Watch this space .... CTO Academy is building the next phase of our platform.  

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