Trying to find a new angle to how you navigate the world is a conversation topic I found myself having with many folks this week. Whether it was finding a new job, thinking about new habits to adopt, or discovering new ways to just operate differently in 2020. With the articles I read this week, I found a similar thread across how companies are trying to reinvent themselves. Funny enough though, they're always looking to do so in the vein of growth or something else.

Mr. Mosseri likes to say that “technology isn’t good or bad, it just is.” But how could he be so sure? No one really knows what the long-term sociological impact of Instagram will be; it’s too new. “Social media, I think, often serves as a great amplifier of good and bad,” Mr. Mosseri said.

Mr. Mosseri quickly banned such images and ordered the development of additional tools to help users to avoid bullying. As I was writing this article, Mr. Mosseri emailed to say that he wanted to prioritize “well-being focus areas” for Instagram’s teenage users, “including problematic use and loneliness.”

He Wanted a Unicorn. He Got ... a Sustainable Business | WIRED

Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia finds a way to thrive outside Silicon Valley's cult of big riches.

His investors told him he should simply shutter the company. "They said 'your time is worth more than this, shut it down, start again, we'll give you more money to do that,'" Lavingia tells WIRED.

But, Lavingia says, he felt a responsibility to the sellers on Gumroad. "We were processing $2.5 million every month," he says. "Creators relied on that for rent, student loans, mortgage. It seemed wrong to tell thousands of people 'hey, because I want to try something else, you're going to lose this monthly check that you're using to pay your rent.'"

Instead, Lavingia chose to try for sustainability, not VC-style growth.

Where before, his goal was getting to a billion dollars, he found other ways to measure success, like the millions of dollars he says the company has paid out to creators. He’s built the Gumroad team back up to 15 people, including part-time employees, but hopes to keep the company small and sustainable.

Google plans to kill off third-party cookies in Chrome 'within 2 years' - Digiday

Google is setting out a long grace period for its intended browser change and is asking the wider online advertising industry to help it build more privacy-focused alternatives to the cookie.

Google said on Tuesday it’s planning to end support for third-party tracking cookies in its popular Chrome browser “within two years,” a move it says will make web browsing more secure for users. The proposed shift is likely to send tremors across an entire online ad ecosystem that has long relied on cookies to target and track advertising.

“By undermining the business model of many ad-supported websites, blunt approaches to cookies encourage the use of opaque techniques such as fingerprinting (an invasive workaround to replace cookies), which can actually reduce user privacy and control,” Schuh wrote.

Still, advertising executives told Digiday the fact that Google is seeking feedback and setting out a long grace period before third-party cookies become obsolete in Chrome will likely be welcomed by industry players. Google’s approach differs from the like-it-or-lump-it stance of rival browser companies, whose technical updates have sometimes left the advertising and media industries blindsided and frustrated.