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When Mark Zuckerberg and Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel first met, Spiegel left the meeting feeling unsettled.

According to a Forbes interview with Spiegel, Zuckerberg had said Facebook was working on an app that sounded a lot like Snapchat, Poke, and that the app would be launching soon.

'It was basically like, 'We're going to crush you,'" Spiegel told Forbes' J.J. Colao.

Spiegel quickly purchased a book, "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, for each member of his six-person team.

The Art of War was written by a Chinese general named Sun Tzu more than 2,500 years ago, possibly in the 6th Century BC. The book has long been heralded for its advice on military success. And this advice has since been co-opted by legions of armchair soldiers and generals in the business world.

The book is composed of 13 chapters, each of which focuses on a different aspect of war. It's a smart book. It's also poetic, repetitive, and arcane. So we've boiled down the highlights, compiling quotes from throughout the book.

ON MANAGEMENT: Care about your team, but also be tough

There are five dangerous faults which may affect a general:  

• recklessness, which leads to destruction;
• cowardice, which leads to capture;
• a hasty temper, which can be provoked by insults;
• a delicacy of honor, which is sensitive to shame;
• over-solicitude for his men, which exposes him to worry and trouble.  

Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valleys; look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your authority felt; kind-hearted, but unable to enforce your commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder: then your soldiers must be likened to spoilt children; they are useless for any practical purpose.  

When the general is weak and without authority; when his orders are not clear and distinct; when there are no fixed duties assigned to officers and men, and the ranks are formed in a slovenly haphazard manner, the result is utter disorganization.

Based on text from "The Art of War."

ON MANAGEMENT: Hire great people, because weak, frustrated subordinates will cripple you.

When the common soldiers are too strong and their officers too weak, the result is insubordination. When the officers are too strong and the common soldiers too weak, the result is collapse. 

When the higher officers are angry and insubordinate, and on meeting the enemy give battle on their own account from a feeling of resentment, before the commander-in-chief can tell whether or not he is in a position to fight, the result is ruin. 

Based on text from "The Art of War."

ON STRATEGY: Know your enemy

If we know that our own men are in a condition to attack, but are unaware that the enemy is not open to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

In your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this way:

• which of the two generals has the most ability? 
• on which side is Discipline most rigorously enforced? 
• which army is stronger? 
• on which side are the officers and men more highly trained? 
• in which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment? 

Move not unless you see an advantage; use not your troops unless there is something to be gained; fight not unless the position is critical. 

Based on text from "The Art of War."

Nasdaq has announced a first-of-its-kind partnership with bitcoin marketplace startup Noble Markets.

Bitcoin price has dropped away from today’s consolidation level in what looks like the last corrective wave before advancing to target near $277 (Bitfinex) and 1720 CNY (BTC-China). This analysis is provided by xbt.social with a 3 hour delay. Read the full analysis here. Not a member? Join now and receive a $29 discount using […]

The post Bitcoin Price Rocket Underwhelming But Gaining Altitude appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Bitcoin brokerage Anycoin Direct has added TrustPay as a new payment option, opening the company to 14 new markets in Europe.

Former New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) CEO Duncan Niederauer has joined regulated bitcoin futures exchange TeraExchange as an advisor.

Bitcoin exchange CEX.IO has revealed plans to cancel its trading fees for a one-week period amid mining market woes.

Bitcoin exchange Paybase Monday has shutdown withdrawals from its users, causing a fury on Twitter and throughout their user base, as another exchange closure is feared. Paybase founder Josh Garza has been unavailable for comments, with many users claiming he blocks their account if pressed on this issue on Twitter. Garza has a controlling interest in […]

The post Paybase stops Withdrawals; Josh Garza Disappears appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Bitcoin bank Bitreserve , founded by CNET founder Halsey Minor in 2013, shields its customers from the volatility of bitcoin by instantly locking deposits to a fiat currency selected by the customer, for example the US dollar. If you make a deposit in bitcoin to Bitreserve, you don’t have to worry about volatility, because your bitcoin can be converted to dollars on-the-fly and appear as dollars in your balance. So Bitreserve users don’t lose money if the exchange rate of bitcoin goes down – if they have chosen to convert part of their holdings to, say, $1,000 USD, they will continue to have $1,000 USD in their account regardless of any fluctuations of bitcoin value. Of course, the reverse is […]

The post Bitreserve Expands to India and Mexico; Partners with Mexican Billionaire appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

This is part 3 in a series about the BitGive Foundation’s work in Kenya. Read an introduction or a photo essay about this project. In 2014, the BitGive Foundation led a campaign in the Bitcoin community to raise $10,000 in Bitcoin to fund a water well in sub-Saharan Africa with The Water Project. The Bitcoin community rallied and surpassed the goal, raising more than $11,000.  The water well recently was completed in the western region of Kakamega, Kenya, and the BitGive Foundation was there to witness the community celebration. They wanted to capture the magic on film, and this short video serves as an initial introduction to a longer video story coming out later this year.  See how Bitcoin helped bring clean, safe […]

The post Video: The Opening of a Bitcoin-Funded Well in Kenya appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

As decentral.tv continues to renovate its new studio, it will revisit some earlier episodes about topics and people who are still making news today. Every week, new bitcoin ATMs are popping up around the world, making it easier for the general population to acquire bitcoin. On Monday, Decentral Talk Live’s featured interview will be with Zach Harvey, co-founder of Lamassu, one of the dominant players in the BTM industry. On Tuesday, Sunny Ray of UNOcoin will focus on the growth of bitcoin in India — a territory that has been in the headlines recently. UNOcoin is India’s most popular Bitcoin wallet. Even before its launch in 2013, UNOcoin’s team, including Sunny Ray, was part of the grass roots Bitcoin community, […]

The post Decentral Talk Live: In the News this Week appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

The Texas Bitcoin Association will present the Texas Bitcoin Conference March 27-29, a technological summit to showcase new developments that support Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and its proliferation. The event will be held at Moody Theater, Home of “Austin City Limits Live,” in Texas’ capital city, and will spotlight the diversity of the Bitcoin community worldwide. “The Texas Bitcoin Conference is focusing on the blockchain and the many ways Bitcoin can impact finance, business and government beyond just by being a better payment rail,” said Paul Snow, chairman of the Texas Bitcoin Conference. Conference organizers are working with the College Crypto Network, Bitcoincollege.info, and BitcoinU to make the event appeal to students as well as seasoned developers, entrepreneurs, investors, industry leaders and […]

The post Million Dollar Hackathon Returns to Austin, Texas appeared first on Bitcoin Magazine.

If you’ve never heard of the Electronic Transactions Association or their annual conference, you don’t know electronic payment systems. Think of their annual conference as the SEMA show for the automotive aftermarket modifications industry or what the annual Comic Con event represents for the comic book industry. Every year, the biggest and the best in […]

The post Record-setting 2015 ETA Conference Features Bitcoin and BitPay appeared first on CryptoCoinsNews.

Stanford University has since Saturday been playing host to a Bitcoin workshop that has featured several big players in the cryptocurrency space. The workshop will examine the relationship between blockchain technologies and the existing regulatory environment. The first two days of the workshop which were for a private audience ended on Sunday March 22nd, 2015, […]

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San Francisco-based micropayments startup ChangeTip has integrated with Disqus allowing users to tip each other with bitcoin.

China’s App Store has banned Wiper, the mobile messaging service that allows users to delete messages, after it added the ability to send bitcoin. Wiper announced its bitcoin functionality slightly more than a month ago. “We were removed from the iOS online app store in China due to violating that app store’s policies.” Manlio Carelli, […]

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