T Minus Zero with Gary Chou (Episode 79)

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Gary Chou launched Orbital Boot Camp to accelerate people’s product ideas into reality in a 12-week intensive session. He knows from startups from his work at Union Square Ventures and The Product Sessions, but his particular interest is making sure that people with traditionally fewer opportunities are included.

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Our indie advertisers this week are:

  • The Cotton Bureau, enablers of well-designed screenprinted shirts.
  • The Velocity app for faster reading — up to 1,000 words a minute!
  • Ensembles, a Core Data sync framework, which works with iCloud and Dropbox, and is extensible
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  • Sparkle, a Mac app for painless Website creation
  • Promoter, a Web service for indie game developers — get 10% off by following the link

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Show notes

Gary taught a School of Visual Arts with Christina Cacioppo, once a colleague from his venture capital days. Here’s a picture of the old Kickstarter offices that Gary’s occupying.

Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn is a favorite title for understanding the utility and drawbacks of informal and formal spaces, told through the lessons of how buildings evolve over time.

Gary posted information about the breakdown of applicants that shows he met his goals for inclusiveness.