My Content List #21 | Friday 8/7/20

Opening Rant: Sharing Is Caring

My about-to-be classmate Erik Berg recently shared his blog (A Berg’s Eye View) in one of our Wharton group chats. I am truly in awe of the wake of content he’s created (over 2+ years!). My puny 21 articles pale in comparison to the hundreds (!!) of cogent, wide-ranging, deeply stimulating posts he’s crafted. Erik, you’re an inspiration.

This line of his, in particular, has been bouncing around my head: “One of the great things about writing a weekly blog is that forcing your thoughts onto (digital) paper can be the world’s greatest form of therapy.”

I could not agree more. I’ve written before — both in Content Lists and in my personal journals — about how cathartic writing feels. Same feeling if it’s analytical pieces or persuasive essays, or even assigned writing. To me, writing is a practice of deep introspection and critical thinking, yet also one that puts me into a flow state.

But what’s it all for, in a broader sense? Why do writers share what they write? Why am I bombarding y’all with my mental musings, coupled with a way-too-long list of content that I didn’t even author, that you probably won’t even scroll through in entirety?

It’s a tough question to answer at a fundamental level (especially since I’d rather not wade into the depths of metaphysics, individuality, sociology, etc). Anyway, here goes nothing…

Beyond my mission statement, sharing these Content Lists is a “pro-social” behavior, i.e. one that’s intended to promote some sort of engagement and (hopefully) response. By offering this platform for collaborative consumption, I’m providing a springboard for a broad dimension of future interactions — a like, a response, a discussion, even a friendship. This “pro-sociality” is an inherent human trait. We’re all questing for connectedness, seeking common ground, reveling in mutual experience.

There’s also a side of all this that is much harder to articulate. Yes there’s a desire to connect, to express ideas… but maybe I’m subconsciously seeking recognition, affirmation, or validation (Kant would probably say so). There’s also the semi-selfish aspect that I do recognize, which is that I want to be able to look back on these in 5, 10, 15+ years, see the Rants and articles, and know I can ascertain the headspace of today’s James.

I’ve always liked sharing things. Before Content Lists, it was (and still is) music and playlists. If you know me well, I’ve definitely suggested songs for you. Back in the day I burned CDs; iTunes and Spotify have made sharing songs a hell of a lot easier. Now it’s existential and/or techno-centric rants. I suppose I’ve come a long way.

There’s a common internal theme across the things I share: I feel like I’m offering a part, or representation, of myself to the universe.

By sharing a song (or an article, an idea, etc.), I’m trying to show you who I am, what I’m about. And, like I said above, I’m ideally evoking a response — tacitly or not. If you respond positively to the proverbial song I’ve curated, we’ll catch a vibe together; if not, I learn to tweak my suggestion algorithm, and the beat goes on. It becomes an almost-karmic schema: curating, engaging, learning, progressing… together. That is how collective growth can happen.

In the long run, I think, this engagement-response process is beneficial for all involved. I also think I’m far from the only one who interacts with the world in this way.

On sharing music — literally, not metaphorically — I wrote a term paper a while back titled: “You Need to Check Out This Song!” An Investigation of Why We Share Music and Who Tends to Share. It’s published in full on my Medium page, and if you find this Rant interesting you’ll love that paper. I’ll close with an excerpt from it:

Music can not only *convey* emotion by smothering listeners in a sea of aural sensation — it can also *elicit* emotion and fasten itself to memories, making them more vivid upon recall. If an individual comes upon a new song, or digs up an undiscovered gem from decades past, that person might experience an ineffable urge to share that song so that others can experience the euphoria — or sadness, or nostalgia, or excitement — it evokes in them. It is almost as if the songs one finds are akin to infectious viruses, and one feels a pervasive desire, as the proverbial patient zero, to spread the contagion. Why does this happen?

With that, enjoy Content List #21 below…

Got something to contribute? Think my reasoning is flawed?

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My Content List #21 | Friday 8/7/20

Articles

Poll: 62% of Americans Say They Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share | CATO Institute

• Hearkening back to the my last Opening Rant on Cancel/Call-Out Culture… this report indicates that the majority of Americans *across both aisles* are self-censoring. This is troubling.
• While we’re on the topic…Americans tune in to ‘cancel culture’ — and don’t like what they see (an article by Politico, also worth reading) suggests that: “the longer ago the comment was made the less likely it mattered. Fifty-four percent said that a problematic statement made a year ago was likely to “completely” or “somewhat” change their opinion of the person, versus 29% who said it would “change a little bit” or “not change at all.” For statements as far back as 15 years ago the results were almost reversed: 26% said there would be a change versus 53% who said there would be little or no change.”

The Essential and Enduring Strength of John Lewis | The New Yorker

• “By the time John Lewis made his exit from this realm, on Friday, his life had been bound so tightly and for so long to the mythos of the movement for democracy in America that it was difficult to separate him from it. For this reason, a friend who texted me “John Lewis is gone, what are we going to do now?” was not only reacting to grief but expressing a real and common sentiment.”

Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation | John Lewis, NYTimes

• “Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
• When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”

America’s Innovation Engine Is Slowing | The Atlantic

• “In the past half century, America’s innovation engine — built on an influx of global brainpower, a vibrant university system, cities that encourage the spontaneous interaction of people and ideas — has worked so well that policy makers have taken it for granted. Yet the pandemic is now disassembling that engine in remarkably precise ways.”

The Left is Now the Right | Matt Taibbi x SubStack

• “The saving grace of the right used to be that it was too stupid to rule. Politically defeated liberals secretly believed that in a moment of crisis, the country would have to be turned over to people who didn’t think hurricanes were punishment for gay sex and weren’t frightened to enter a room with a topless statue. In an effort to console such readers, reporters like me were sent to mock every Dover-style cultural stooge-fest and assigned strings of features about dunces like Michelle Bachmann, who believed energy-saving light bulbs were a “very real threat to children, disabled people, pets, senior citizens.””

Chasing Coherence: Reflections for the Next Decade | Alex Debayo-Doherty

• LOVE this; great piece from fellow comrade of 72…
• [On Genuine Connections]: “This may be the most important takeaway of them all. In light of our multitude of professional and personal aspirations, triumphs, and failures, it is the people that go through those moments with you that make them memorable and worthwhile. A person with everything in the world but no one to share it with is far worse off than anyone who surrounds themselves with people they care about.”
• Also: ““Anyone ‘further along’ on the path was once exactly where you are.” “It’s important to remember that anyone you see on the path as being “more” experienced, “more” successful, “more” accomplished, isn’t necessarily smarter or fundamentally different than you. They’ve just been at it longer. Or they’ve been fortunate and found teachers and mentors that accelerated their growth… But again, that doesn’t mean you can’t get to where they are.””

Colleges Are Getting Ready to Blame Their Students | The Atlantic

• “Americans are making decisions every day about coronavirus risk and social contact, but people’s calculations are not all the same. Risk taking typically peaks during young adulthood, when people are most responsive to the rewards of a risky choice. During the pandemic, young people face different risks from older adults: Although the former may transmit the virus to others, they are at substantially lower risk of complications from coronavirus infection than older people — but at far greater risk of psychiatric disorders that can be triggered or worsened by social isolation. People feel lonely when they experience a mismatch between the relationships they want and those they have. In a pandemic, that discrepancy may be greatest for college students, who are experiencing the yawning gap between dorm life and quarantine life. “A lot of people are calling attention to coronavirus because it’s right in front of us,” an 18-year-old named Audrey told NPR earlier this month. “But at the same time, teens’ depression rate — it’s a silent threat.” The issue isn’t that young people are universally unconcerned about the pandemic; it’s that they realize it’s not the only — or even the greatest — risk they face.”
• Related: Check out Scott Galloway’s take on Which Colleges Will Survive the Coronavirus

Panopticon Is Already Here | The Atlantic

• I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Black Mirror and 1984 aren’t fiction… China is the worst version of those words.
• “As rulers of some of the world’s largest complex social organizations, ancient Chinese emperors well understood the relationship between information flows and power, and the value of surveillance… [It is an] authoritarian state with enough processing power could feed every blip of a citizen’s neural activity into a government database… Until recently, it was difficult to imagine how China could integrate all of these data into a single surveillance system, but no longer.”

Different Names, Same Address: How Big Businesses Got Government Loans Meant for Small Businesses | ProPublica

• “ProPublica’s findings bring into sharper focus how companies with thousands of employees were able to get assistance, just as some small businesses were reluctant to even apply. So far, the PPP has paid out more than $517 billion to 4.9 million companies — loans that can be forgiven if used to cover payroll, rent, mortgage interest or utilities. It was among the most generous of programs for businesses in the CARES Act. Loan programs for medium and large businesses spelled out in the bill generally were not forgivable. Appraisals of the PPP by economists and policymakers have been mixed: While the program did inject hundreds of billions into the economy, it did not do so efficiently, often sending aid where it was less needed, and going through banks meant well-connected businesses had a far easier time getting their share.”

Inside the Clubhouse: What’s All the Fuss About Silicon Valley’s Exclusive Social Media App? | WSJ

• “Clubhouse, which allows multiple people to talk to each other at the same time, is a cross between a house party and a star-studded conference. You could be in a “room” talking about books or practicing Spanish with others. Or you could be in a room with Ms. Winfrey and, say, Michael Ovitz, who also is on the app. There are venture capitalists, entertainers, entrepreneurs and even politicians on the site.”

Resignation Letter [From NYTimes]| Bari Weiss

• “But the lessons that ought to have followed the [2016] election — lessons about the importance of understanding other Americans, the necessity of resisting tribalism, and the centrality of the free exchange of ideas to a democratic society — have not been learned. Instead, a new consensus has emerged in the press, but perhaps especially at this paper: that truth isn’t a process of collective discovery, but an orthodoxy already known to an enlightened few whose job is to inform everyone else.”

Teenage Angst, Revisited in Isolation | NYTimes

• “Some moved to reduce their risk of contracting the virus; others, because of financial instability or a fear of quarantining alone. Many left cities and returned to their smaller hometowns. Staying with their families, many slept and worked in the rooms where they grew up, describing that it felt like visiting a museum filled with relics of their past selves.”

Traditional Late Stage VC is Being Disrupted. Here’s how. | Jonathan Tower

• “With more ‘platform’ VC firms building a latticework of multiple funds under management, with innovations in debt structures and new funds deploying such solutions, with more non-traditional investors active in the space willing to right sizable checks at generous terms, and with more early stage investors reluctant to go outside their syndicates for follow-on capital unless that capital comes with very specific value-adds, I believe how late stage technology companies will be funded going forward has being altered dramatically and both the value proposition and the future of all but the very best late stage venture firms is in question.”

Part Time Venture Capital: What Could Go Wrong? | Cowboy Investing

• “The typical logic for [Family Offices] considering a direct venture strategy is if we commit resources in-house, we can cut out the fees and get similar, or better, outcomes yielding higher net returns. The assumption tends to be we have a smart staff and we can figure this out. We’ve got a big-name family behind us, a large check book, a flexible mandate, and a differentiated time horizon, so it should be easy to get access to the best deals. I wish the playbook were that easy to execute.”

In Just 6 Months, ‘Fever Cameras’ Have Become a Full-Fledged Industry | Dave Gershgorn x OneZero

• “As much of the world adapts to a new normal after the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, and the United States still struggles to rein in rampant cases, the thermal imaging industry is pitching itself as a crucial part of reopening efforts. There are now 170 companies selling fever detection technology meant to detect people potentially suffering from the coronavirus, up from fewer than 30 companies selling similar technology before the pandemic, according to the IPVM list.”

The VC Tech Stack | Francesco Corea

• “I have tested many but not all the platforms on the map, so do your own due diligence and see those things by yourself. Moreover, to be clear, this is not a ranking of any type, because it became super obvious to me that we are always optimizing under constraints. A solution that may be optimal under every aspect may in fact be too expensive for a small team and, well, that makes it not-the-best. Preference, budget, team size, location, these are all things that constrain our systems and influence the choice of specific tools.”

A Rush to Use Black Art Leaves the Artists Feeling Used | NYTimes

• “In their rush to portray a public solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, companies risk reinscribing what got us all here: the instrumentalization and exploitation of Black labor, ideas and talent for what is ultimately their own benefit and safety,”

Every Decision Is A Risk. Every Risk Is A Decision. | FiveThirtyEight

• “We can’t live like we did before coronavirus. We won’t live like we did immediately after it appeared, either. Instead, we’re in the muddy middle, faced with choices that seem at once crucial and impossible, simple and massively complicated. These choices are an everyday occurrence, but they also carry a moral weight that makes them feel different than picking a pasta sauce or a pair of shoes. In a pandemic that’s been filled with unanswerable questions and unwinnable wars, this is our daily Kobayashi Maru. And no one can tell us exactly what we ought to do.”
• Related: How To Make Indoor Air Safer | FiveThirtyEight

Practicing Medicine In The Era Of Private Equity, Venture Capital And Public Markets | Forbes

• We’ve looked at perverse incentives in healthcare systems (and elsewhere) before…
• “This change in ownership does, however, create a new operating reality where the previous central tenet of healthcare delivery — doing what is best for the patient — now has a competing imperative: doing what is best for shareholders and investors. The code of professionalism taught in medical schools butts up against the fiduciary responsibility taught in business schools. I believe that publicly traded healthcare firms and their private equity counterparts must must proactively build ethical frameworks that ensure that these two imperatives conflict do not conflict.”

Is Hedge Fund Secrecy a Sign of Skill — Or a Red Flag? | Institutional Investor

• “The more secretive funds, they found, did not outperform the more transparent funds. Instead, the researchers found that secretive hedge funds actually underperformed peers during the financial crisis — suggesting, according to the authors, that the secrecy veiled higher risk-taking. “As best as we can tell, it doesn’t seem to signal skill,” Kelly said. “If anything, it suggests that funds might be taking on more risk.””

The Inside Story of How a Sleep Tracker Became the Hottest Device of the Pandemic | Zara Stone x Marker

• “The Oura ring is suddenly everywhere. The $299 sleep tracking device has adorned the digits of Prince Harry, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and, since July 9, 1,000 employees at the Venetian and Palazzo casinos in Las Vegas, and most of the NBA players entering the Walt Disney World “bubble” in Florida. The reason for the hype? The ring’s sensors monitor users’ health data, including heart rate, temperature, and respiratory rate. Oura crunches this data into a daily “readiness” score, which their connected app serves up to users each morning — the score indicates how hard to push yourself that day; for example, if you’ve slept badly, and your score is low, maybe skip the workout that day. Early studies also suggest the ring’s a useful early detection tool for signs of Covid-19.”

How Harvard’s Star Computer Science Professor Built a Distance Learning Empire | The New Yorker

• Perhaps my biggest regret of college is not taking CS50…
• “Malan, who took over CS50 in 2007, was a pioneer in distributing Harvard course materials online for free. In 2012, Harvard and M.I.T. launched their own online-learning platform, edX, which today offers several thousand moocs — both digital editions of existing university courses and original certificate programs designed by Microsoft, I.B.M., and other technology giants. But few, if any, combine the institutional credibility, the enormous reach, and the zealous engagement of Malan’s.”

‘World-first’ legal case: student accuses Australia of misleading investors on climate risk | Guardian

• In Matt Levine’s words, everything is securities fraud…
• “In a claim filed in the federal court on Tuesday, Katta O’Donnell, a fifth-year law student at La Trobe University, said the government was breaching a legal duty and deceiving investors by not informing them upfront of the climate risk they face. … She said it would put the government “on trial for misconduct” for failing to deal responsibly with the climate crisis. … She said young Australians owned bonds through their superannuation funds but were in the dark about government assessments of the climate risk their investment faced. Sovereign bonds are issued by governments to fund spending. Australia’s are worth more than $700bn, mostly held by central banks and pension funds.

In Electric Car Market, It’s Tesla and a Jumbled Field of Also-Rans | NYTimes

• “Although it has become the world’s most valuable automaker, Tesla still has to figure out how to become consistently profitable, reduce quality problems in its luxury cars and more quickly turn alluring prototypes into mass-produced vehicles. One area where it hasn’t had much to fret about: competition.”

R.I.P. Cable TV: Why Hollywood Is Slowly Killing Its Biggest Moneymaker | Variety

‘They’d Find Fraud, Fraud, Fraud.’ | Institutional Investor

• “Some of the more eyebrow-raising schemes [of Chinese-owned companies listed on US exchanges], according to regulators: Universal Travel gave its auditor an address for a purported hotel customer of the company’s that turned out to be a public restroom. AgFeed Industries, an animal-feed and hog-production company, inflated its revenues by claiming sales of hogs that didn’t exist, and later tried to cover up the fraud by claiming the fake hogs had died. The CEO of TV ad-network company China MediaExpress offered a $1.5 million bribe to an outside accountant helping to look into the company’s finances. (The accountant declined.) With these revelations, many Chinese companies’ stocks plunged, leaving shareholders with huge losses. The SEC barred about 180 Chinese companies from U.S. trading and filed dozens of lawsuits against the companies, their executives, and “gatekeepers” like auditors and consultants who helped them get access to U.S markets. And for a while, relatively few Chinese companies braved U.S. markets because of concerns about fraud.”

Small Businesses Brace for Prolonged Crisis, Short on Cash and Customers | WSJ

“Goldman Sachs Is Still Goldman Sachs”: Investment Banks Soar as COVID-19 Rattles Economy | VanityFair

• “After nearly a decade of seemingly toiling in the wilderness in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis that claimed two of their powerful brethren — Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers — and that cost a third, Merrill Lynch, its independence, the financial performance in the second quarter of the two remaining pure-play investment banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, proved that the traditional stronghold of the investment bank — trading stocks and bonds and underwriting stocks and bonds — are alive and well, thank you very much. Underwriting revenue at Goldman was up 107% in the second quarter of 2020, compared to the second quarter of 2019. Trading revenue was up 93%. These are big numbers. (JPMorgan Chase’s investment bank also performed well in the second quarter, with revenues up 54% in the second quarter compared to the same quarter a year earlier.)”

AirBNB Was Like a Family, Until the Layoffs Started | NYTimes

• “Start-ups that sell everything from mattresses to data-warehousing software have long used “making the world a better place”-style mission statements to energize and motivate their workers. But as the economic fallout from the coronavirus persists, many of those gauzy mantras have given way to harsh realities like budget cuts, layoffs and bottom lines.”

Pretty nice offices…

Everything you need to know about Palantir, the secretive company coming for all your data | Vox x Recode

• “I think it’s worth keeping in mind that Palantir sees itself not alongside Uber, Twitter, and Netflix, but alongside Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Booz Allen,” said the Intercept’s Sam Biddle, who has covered Palantir for years. “Palantir wants to be a defense contractor, not a Silicon Valley unicorn.”
• Palantir has grown into a company with roughly 2,500 employees, most of them engineers who write the software that collects data, and embedded analysts who work on site with Palantir’s customers to make sense of it. Company culture has been described as cult-like, big on T-shirts and Care Bears, and “more Google than Lockheed.” Employees are called “Palantirians.”

The Sacklers Could Get Away With It | NYTimes

• “The billionaire Sacklers who own Purdue Pharma, maker of the OxyContin painkiller that helped fuel America’s opioid epidemic, are among America’s richest families. And if they have their way, the federal court handling Purdue’s bankruptcy case will help them hold on to their wealth by releasing them from liability for the ravages caused by OxyContin.”

Why Investors Are Still Betting on Carnival Cruise Line | Marker x Rob Walker

• “By the company’s own estimate, [Carnival] will continue to burn $650 million a month while its 100-plus-ship fleet remains largely idle.”

The Great Climate Migration | NYTimes

• “For most of human history, people have lived within a surprisingly narrow range of temperatures, in the places where the climate supported abundant food production. But as the planet warms, that band is suddenly shifting north. According to a pathbreaking recent study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the planet could see a greater temperature increase in the next 50 years than it did in the last 6,000 years combined. By 2070, the kind of extremely hot zones, like in the Sahara, that now cover less than 1 percent of the earth’s land surface could cover nearly a fifth of the land, potentially placing one of every three people alive outside the climate niche where humans have thrived for thousands of years. Many will dig in, suffering through heat, hunger and political chaos, but others will be forced to move on. A 2017 study in Science Advances found that by 2100, temperatures could rise to the point that just going outside for a few hours in some places, including parts of India and Eastern China, “will result in death even for the fittest of humans.””

The Value of a Velvet Rope: Effects of Hype and Exclusivity on Launch Strategies | Gaby Goldberg and Jordan Odinsky

• “None of us are new to the idea of hype and exclusivity around drops and launches. Streetwear brands like Supreme and Yeezy are in the business of scarcity, where limited product releases supercharge the traditional supply-and-demand model, and where influencers, celebrities and fans alike create an “echo chamber of excitement.” Gaming and lifestyle brand 100 Thieves has become one of the hottest names in competitive gaming, in part due to its limited and highly sought-after drops of branded hoodies and t-shirts. Even dating apps like The League have built their brand around selectiveness and exclusivity, typically waiting to launch in new cities until hitting a large enough waitlist to maintain an approval rate of 20–30%.”

From Productivity to Psychedelics: Tim Ferriss Has Changed His Mind About Success | GQ

• So many awesome excerpts herein…
• “There’s a famous Czech psychotherapist, Dr. Stanislav Grof. Going back decades to when this was legal, he supervised somewhere between 1,500 and 5,000 LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions. His quote, which I’m going to paraphrase, was that what the telescope was for astronomy and what the microscope was for biology, psychedelics will be for the mind.”
• “I would find it difficult to call myself successful if I’m experiencing anxiety, fear, regret when I’m in bed in the morning or before I go to bed. So that’s simple — and it’s not so much a metric because not everything that is meaningful can be measured easily. And you can force fit it, sure. You could give yourself a 1 to 10 scale and blah, blah, blah — you could do all of that. But this is an exercise in really truthfully feeling whatever is present. And deep down, you know if it’s good or bad, you know if it’s hurtful or helpful, you know if it’s healthy or unhealthy, and not a lot of analysis is required. There are plenty of things to measure, there are plenty of things to track. There are lots of things in my life that I do track with my businesses and elsewhere. But this is one place where simplicity pays off.”

The Rescues Ruining Capitalism | WSJ

• “A growing body of research shows that constant government stimulus has been a major contributor to many of modern capitalism’s most glaring ills. Easy money fuels the rise of giant firms and, along with crisis bailouts, keeps alive heavily indebted “zombie” firms at the expense of startups, which typically drive innovation. All of this leads to low productivity — the prime contributor to the slowdown in economic growth and a shrinking of the pie for everyone. At the same time, easy money has juiced up the value of stocks, bonds and other financial assets, which benefits mainly the rich, inflaming social resentment over growing inequalities in income and wealth. It should not be surprising that millennials and Gen Z are growing disillusioned with this distorted form of capitalism and say that they prefer socialism. The irony is that the rising culture of government dependence is, in fact, a form of socialism — for the rich and powerful.”

Job Interviews Don’t Work | FS

• “What’s the best way to test if someone can do a particular job well? Get them to carry out tasks that are part of the job. See if they can do what they say they can do. It’s much harder for someone to lie and mislead an interviewer during actual work than during an interview. Using competency tests for a blinded interview process is also possible — interviewers could look at depersonalized test results to make unbiased judgments.”

Elon Musk, Blasting Off in Domestic Bliss | NYTimes

• “In his spare time, Mr. Musk is working on tunnels that would alleviate urban traffic jams, an idea he dreamed up while stuck in L.A. traffic; spaceports that could catapult you from New York to Shanghai in 39 minutes; a hyperloop that would let you scoot between D.C. and New York in half an hour; a neural net that would be sewn or lasered into brains to fuse us with computers, which would potentially allow us to compete with superintelligent rogue A.I. and could also restore the ability to walk, hear, speak or see; and solar initiatives and lightweight lithium batteries to make mitigating climate change cheaper and more accessible…
• “I have lots of ideas, more ideas than I can act upon,” said the man who insists he is an engineer, not a businessman or investor. “I tend to bite off more than I can chew and then just sit there with chipmunk cheeks.””

Why do asymptomatic COVID-19 cases even happen? | NatGeo

• “When it comes to severity, “by far the most powerful predictor is age,” says Paul Sax, clinical director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Yet the reason is more complicated than younger people being healthier in general. One theory holds that the most vulnerable people have more ACE2 receptors, the cellular doorways for the coronavirus. Older adults have more ACE2 located throughout the body and in their virus-welcoming noses than youths. Obese people also have more of them.”

How Carlos Ghosn Escaped Japan, According to the Ex-Green Beret Who Snuck Him Out | Vanity Fair

• This was a crazy read… some Ocean’s sh*t
• “Throughout that fall, Taylor assembled a team of operatives with varying talents: maritime operations, airport security, IT, police, countersurveillance. It was like casting a heist movie, each man indispensable for his skill set. Most were ex-Special Forces, guys Taylor had known for 40 years or more. They had spent their lives operating in a world where people were contacts, groups of people were cells, and information was intelligence. Those who hadn’t met in the military had crossed paths in their civilian lives — skydiving at the local airstrip or moonlighting as coaches on the high school football field. The men had been trained to be fighters, and now that the War on Terror was ostensibly over, there was nothing left to fight for. Taylor’s cobbled-together ranks embodied a central Marxist concept — the reserve army of labor — and Taylor was in a position to put them to work.”

Wim Hof Says He Holds the Key to a Healthy Life — But Will Anyone Listen? | Rolling Stone

• “Here he is, claiming to hold the secret to curing MS, arthritis, diabetes, fear, depression, anxiety, pain, PTSD, bipolar disorder, cancer, you name it, and nobody seems to care. It doesn’t matter to him that over the past few years he’s become some kind of global cultural phenomenon, making media appearances all over (Discovery Channel, ABC, NBC, National Geographic Channel) to provide the lowdown on not only his breathing technique but also his nearly superhuman ability to withstand cold, which is another part of his method and always a crowdpleaser. In all, he has claimed 26 world records for his various feats, including the Guinness World Record for longest ice bath (1 hour, 52 minutes and 42 seconds), enabling him to rightfully be called “the Iceman.” But that’s not enough for him. He wants more. He wants to change the world.”

The Gig Economy Is Failing. Say Hello to the Hustle Economy. | Caitlin Dewey

• “Tech investors have dubbed this the “passion economy,” a place where anyone can profit doing what she loves. But because that term risks both exaggerating the payoffs of this work and obscuring its ties to the gig economy, the last great labor “disruption,” we might better call it the “hustle economy:” an online labor market in which platform-dependent workers create and monetize their own digital products. Like Uber drivers or Instacart shoppers, workers in the hustle economy need a platform to succeed. But their work is individualized, self-directed, and on their own schedule — one “creator” can’t substitute for another… The movement’s rhetoric often, and ironically, echoes Karl Marx: Only liberated workers with control of production can soak up the full spiritual and financial benefits of their labor.”

One company’s plan to build a search engine Google can’t beat | Protocol

• “The Neeva founders figured that by inverting the business model from ads to subscriptions, they could incentivize themselves to build a search engine that prioritized privacy, user experience and simplicity instead of scale, scale and scale. But it’s not that Ramaswamy [who spent 15 years rising up to Head of Advertising at Google, growing his team from 15 to 10,000] had a change-of-heart epiphany about the ad business. It’s just that ads get in the way, and with them gone there’s all kinds of room to play in search.”

The Venture Capitalists Making a Bet on Aging Consumers | Bloomberg

• This broad thesis makes some sense…
• “The population of Americans age 65 and older has grown by a third, or almost 14 million people, since 2010, a faster increase than any other age group, the U.S. Census Bureau said in June. Older people are consumers, too, which is something younger entrepreneurs and investors can forget, says Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab and author of the 2017 book The Longevity Economy. Americans older than 50 have 70% of the buying power in the U.S., Coughlin writes in his book, and like everyone else, they’re interested in new products that can make their lives easier — beyond gadgets that take their blood pressure or track their pills. “While all those things are critical, there’s a lot more to life than your meds,” he says.”

The Great Acceleration | McKinsey

“Reality” is constructed by your brain. Here’s what that means, and why it matters. | Vox

• I’m a sucker for optical illusions…A and B are not changing color here.

Top-heavy world of streamer and eSports sponsorships | Patrick Hsu

• “In today’s market, there is currently a large viewership and sponsorship gap between those at the top and the long tail that trails behind them. Established pro players and popular streamers are able to gain the sponsors and subscribers needed to transition this hobby into a lifestyle and career. To get a sense of the disparity, only 2% of all channels account for 75% of the viewers in the “Just Chatting” category on Twitch, one that has gained massive popularity in the past year and is currently the most popular, with 12% of all Twitch viewers.”

Antitrust Politics | Stratechery

• My favorite round-up of the Antitrust Hearing…
• “As I wrote last week before the hearing, I am glad that it occurred. Figuring out how to regulate tech companies — particularly Aggregators, that base their power on consumer welfare — will require new approaches, and probably new laws. Moreover, any such regulations will necessitate difficult trade-offs between competition, privacy, national security, etc. (I was grateful that Representative Kelly Armstrong highlighted how GDPR made big tech companies stronger), which again means that Congress is best situated to decide what tradeoffs we should make.”

Podcasts

Matt Ball — The Future of Media: Movies, the Metaverse, and More | Invest like the Best

• If you haven’t seen Matt’s website, check it here: https://www.matthewball.vc/
• Matt is “the former head of strategy at Amazon Studios, an investor, and probably my favorite business essayist writing today.” (Patrick O’s words, but still apply to me)

Kat Cole — How to Operate: Lessons in Brand, Distribution, and Leadership | Invest like the Best

• “Kat Cole, the COO and president of North America for Focus Brands, which owns famous companies like Cinnabon, Carvel, Jamba, and more. Kat’s story and career trajectory are remarkable, as are the lessons she’s picked up along the way which she shares with us all in this conversation. We discuss negotiation, distribution, brand building, brand extension strategies, and leadership. I always enjoy having a true operator on the show, so I was very excited to discover Kat and her thinking. Please enjoy this great conversation.”

Steve Jurvetson | 20 Minute VC

• “Steve Jurvetson is the Co-Founder @ Future Ventures who announced their debut and flagship $200M Fund in 2019. Steve’s incredible portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Tesla, Planet, Memphis Meats, Hotmail, and the deep learning companies Mythic and Nervana. Steve also sits on the board of both SpaceX and Tesla. Prior to founding Future, Steve was the co-founder of renowned valley firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson where he led investments in 5 companies that went public in successful IPOs and several others that became billion-dollar acquisitions.”

Should America (and FIFA) Pay Reparations? | Freakonomics

• “The racial wealth gap in the U.S. is massive. We explore the causes, consequences, and potential solutions. Also: another story of discrimination and economic disparity, this one perpetrated by an international sporting authority.”

Creativity And Diversity: How Exposure To Different People Affects Our Thinking | NPR’s Hidden Brain

• “There is great comfort in the familiar. It’s one reason humans often flock to other people who share the same interests, laugh at the same jokes, hold the same political views. But familiar ground may not be the best place to cultivate creativity.
• Social scientist Adam Galinsky has found that people who have deep relationships with someone from another country become more creative and score higher on routine creativity tests.”

Benchmarking, Brand Strategy, and Starting Fresh | Prof G Show

• “Scott shares his thoughts on the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee’s upcoming hearing with the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google. He also explains why your business should be in the game of benchmarking and addresses his failed Netflix prediction. Then, Katherine Milkman, a behavioral scientist and professor of operations, information and decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, joins to discuss decision making under stress, how to build productive habits, and why behavioral science is needed to get people to take vaccines.”

Maps of Meaning 1 — Context & Background | Jordan B Peterson Podcast

• “In this lecture, I discuss the context within which the theory I am delineating through this course emerge: that of the cold war. What is belief? Why is it so important to people? Why will they fight to protect it? I propose that belief unites a culture’s expectations and desires with the actions of its people, and that the match between those two allows for cooperative action and maintains emotional stability. I suggest, further, that culture has a deep narrative structure, presenting the world as a forum for action, with characters representing the individual, the known, and the unknown — or the individual, culture and nature — or the individual, order and chaos.”

Musique

Memphis Underground | Herbie Mann

Como Nossos Pais | Elis Regina

Rearrange My Mind | Monolink

Live at MSG | Vulfpeck