My Content List #25 | Wed 12/9/2020

Opening Rant: J Curves

28 min readDec 9, 2020

Back in 2014, I came across this abridged version of the creative process:

The message resonated instantly; I recall feeling downright captivated by that efficient distillation of such a long, arduous process. It’s a widely-applicable concept, this idea that improvement comes at a cost. “It’s always darkest just before dawn,” they’ll tell ya.

Visually-speaking, this can be portrayed as a J-Curve.

In the investing world, that Curve illustrates two phases of a fund’s lifecycle: capital deployment (i.e. making investments, sending dollars out the door) then harvesting (i.e. exiting investments, ideally above your entry mark, and reaping the rewards of strong returns). By assessing the characteristics of the proposed investments, the firm deploys capital with confidence and the belief that their harvests will be bountiful.

These poetic and graphical representations all underscore the same central idea: it’ll get worse before it gets better.

The J Curve paradigm can easily be overlaid onto the human experience. The creative process mentioned above is just one of several real-life representations, such as learning a new skill or — of more gravity—processing a change in personal circumstance (i.e. one’s sense of well-being/productivity/etc. after moving to a new city, changing jobs, having children, losing a loved one, etc.).

Specifically as it relates to skill-building, one iteration of this J curve is the ascending of “Mount Stupid” vis a vis the Dunning-Krueger Effect.

As psychologists and behavioral economists define it, this cognitive bias of “illusory superiority” refers to the idea that low-ability or otherwise inexperienced tend to overestimate their ability. Then, only after attempts to operationalize one’s task/vision/strategy does the recognition of difficulty come. Stated differently, any pursuit requires managing across several variables:

The rookies, due to their (relative) inexperience, fail to grasp too many critical “unknown unknowns” in their endeavors— facets that only enter one’s domain of awareness after extended exposure. Then, hopefully, things will start to click, and one’s competence (/confidence) will start to trend upwards — ideally above starting levels.

… But what if that downward trend never reverses? What if the venture firm invests entirely into duds, and the portfolio doesn’t even get back to its baseline value?

… Or worse: what if we keep pushing ourselves on a certain personal/professional endeavor, ardently believing that “one day these [efforts, sacrifices, etc.] will pay off,” to no avail?

These things can happen. In VC investing, especially, it’s well documented. I’d venture to say it happens frequently on the personal end too, though isn’t as well documented.

The key questions are thus:
- How can we know that the “investments” we make will yield a “return”?
- What indicates when things have bottomed out, or whether they will at all?

Investors build models to assess their return scenarios, pressure testing a company’s vitals to ensure viability under different states of the world. And We do the same sort of evaluation— sometimes subconsciously — when weighing whether to keep pushing on our own personal endeavors. RE our psychology, we’re working primarily with lagging indicators: how did X make me feel? Are my [performance/confidence/happiness/etc.] levels better today than yesterday? We’d certainly prefer to have insight into what our future will hold, but our states of mind are a lot tougher to model out than an income statement, especially when we’re deep in the throws of a challenge.

It’s worth introducing another cognitive bias here: the sunk cost fallacy, wherein individuals justify sustaining a behavior(/endeavor/etc.) due to the magnitude of previously invested resources. Think “I paid $XX for all this food, so I might as well eat it” or “This book I’m reading really sucks, but I’m already halfway done so I should just power through the rest.” Or, more aligned with the themes already at play:

Investing: “This company’s clearly struggling. But we’ve already invested, so we should keep plowing $$$ and/or time into this and hope that they’ll turn it around”
Personal: “I’m busting my ass to learn how to code, haven’t made much progress. But I’ve already paid for that course, spent time reading so many books… I have to keep pushing; it’s the only way to justify that time and money.” One can apply this framework to a friendship or relationship as well — it gets deep to ponder.

Maybe you thought, as I once did, that “no pain/no gain” applies to all circumstances, at all times. That never-ending sacrifice is the only way to make it to the J Curve’s upswing.

Wrong. Sometimes, it makes more sense sense to cut one’s losses and walk away. Cash out of that deal now; stop trying to learn to code.

But grit is a well-documented correlate of success; quitting should never become your norm. I’m sure you’ve heard VCs advocate a “fail early and often” approach, especially when coupled with resilience and continuous learning. So when the hell is it worth pushing through?

The answer is: we can never know for sure, but we can still focus on what we can control. Regarding approach mentality, one ought to strive to embody a dynamic equilibrium, which involves (1) recognizing the implications of marginality — i.e. how seemingly small decisions+actions can compound like interest — and (2) balancing competing priorities, especially in the face of trying circumstances.

A critical aspiration here is to be perspicacious, which literally (from Latin) means to “see through” — implying heightened awareness, cognizance, and lucidity. With that clarity, we’re more equipped to assess our internal states, comparisons to past situations / prior versions of ourselves, and have improved (though still imperfect) insight/foresight into our future states. Perspicacity illuminates that which is taxing to the soul and that which stokes the flames of our spirit. Optimism is also necessary, though not sufficient, for progress; it’ll help you set sail, but it won’t help you reach the shores of your Ithaka.

As you set out for Ithaka, hope that your journey is a long one…

The so-called J curve is tough to escape since everything worth having comes at a cost. However, some excessive/extreme costs (time, money, sacrifice, health, well-being) may not be worth sustaining indefinitely. It’s challenging(/impossible) to forecast whether the juice will be worth the squeeze, but certain approaches can elucidate the best path forward in such challenging, oft-existential decisions.

Embrace the journey, not the destination; prioritize learning along the way — all that’s well and good. Let the synthesis of purpose and passion be a guiding compass; without passion — that sense of fulfillment elicited by an endeavor — intent can become Machiavellian. When your vessel’s taking on more water than you can bail with all your might, you needn’t always go down with the ship. It takes a special blend of courage and awareness to know when to walk away.

TL/DR: Know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em… OK, enough rant for now. Ramble on, friends.

Got something to contribute? Think my reasoning is flawed?

Drop me a note; I’d love to hear from you!

Follow me @James R. Shecter. Or don’t.

My Content List #25 | Wed 12/9/20

Articles

The Rise and Fall of Getting Things Done | Cal Newport x New Yorker

“The knowledge sector’s insistence that productivity is a personal issue seems to have created a so-called “tragedy of the commons” scenario, in which individuals making reasonable decisions for themselves insure a negative group outcome. An office worker’s life is dramatically easier, in the moment, if she can send messages that demand immediate responses from her colleagues, or disseminate requests and tasks to others in an ad-hoc manner. But the cumulative effect of such constant, unstructured communication is cognitively harmful: on the receiving end, the deluge of information and demands makes work unmanageable. There’s little that any one individual can do to fix the problem. A worker might send fewer e-mail requests to others, and become more structured about her work, but she’ll still receive requests from everyone else; meanwhile, if she decides to decrease the amount of time that she spends engaging with this harried digital din, she slows down other people’s work, creating frustration.”

The Modern World Has Finally Become Too Complex for Any of Us to Understand | Tim Maughan

“So, what we’ve ended up with is a civilization built on the constant flow of physical goods, capital, and data, and the networks we’ve built to manage those flows in the most efficient ways have become so vast and complex that they’re now beyond the scale of any single (and, arguably, any group or team of) human understanding them. It’s tempting to think of these networks as huge organisms, with tentacles spanning the globe that touch everything and interlink with one another, but I’m not sure the metaphor is apt. An organism suggests some form of centralized intelligence, a nervous system with a brain at its center, processing data through feedback loops and making decisions. But the reality with these networks is much closer to the concept of distributed intelligence or distributed knowledge, where many different agents with limited information beyond their immediate environment interact in ways that lead to decision-making, often without them even knowing that’s what they’re doing.”

The Spooky, Loosely Regulated World of Online Therapy | Jezebel

“Of all the information the average internet user shares with the technology companies that dominate their lives, health data — and especially mental health data–is some of the most valuable, and controversial: Though social media conditions a person to share every aspect of their being, at every moment, a company automatically telling Snapchat and Pinterest you’re signing up for therapy still feels pretty spooky, even if it’s covered in the fine print. It also brings up questions about how a person’s intimate, supposedly private sessions might be exploited by advertisers, an industry that isn’t exactly known for operating in good faith. And while there’s no reason to believe the information Better Help is collecting will be weaponized, there is still some stigma in struggling with mental health. Insurance companies and employers are barred by law from discriminating against people based on their mental health histories; that doesn’t mean they always follow the rules.”

The Good Fight: How Tech can Promote Mental Wellness | Patrick Harmon Lopez, Brad Baum, et al.

A phenomenal four-part series investigating the stark realities of mental wellness (or lack thereof) in the world today, how to alleviate the stigma around such issues, and how to build companies that can help. Frankly far too many great pieces to choose, so I’ll leave you with this as a teaser:

An Economist’s Guide to the World in 2050 | Bloomberg

Designed to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to You? | NYTimes

THIS IS SOME CRAZY SH*T
“There are now businesses that sell fake people. On the website Generated.Photos, you can buy a “unique, worry-free” fake person for $2.99, or 1,000 people for $1,000. If you just need a couple of fake people — for characters in a video game, or to make your company website appear more diverse — you can get their photos for free on ThisPersonDoesNotExist.com. Adjust their likeness as needed; make them old or young or the ethnicity of your choosing. If you want your fake person animated, a company called Rosebud.AI can do that and can even make them talk. These simulated people are starting to show up around the internet, used as masks by real people with nefarious intent: spies who don an attractive face in an effort to infiltrate the intelligence community; right-wing propagandists who hide behind fake profiles, photo and all; online harassers who troll their targets with a friendly visage.”

In the Covid Economy, Laid-Off Employees Become New Entrepreneurs | WSJ

Who Will We Be Without Donald Trump? | NYTimes

“We were supposed to be breathing a huge sigh of relief about Joe Biden’s victory. But instead he was finding a fresh source of outrage about Trump. And here I am writing about Trump — again. It’s a tic, not one I’m proud of. But I’m surrendering to it now to acknowledge that I can’t continue doing so. None of us can. I’m not talking just about journalists. An obsession with Trump as the brute of all evil extends far beyond us. It has been an animating, organizing principle for the Democratic Party, a bond among civic-minded people of otherwise divergent persuasions and a pillar of many Americans’ political identity. It turned his rise and reign into an all-consuming international soap opera with ratings not just through the roof but also through the stratosphere. No public figure in my lifetime has made such a monopolizing claim on our attention, even our souls.”

Psychologists Express Growing Concern With Mindfulness Meditation | Inverse

““People are spending a lot of money and time learning to meditate, listening to guest speakers about corporate integration of mindfulness, and watching TED talks about how mindfulness is going to supercharge their brain and help them live longer. Best case scenario, some of the advertising is true. Worst case scenario: very little to none of the advertising is true and people may actually get hurt (e.g., experience serious adverse effects).’ Despite these criticisms of mindfulness, even major corporations like Google, General Mills, and Target have invested in mindfulness training to boost employees’ productivity. The British government is giving schoolchildren mindfulness training.

Corona Corps + Biden | Scott Galloway

Covid-19 is pulling back the curtain (via Zoom) revealing a mediocre, yet expensive, jagged pill of learning that had been washed down by a four-year campus experience and certification. Tuition has progressed from extraordinary to risible. Prices need to come down, and a hybrid model of online and offline learning must improve dramatically. A recent survey reports 74% of college students are dissatisfied with online courses, and 1 in 6 incoming freshmen are considering deferment.
Families already halfway toward a degree or farther may tolerate the disruption. But there will be an explosion in the number of parents/kids who consider a gap year between high school and college. Google searches for “gap year” are up 69% since March, and traffic to the Gap Year Association is up 25% year to date.
Gap years should be the norm, not the exception. An increasingly ugly secret of campus life is that a mix of helicopter parenting and social media has rendered many 18-year-olds unfit for college. Parents drop them off at school, where university administrators have become mental health counselors. The structure of the Corona Corps would give kids (and let’s be honest, they are still kids) a chance to marinate and mature. The data supports this. 90% of kids who defer and take a gap year return to college and are more likely to graduate, with better grades. The Corps should be an option for non-college-bound youth as well.”

The Next Social Era is Here | NFX

Related: Social Strikes Back | a16Z

Lessons about the Creator Economy from Twitch and Substack | Peter Yang

“Consistency is the key to growth.
The 80:20 rule applies to both creators and fans.
The community is just as important as the content.
Creator collaboration helps all creators grow.
Unbundling will lead to rebundling.
Different monetization for different willingness to pay.
Come for the tool, stay for the network.
Small creators want discovery. Large creators want revenue.”

Earning the premium: A recipe for long-term SPAC success | McKinsey

“Despite explosive growth, and the many incentives sponsors have to succeed, most SPACs have not outperformed. On average, SPACs since 2015 have substantially lagged behind their market indexes one year after the combination .Some SPACs have bucked the trend. We have observed a potential recipe for SPAC success: add the operating edge. We analyzed the 36 SPACs from 2015 to 2019 of at least $200 million with at least 12 months of publicly available trading data. One year after merging, operator-led SPACs outperformed both other SPACs (by about 40 percent) and their sectors (by about 10 percent). “Operator led” means a SPAC whose leadership (chair or CEO) has former C-suite operating experience (versus purely financial or investing experience). The findings, while not statistically significant, strongly suggest that operators make a meaningful difference.”

Related: How SPACS Become Wall Street’s Money Tree

Link Between Alzheimer’s Disease and Gut Microbiota Is Confirmed | NeuroscienceNews

““Our results are indisputable: certain bacterial products of the intestinal microbiota are correlated with the quantity of amyloid plaques in the brain,” explains Moira Marizzoni.”
Sounds a little too certain for any practicing scientist, but this is promising nonetheless

America’s urban-rural partisan gap is widening | The Economist

Telehealth Is Working for Patients. But What About Doctors? | HBR

“Well before the pandemic moved most of healthcare online — along with much of our social and work lives — many providers were already experiencing what neuroscientist Adam Gazzaley has called a “cognition crisis,” with excess screen time and corresponding information overload leading to digital fatigue and stress. In surveys fielded over the past few years, a third or more of physicians regularly report symptoms of burnout, while more than half say those symptoms have increased since the onset of the current public health crisis.”

Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversations | NYTimes

“Don’t fear the pause. Most of us stop listening to a comment about halfway through so we can be ready with a response. In Japan, Murphy writes, businesspeople are more likely to hear the whole comment and then pause, sometimes eight seconds, before responding, which is twice as long a silence as American businesspeople conventionally tolerate.”

How Venture Capitalists are Deforming Capitalism | The New Yorker

“Whereas venture capitalists like Tom Perkins once prided themselves on installing good governance and closely monitoring companies, V.C.s today are more likely to encourage entrepreneurs’ undisciplined eccentricities. Masayoshi Son, the SoftBank venture capitalist who promised WeWork $4.4 billion after less than twenty minutes, embodies this approach. In 2016, he began raising a hundred-billion-dollar Vision Fund, the largest pool of money ever devoted to venture-capital investment. “Masa decided to deliberately inject cocaine into the bloodstream of these young companies,” a former SoftBank senior executive said. “You approach an entrepreneur and say, ‘Hey, either take a billion dollars from me right now, or I’ll give it to your competitor and you’ll go out of business.’”

The Idea Adoption Curve | Stratechery

When Trump Was Right and Many Democrats Wrong | NYTimes

“Some things are true even though President Trump says them. Trump has been demanding for months that schools reopen, and on that he seems to have been largely right. Schools, especially elementary schools, do not appear to have been major sources of coronavirus transmission, and remote learning is proving to be a catastrophe for many low-income children. Yet America is shutting schools — New York City announced Wednesday that it was closing schools in the nation’s largest school district — even as it allows businesses like restaurants and bars to operate. What are our priorities?
“I have taught at the same low-income school for the last 25 years, and, truly, I can attest that remote schooling is failing our children,” said LaShondra Taylor, an English teacher in Broward County, Fla.
Some students don’t have a computer or don’t have Wi-Fi, Taylor said. Kids regularly miss classes because they have to babysit, or run errands, or earn money for their struggling families.”
Related: New York Denying School To Children Is Child Abuse | The Federalist

Can a Computer Devise a Theory of Everything? | NYTimes

““Like a human scientist, [the AI model] tries many different strategies (modules) in turn,” the researchers wrote in a paper published last year in Science Advances. “And if it cannot solve the full problem in one fell swoop, it tries to transform it and divide it into simpler pieces that can be tackled separately, recursively relaunching the full algorithm on each piece.”
In another more challenging experiment, Dr. Tegmark and his colleagues showed the network a video of rockets flying around and asked it to predict what would happen from one frame to the next. Never mind the palm trees in the background. “At the end, the computer was able to discover the essential equations of motion,” he said.”

SpaceX’s Riskiest Business | The Atlantic

“SpaceX is now responsible for astronaut safety to a degree no private business has ever experienced. And as the company moves toward a future of regular astronaut flights, the lessons of the space-shuttle era are at the forefront. SpaceX employees have received briefings about the aftermath of the two space-shuttle disasters, which killed 14 astronauts, as well as a launchpad fire during the Apollo program that killed three. They’ve heard from veteran NASA employees about the mistakes the agency made and how to avoid them. Jordan said that when new engineers joined the project, they were given a tour of a room at the Kennedy Space Center, closed to the public, where shuttle debris was displayed, so that they wouldn’t forget the perilous nature of their work.”

Why Do We Even Listen to New Music | Pitchfork

“It has to do with the plasticity of our brain. Our brains change as they recognize new patterns in the world, which is what makes brains, well, useful. When it comes to hearing music, a network of nerves in the auditory cortex called the corticofugal network helps catalog the different patterns of music. When a specific sound maps onto a pattern, our brain releases a corresponding amount of dopamine, the main chemical source of some of our most intense emotions. This is the essential reason why music triggers such powerful emotional reactions, and why, as an art form, it is so inextricably tied to our emotional responses.”

You’re a Completely Different Person at 14 and 77, the Longest-Running Personality Study Ever Has Found | Quartz

“The findings were a surprise to researchers because previous personality studies, over shorter periods of time, seemed to show consistency. Studies over several decades, focusing on participants from childhood to middle age, or from middle age to older age, showed stable personality traits. But the most recent study, covering the longest period, suggests that personality stability is disrupted over time. “The longer the interval between two assessments of personality, the weaker the relationship between the two tends to be,” the researchers write. “Our results suggest that, when the interval is increased to as much as 63 years, there is hardly any relationship at all.””

Did you see that live stream? | Ashley Brasier

The Next 20-Year Cycle in Business Software | Ajay

“Nowadays, cloud is no longer new — it’s the bare minimum expectation. To differentiate, new startups must aggressively (and at their outset) rethink fundamental assumptions of how to build a software company. My partners and I are convinced that we are in the early innings of the next big transition. This era is all about the user, and we want to focus on three strategic pillars that best-in-class software companies will exemplify: user-centric products and distribution, global distributed teams, and creative monetization.”

Your Brain Doesn’t Work the Way You Think It Does | GQ

“People tend to feel like we’re reacting to what’s actually happening in the world. But what’s really happening is that your brain is drawing on your deep backlog of experience and memory, constructing what it believes to be your reality, cross-referencing it with incoming sense data from your heart, lungs, metabolism, immune system, as well as the surrounding world, and adjusting as needed. In other words, in a process that even Dr. Barrett admits “defies common sense,” you’re almost always acting on the predictions that your brain is making about what’s going to happen next, not reacting to experience as it unfolds.”

Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s Legacy, From Tech Leaders Who Knew Him Well | Forbes

“Tony’s creativity was unrivaled and uncontainable. Ideas came to him effortlessly and continuously, from quirky asides to brilliant strokes of genius. He never stayed inside the box, and he’d often get bored with his own creations, leaving others to realize their potential while he forged ahead into something new.”

Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2020 | Scientific American

The Biology of Dads | Aeon

“Despite having lower testosterone compared with non-fathers, fathers in our study actually had higher levels of another hormone that is classically identified with motherhood: oxytocin. In contrast with testosterone, oxytocin appears to promote paternal caregiving. In 2010, a Dutch research group led by the behavioural scientist Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg gave fathers oxytocin through a nasal spray and then watched them play with their child. When fathers were given oxytocin, they stimulated their child to explore more and showed less hostility toward the child compared with fathers who received a placebo treatment. Then in 2012, an Israeli group found that intranasal oxytocin made fathers touch their infants more and make more positive vocalisations towards them. In turn, infants, though not treated with oxytocin themselves, spent more time gazing at the father in this condition. Finally, and most remarkably, infants whose fathers were treated with oxytocin experienced an increase in oxytocin themselves. Thus, oxytocin seemed to initiate a positive feedback cycle that promoted father-infant bonding.”

Meet The Under 30 Founder Tackling Some Of The Biggest Challenges Facing The Millennial Generation — Like Rent Relief Amid The Pandemic | Forbes

“Jain’s deft skill for tackling real world issues hasn’t gone unnoticed. “Ankur has a rare ability to take on complex societal issues and come up with simple, practical solutions that make you wonder how no one has done this before,” says Richard Branson, billionaire entrepreneur and founder of Virgin Group.”

The Oregon Model | The Baffler

“Decriminalizing all drugs had long been considered a drug policy pipe dream in America, where the story of the drug war is one of perpetual escalation. For over half a century, politicians from both major parties fell over each trying to cook up the most potent batch of draconian punishments that, to this day, have done little but disproportionately harm people of color, rip families and communities apart, and saddle people who use drugs with criminal records that prevent them from obtaining student loans, steady housing, and gainful employment…
During the 1990s, Portugal’s drug problems looked a lot like America’s do now: opioid overdoses were rampant, and at one point, the country had the highest HIV transmission rate in the European Union. Portugal’s drug laws were likewise harsh, with roughly half of people in prison there for drug-related offenses. The American way — criminalize, criminalize, criminalize — utterly failed to bring results in Portugal, so they ran in the opposite direction. In 2001, Portugal became the first country in the world to decriminalize all drugs and invest heavily in treatment and social services. The country has made remarkable progress in the years since, and what became known as the “Portugal model” is celebrated by activists around the world. What’s happening in Oregon is “the Portugal model on a state level”

‘Like Being Grilled Alive’: The Fear of Living With a Hackable Heart | Jameson Rich x OneZero

“Clinically, the benefits of remote monitoring are twofold: The patient doesn’t have to enter a medical setting to be monitored, which reduces the likelihood of iatrogenic disease — illness caused by the interference of the medical system. At the same time, doctors get more data than they’ve ever had access to, allowing them, ideally, a window to disease prevention. (I, along with many other patients, take issue with the second proposition, given that we cannot access our own data; there’s a substantial activist movement toward data liberation that includes cardiac patients who have fought for more than a decade to gain access to the information generated by wireless-enabled pacemakers and ICDs.)”…
“But as remote monitoring has become more widespread, concerns about the cybersecurity of the practice have only grown. Since 2011, the FDA has issued at least 11 warnings and many recalls on pacemakers and ICDs over concerns relating to cybersecurity and safety. This includes the 2017 notice for St. Jude devices that I found just before my surgery. The security defect affected at least a half-million patients and was ultimately resolved by a software patch sent directly to their remote monitors.”

A Shortage of Investment-Ready Startups Is Creating VC Anxiety | The Startup

“Even before the pandemic deal numbers were slowing. With greater uncertainty over the macroeconomic climate and a glut of deals over recent years, investors were already taking stock. There was a deliberate shift away from early-stage to growth stage and late-stage businesses.
Larger fund sizes over recent years fuelled this trend and enabled investors to focus on less risky bets. Then the pandemic hit and acted as a huge but unplanned accelerant to this strategy. Funds are only now starting to appreciate the longer-term implications.”

Who’s a Very Good Pandemic Business? Chewy Is. Oh, Yes It Is | Bloomberg

“The usual suspects topped the list of the best-paid executives in the U.S. published by Bloomberg News in July. №1 was Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, with a 2019 payday of nearly $600 million, followed by Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook at $134 million. The top 10 also included bosses at Intel, Alphabet, and Blackstone Group. The list did contain one surprise: At №5 stood one Sumit Singh, chief executive officer of Chewy Inc., an online retailer of food, toys, apparel, and medicine for pets. Singh joined Chewy in 2017, was elevated to CEO after seven months, and in 2019, his first full year on the job, earned $108.2 million in salary, bonus, and stock grants. That sum was even more remarkable given that Chewy, in nine years of existence, has yet to post a profitable quarter.”

Why We Should Think Twice About Colonizing Space | Nautilus

“In other words, natural selection and cyborgization as humanity spreads throughout the cosmos will result in species diversification. At the same time, expanding across space will also result in ideological diversification. Space-hopping populations will create their own cultures, languages, governments, political institutions, religions, technologies, rituals, norms, worldviews, and so on. As a result, different species will find it increasingly difficult over time to understand each other’s motivations, intentions, behaviors, decisions, and so on. It could even make communication between species with alien languages almost impossible.”

The Art of Building the Impossible | The New Yorker

““Nobody ever hires me to do a conventional building,” he said. “Billionaires don’t want the same old thing. They want better than the last. They want something that no one has done before, that’s specific to their apartment, and that might even be ill-advised.” Sometimes this gives rise to wonders; more often it doesn’t. Ellison has worked on homes for David Bowie, Woody Allen, Robin Williams, and dozens of others he’s not allowed to name. His least expensive projects cost around five million dollars, but others can swell to fifty million or more.”

Here’s How George Clooney Accidentally Made $1 Billion | Jared A. Brock

“Within three years of launching their tequila publicly, Casamigos was selling 120,000 cases per year. Clooney and his team could have started scooping cash into their pockets, but instead, they pumped it back into their product, their people, and their publicity. Rather than taking dividends, they pulled a Warren Buffett and re-invested with a long-term mindset. Takeaway: Be patient. Seed save and replant your fields. If your idea is good enough to turn a small profit, it might be good enough to turn a large one.”

Conspiracy theories, explained | Vox

“The history of conspiracy theories is somewhat short, relative to human evolution. According to Radford, the first conspiracy theories as we might recognize them now likely didn’t spring up until the mid-15th century, with the invention of the Gutenberg press in the 1440s. Movable type allowed for the wider spread of information — and anxious reinterpretation of that information. “Suddenly you not only have knowledge that is reproducible, but you also have other people who are writing about things that may have a different perspective,” Radford said. This was the moment, he argues, in which the first conflicts of information arose over what was true and what wasn’t.”
Related: It’s only fake-believe: how to deal with a conspiracy theorist | Guardian

Be Willing to Say the Thing That May End the Relationship | Molly Godfrey x PS I Love You

“Start small. Start going through your life with a fine-tooth comb and commit to self-honesty. Where are all the little places you say yes, you acquiesce, or you skip over moments that are asking for your truth, for you to slow down, and for you to be more honest in your communications?”

To Invest or Not to Invest: The VC Question about Digital Brands | Aubrie Pagano

Podcasts

Nick Kokonas — Know What You Are Selling | Invest Like the Best

“My guest today is Nick Kokonas, the co-founder of the 3 of the best restaurants and bars in America — Alinea, Next, and The Aviary as well as the co-founder and CEO of Tock, a comprehensive booking system for restaurants. This was one of my favorite conversations in the history of the show. Nick is a philosophy major turned derivatives trader that is now one of the most well-known names in the restaurant and hospitality industry. We cover so many topics I can’t list them here, but I’ll remember it for why it’s so important for a business to really know what it’s selling and then actually sell it. Nick also pulls back the curtain on why restaurants and even book publishers can be great businesses if you do them in the right way.”

Capitalism Needs Empathy | Prof G Show

“Nick Molnar, the co-founder and CEO of Afterpay, joins Scott to discuss the company’s ‘buy now, take now, pay later’ business model, how millennials’ spending habits are changing, and Nick’s experience as an entrepreneur. Nick also compares and contrasts running a startup in San Francisco vs. Sydney.”

A Conspiracy of Silence | NPR’s Hidden Brain

“We all self-censor at times. We keep quiet at dinner with our in-laws, or nod passively in a work meeting. But what happens when we take this deception a step further, and pretend we believe the opposite of what we really feel? This week on Hidden Brain, economist and political scientist Timur Kuran explains how our personal, professional and political lives are shaped by the fear of what other people think.”

What Marcus Lemonis learned by investing 75 million into local business | Yang Speaks

“Andrew and Zach go over the newest COVID-19 relief bill and discuss how to build Americans’ trust in a vaccine. The Profit star Marcus Lemonis breaks down his philosophy of entrepreneurship and explains why he has been investing his own money into struggling businesses for almost a decade.”

The Price of Distraction | Making Sense with Sam Harris

“Sam Harris speaks with Adam Gazzaley about the way our technology is changing us. They discuss our limited ability to process information, our failures of multitasking, “top-down” vs “bottom-up” attention, self-interruptions and switching costs, anxiety, boredom, “digital medicine,” neuroplasticity, video games for training the mind, the future of brain-machine interface, and other topics.”

Knowing the Mind | Making Sense with Sam Harris

“Stephen Laureys interviews Sam Harris about meditation practice and the scientific study of the mind. They discuss why Sam began to practice meditation, the difference between dualistic and nondualistic mindfulness, the search for happiness, wisdom vs knowledge, our relationship with death, the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth, the hard problem of consciousness, the role of introspection in science, meditation and free will, the self and the brain, the difference between voluntary and involuntary actions, dangerous knowledge, the mystery of being, the power of hypnosis, and other topics.”

Reid Hoffman | 20VC

“Reid Hoffman is a Silicon Valley stalwart in the modern technology world. On the investing side, he is a Partner @ Greylock, one of the leading venture firms of the last 2 decades with a portfolio including Facebook, Airbnb, Dropbox, Figma, Appdynamics and Okta to name a few. Reid has led investments in Airbnb, Convoy, Coda and Aurora to name a few. As an operator, Reid co-founded LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network and before LinkedIn, Reid served as executive vice president at PayPal, where he was a founding board member. If that was not enough, Reid is the co-author of Blitzscaling and two New York Times best-selling books: The Start-up of You and The Alliance.”

Stewart Butterfield | 20VC

“Stewart Butterfield is the Founder & CEO @ Slack, the leading channel-based messaging platform, used by millions to align their teams, unify their systems and drive their businesses forward. Prior to their direct listing in June 2019, Stewart raised over $1.3Bn from the likes of Accel, Thrive, Softbank, Kleiner, IVP, T Rowe, GV and a16z to name a few. Prior to founding Slack, Stewart co-founded Flickr, a company he built into one of the largest web services in the world. Due to his many incredible successes, Stewart has been named to the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine, and one of the Top 50 Leaders by BusinessWeek.”

Zac Bookman — How Government Works | Invest Like the Best

“Zac is the Founder and CEO of OpenGov a budgeting and financial management software for local governments. Before he founded OpenGov Zac was an Advisor to U.S. Army General H.R. McMaster in Afganistan, a law clerk on the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, and earned a Fullbright Fellowship studying corruption in the Mexican government. This conversation is one of the most unique and wide-ranging of any I’ve had on the show. We cover how Zac built a world-class sales organization, the power of selling momentum, and the role capital efficiency still plays in building great companies. We also dive into the details on how local government works from mayors down to school board meetings.”

Danny Meyer — The Power of Hospitality | Invest Like the Best

“Danny Meyer, the founder and CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, which compromises some of the most acclaimed restaurants in New York like Gramercy Tavern and Union Square Café. He’s also the founder and chairman of Shake Shack, which began in New York City but is now a publicly traded company with hundreds of locations worldwide. Our conversation focuses on how great hospitality leads to a great business, regardless of what sector its in. We discuss why hospitality is the starting point for Danny’s business philosophy, why first impressions matter, Danny’s concept of ABCD — always be connecting dots, how to scale hospitality, and how to build a business with essentialism and soul. The other day, when my young son went ice skating and fell a lot he said to me “well you learn from your mistake so you try to make as many of them as you can.” You’ll hear Danny say something powerfully similar late in the conversation. ”

Where Gratitude Gets You | NPR’s Hidden Brain

“Many of us struggle with self-control. And we assume willpower is the key to achieving our goals. But there’s a simple and often overlooked mental habit that can improve our health and well-being. This week on Hidden Brain, we talk with psychologist David DeSteno about that habit — the practice of gratitude.”

Screaming into a Void | NPR’s Hidden Brain

“Turn on the news or look at Twitter, and it’s likely you’ll be bombarded by outrage. Many people have come to believe that the only way to spark change is to incite anger. This week on Hidden Brain, we revisit a favorite 2019 episode about how outrage is hijacking our conversations, our communities, and our minds.”

Why Do We Seek Comfort in the Familiar? | Freakonomics’ NoStupidQuestions

How Do You Know When It’s Time to Quit?| Freakonomics’ NoStupidQuestions

Does Advertising Actually Work? | Freakonomics

“Companies around the world spend more than half-a-trillion dollars each year on ads. The ad industry swears by its efficacy — but a massive new study tells a different story.”

Musique

Padam Padam | Edith Piaf

Old French jazz parlor style, roaring 20s vibe that’s ripe for sampling (like it was on Terry’s Big Dab | Thriftworks)

You’re Still a Young Man | Tower of Power

Smooth, soulful funk jam

Ginger | Riton, Kah-Lo

For your workouts — uptempo UK dance with hiphop-esque vocals
PS: What drug is ginger…?