March 2024
Books, articles, podcasts, and thoughts throughout the month
March 31, 2024
💭 thoughts throughout the day:
tight hugs are awesome
no one meal is gonna make me fat. and similarly, no one meal is gonna make me skinny
if a tree falls in the forest and nobody heard it, did it fall? if I have a thought and didn't write it down, did it happen?
📰 The moon’s invisible string by
Brooke’s family game is simple yet endearing: whoever sees the moon first and says, “I saw the moon first!” wins.
📰 Are Six Figure Freelancers *Actually* Successful? by Alice Lemee
Jack Raines puts it: “In the absence of strong convictions about what you want from life, you will always default to wanting more money.”
Japan Travel Guide by Alice Lemee — I spent 12 days and several hours compiling all my recommendations for Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and Kinosaki Onsen) in Google Maps and Notion. If you’re planning a trip to Japan anytime soon, this is guaranteed to help!
📰 What if government worked like Wikipedia? by
This is the argument made in Garett Jones’ book 10% Less Democracy. The tax code shouldn’t be written by everyday citizens, he says, it’s already a mess letting elected officials do it.
Why should we have to vote the same way on abortion as we do on taxation? Why should we have to vote the same way on taxation as we do about immigration? The two party system, and the politicians who represent each party, have created a binary belief system where we can only have one set of beliefs all the way down the line, rather than varying feedback throughout.
📰 I'm Afraid of the Choices I've Made by
There’s a reason that Jeff Bezos has said “I like a crisp document and a messy meeting.” This document forces the Amazon team to write before they have conversation, to ensure immense clarity for discussion.
“Make up for lack of skill by spending disproportionately more hours on a thing than people normally do for that format. Relative effort stands out and the constraint breeds creativity.”
📰 Mine Your Memories by
The power of making your values visible is exemplified by mega-successful companies like Amazon. Case in point, check out their iconic “Day 1” value displayed in one of their many offices. Here’s what “Day 1” means at Amazon: > “[M]aintaining a long-term focus, obsessing over customers and their needs, and boldly innovating to meet those needs—have remained consistent for over two decades, and lie at the heart of what is known at Amazon as a “Day 1” mentality.” —Daniel Slater, Culture of Innovation, AWS
So in addition to reflecting on how companies can better link [value and mission], I’m also reflecting on the following questions:
How can companies make their values more visible to employees?
How can companies make their values more prominent while integrating them as part of an overall vibe?
How can remote companies replicate the presence of value-conveying decor in online workspaces to promote absorption?
📰 The revolution will be organized by group chat by
Among the most ambitious and connected people I know, group chats today play a similar role to coffee houses in 19th century Vienna, salons in Enlightenment Paris, and secret societies throughout history. They are the gathering places where like-minded individuals socialize, scheme, and change history.
A number of my friends believe small groups of men change the world, but it is worth noting that Group Chat Theory is not gendered. In fact, women historically have played key roles in salons and movements and are just as likely to participate in group chats. Consider Gertrude Stein’s Paris Salon, Pamela Harriman’s hostessing, or Virginia Woolf’s role in the Bloomsbury Group. If the Seneca Falls Movement was organized today — this was the first woman's rights convention in America — it would probably have a Slack channel or Signal group for its main organizers.
Among powerful groups started in the 20th century, such as the World Economic Forum and the Bilderberg Group, in-person gatherings were the nucleus and still are. Digital interaction is ancillary at best. Based on Group Chat Theory, I would predict that equivalent groups started in the 21st century will combine group chats with in-person events.
This was decades ago, but the model they adopted was based on Freidrich Hayek’s theory of social change based on his essay, “The Intellectuals and Socialism.” Hayek’s theory is like trickle-down economics but for intellectual work. He posited that scholars and intellectuals are at the top of the pyramid of change, while politicians and others are all downstream. Thus, the Koch Foundation and its affiliates focused its charitable efforts on scholars and universities. That’s where they saw the most leverage. By contrast, the foundation invested very little in cultural efforts, which might have been different if they had been influenced by, say, Antonio Gramsci instead of Hayek.
📰 How to stay calm in a bear market by Khe Hy
I live and die by a single investment strategy. It’s simple AF and goes as follows. Whenever you go to bed wondering: “I have NO idea what the world is going to look like tomorrow?” That’s the ultimate buy signal.
Now I have the unsexiest investing strategy ever. I’ve been dollar-cost-averaging the S&P 500 since 1994, when I was 16 years old.
Every time things get scary, I collect articles, emails and “prophetic statements from pundits.” And whenever things get scary, I can just remind myself that this too shall pass.
📰 I moved to Spain to be a better Dad by
On double days: We arrived in Valencia in the middle of COVID and the center of the old city. With the first month in Spain, we felt more hopeful than we did in New York City. What was different was the feeling of peace we experienced each morning due to our work still operating on a NYC schedule. With the extra six hours each morning, it was found the time and space I had been craving. We started experiencing what felt like two-days in one - what I now call “double days”.
I began to acknowledge what I already knew. More work hours didn’t make me more productive, happy or successful.
Around the same time, though, I noticed this woman lurking in my house - apparently, she’d been there for years… My wife! She reminded me that she also didn’t have to work until later in the day. Maybe we could reimagine Spain as a couples-morning followed by a workday?
But like everything, life is about tradeoffs, and we’ve found, in time, that the measure of the day and the sense of adventure that comes with living in a foreign country affords us more space and time generally to reflect and turn the living organism that is our family life into something that works for us.
📰 I Went to Paris by
Even the worst pasta in Rome is still pasta in Rome, the most basic taco in Mexico City is still a taco in Mexico City, the most unassuming wine bar in Paris, is still a wine bar in Paris.
One question I will not entertain is, “Is it worth the hype?” Darling, almost nothing is!
📰 The Many Faces of Mexican Heirloom Corn by
A tasting menu is a great metaphor to wrap my mind around what I’ve been trying to create with my body of work over the last two years. I have been writing essays, fiction, memoirs, book reviews, and whatever else felt right whenever it felt right. The variety of ideas and content may make it hard to find the thread that unites them. I want subscribers to feel the way I did in that dining room, engaged and delighted by the thought-provoking parade of experiences coming their way. But even though everything feels different, all my writing comes from the same well of inspiration. There is a unified purpose.
On the night after the meal at Tatemó, I considered what a tasting menu would look like for writing. It would probably be the exploration of a compelling theme or idea with an assortment of bite-sized stories, ideas, and links that all give different vantage points and offer different experiences around that theme or idea.
March 29, 2024
📖 Reading Babel by R.F. Kuang and The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
The Courage to Be Disliked was recommended by two friends who are living full, intentional lives. They have also made this book their personality but I do adore them a lot.
Babel is uncovering the role translation plays in politics and colonization. The fantasy aspect of it is so mesmerizing. I’m a sucker for a little splash of fantasy and historical fiction. R.F. Kuang’s footnotes are also to drool for.
📰 ChatGPT Can’t Plan. This Matters. by Cal Newport
Predicting / scenario planning will still be a human superpower
Highlighted: As I argue in my latest article for The New Yorker, titled “Can an A.I. Make Plans?,” this inability for language models to simulate the future is important. Humans run these types of simulations all the time as we go through our day.
Highlighted: if you’re excited or worried about artificial intelligence, the right thing to care about is not how big we can make a single language model, but instead how smartly we can combine many different types of digital cognition.
📰 31 Ways to Improve Your Writing by David Perell (join Write of Passage here)
The world doesn’t reward the people with the best ideas. It rewards the people who are best at communicating ideas.
You can almost always improve your writing by being more specific. Don’t write “I got in my car” when you can write “I got in my ‘65 Mustang.”
Storytelling 101: Stories are built on suspense, suspense is built on high stakes, high stakes are built on a character having a strong desire and an obstacle in the way of them getting what they want.
If you want to improve your voice, read outside your sphere of expertise.
Whenever you can center a story around people, do it.
When writing non-fiction, bury yourself in a well-written fiction book. The contrast in style and content will keep you focused on your own work, but the beauty will seep into your writing.
📰 How to promote yourself without giving people the ick. by
Three rules for self promotion:
1. Share ideas, not accolades.
2. Share stories, not facts.
I use narrative to promote my capabilities in a way that’s softer, more accessible and gracious.
3. Promote yourself, promote others.
By boasting about yourself as well as the people in your orbit, you’ll come across as warm, capable and genuine.
📰 How to Draw a Gorilla Portrait by
On ape etiquette: I remembered something I learned in my primate social behavior class. I approached the glass with a submissive posture, looking down at the ground and backing up with my hand out.
On sketching people out in the wild: It was like sketching someone on a subway. I tried to just glance at her discreetly out of the corner of my eye.
📰 Can You Tweet Your Way to Impact? by Cal Newport
Social media posts can get attention/buzz but it doesn’t translate into sales or impact.
Highlights:
Earlier this month, a group of scientists from universities around the world published the results of an ingeniously simple experiment in the journal PLoS ONE. Every month, for ten months, they randomly selected an article from a journal in their field to promote on their Twitter accounts, which, collectively, added up to around 230,000 followers. They then later compared the success of these tweeted articles with control articles randomly selected from the same issues.
No statistically significant increase in citations in the promoted articles versus the controls. There was a difference, however, in the download numbers: more people took a look at the tweeted citations.
At the same time, more than a few authors have learned in recent years that large numbers of TikTok, or Twitter, or YouTube subscribers do not always amount to much in terms of sustained sales. The relationships with these social media audiences is different: less trust, more antsy energy; exciting, but shallow.
March 28, 2024
📰 “I'd like to open a Singapore franchise please?” by
Highlighted: That’s why I wonder if “Franchise Cities” would be a better alternative to “Charter Cities.” As blueprints for good governance, already successful countries could franchise their countries to other countries just like businesses do: Companies establish sound business models and then franchise them to independent business owners who want to start their own business using the same successful blueprint.
Related thought: What if governments were operated like businesses?
📰 The Remarkable Life Exercise by
Exercise to dream in detail what life would look like in 5 years. Write with certainty that everything would succeed.
📰 The Last Photo by
It made us cognizant of how even though most of us think of places other than our hometown, city, or country as our new home, where you bolt to when the world is in an upheaval reveals where your heart truly lies.
📰 Finding smiles amid the slog by
Sometimes I imagine myself as a landscape slowly changing over time, being chipped and reshaped by the winds and waters of worry and obligation. I can’t do anything about it except weather the storm and admire my new form.
📰 Anatomy of a Carer - Part I by
If you haven’t yet been a carer, as a parent or of a parent, you may be one within 20 years.
📰 A Week in My Life by
feral free agent
Action sessions: Prepare For Workshop: As part of my weekly workshops for the consulting skill training, I do weekly “action sessions.” This is something inspired by Write of Passage’s “Crossfit Writing” sessions I saw them doing a couple of years back. So each week there is a set of lectures people watch, then an assignment people complete, an action session to walk through the assignment step-by-step with feedback from me, and then finally a live workshop where we recap and present the homework and talk about what we learned. I have had fun prototyping and playing with the formats in the last few years and have now run about 7-8 of these in the last three years and now price these at $25k and up which makes them fit nicely into my life.
Alex is vibe-checking Paul’s upcoming book
Leaving money on the table: Everything I did this week was opt-in and if there was anything I’d skip it might be the StrategyU workshops. But in terms of return on income vs. effort, they are great and I also enjoy the workshops. In fact, it’s mostly the selling, contracts, invoicing and prep that drains me. But I’m also only planning on doing two of these big workshops this year. After next week when my second workshop finishes, I’m going to pause those unless I can find freelancers to deliver them. This is one of the benefits of working for yourself. You can decide how much (or how little) you want to earn. I am very comfortable leaving money on the table.
📰 End the Phone-Based Childhood Now by Jonathan Haidt
Preview/excerpt of his upcoming book, Anxious Generation
I am always angered/irked by phone usage and this article explains a good chunk of what happened to gen z
In an interview last May OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison noted that, for the first time since the 1970s, none of Silicon Valley’s preeminent entrepreneurs are under 30. In a famously young industry, he was baffled by the sudden absence of great founders in their 20s.
In 1980s children & adolescents have been systematically deprived of unsupervised play because of fears of kidnappings etc that was broadcasted via TV, which enabled round-the-clock coverage of missing-children cases, even though statistically the crimes are lower / extremely rare. In the 1990s, American parents began pulling their children indoors or insisting that afternoons be spent in adult-run enrichment activities. Free play, independent exploration, and teen-hangout time declined.
One crucial aspect of play is physical risk taking.
tech companies got access to children 24/7.
In Walden, his 1854 reflection on simple living, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of … life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” In Thoreau’s terms, how much of life is exchanged for all this screen time? Arguably, most of it.
real-world interactions are embodied, meaning that we use our hands and facial expressions to communicate, and we learn to respond to the body language of others.
Relates to Esther Perel’s point of listening with whole body (in podcast episode with Trevor Noah)
4 norms that would roll back phone-based childhood
no smartphones before high school
delaying round-the-clock internet access until age 14
no social media before 16
phone-free schools
require students to deposit phones in a locked pouch before school starts (I did this even though our phones were the old Blackberrys)
more independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world
If parents don’t replace screen time with real-world experiences involving friends and independent activity, then banning devices will feel like deprivation, not the opening up of a world of opportunities.
March 27, 2024
📹 Jenn Im - Mind Expanding Books To Read This Year
Stay True by Hua Hsu - word to describe: “identity”. A coming-of-age memoir about how our identity is shaped through foundational friendships.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin - “friendship & love”. Centers around two childhood friends who go on to build a dream company together. (Note: I’ve read this and I highly recommend it!)
Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark - “the future”. How life will be when AI can do all the cognitive tasks. There’s a chapter on possible AI aftermath scenarios. Reads like sci-fi but one will become true. Her ideal choice is egalitarian utopia.
Filterworld by Kyle Chayka - “control”. How social media algorithms take control of culture. Result: cultural homogenization. Fave section: on taste and how it’s formed. Taste is external information meets how we react emotionally. But now all the information is fed to us digitally. So go out, touch grass. Taste requires effort.
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino - collection of essays to “circumspect” aka consider all circumstances & consequences before acting or judging something. One essay, Always Be Optimizing, talks on influencer culture that’s dominated by women. Reminiscent of The Friendship Challenge by Mary Gaitskill: “Men compete about what they do, women compete about what they are.” Tip from Jenn: In a system that makes us feel inferior, seek out people and content that feel enriching.
Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff - “team: togetherness, encourage, autonomy, minimal interference”. Jenn released the need to “entertain her child”. Instead of dinging children’s museums and playrooms, she now involves him in her everyday life like opening mail and cooking.
📹 Joanne Lee Molinaro - My Dad’s Story
For her dad’s 80th birthday, the Korean Vegan shared a video story about her dad. My comment in her video: Omigosh this made me sob. Your storytelling is so beautiful. I hope to one day develop a relationship with my parents like yours. It'll take a lot of work but to see how beautiful it can be - a video story like yours to celebrate a milestone birthday - the work may just be worth it 💕
📰 “The Tears That Got Me Here” by
Gaining my composure is never a gain.
I’ve spoken so much about my joy these past years, I sometimes fear I’ve not spoken enough about the tears that got me here. How my therapist said, You can’t shut yourself off to grief without also shutting yourself off to joy. Think of it like a kink in a hose. Stop the flow of sadness, you stop the flow of happiness at the same time.
Do I even know how to ask someone what they think about the weather if it’s not the weather of their heart?
🎧 “Burn Book” takes SXSW, with “mensch” Mark Cuban - On with Kara Swisher (transcription)
Kara does exit interviews with many tech executives because that’s when they can say stuff they couldn’t before
Takeaway: do “exit” conversations with friends who leave jobs
Kara on building relationships with sources: always get their cell number. Also send them news and ask them “what do you think?”. She doesn’t really trade information like other journalists (which is what I used to do)
Mark Cuban: TikTok purchase would be worthless because ByteDance would not give up its algorithm which is what makes TikTok so valuable to begin with. So the question is now that the bill to "acquire" TikTok has passed: who will buy TikTok?
March 25, 2024
📰 Sam Altman on AI, queerness, and being grateful for the journey he’s on
When you were growing up, was there an LGBTQ+ person who you admired or who inspired you?
[Extra long pause] That’s a really great question, and you know, I never really thought about that.
How about the first LGBTQ+ person you met?
Mmm…
I usually ask this question, and I’m always surprised that it always stumps people.
Yes, it does [extra long pause]. I guess it’s probably the first guy I ever hooked up with [laughs].This questioned stumped me too. I don't recall there being anyone LGBTQ+ around me that I grew up with. I guess as an adult that answer would be Kara Swisher, and I only found out about her when I started working as a journalist. Wow. And now kids will grow up knowing that there are LGBTQ+ people around them. Many many more would actually have one or more role models to look up to.
📧 My Honest Advice for a Struggling Creator by Ali Abdaal
GPS system: goal, plan, system. What’s the goal, what’s the plan to get to the goal, and what’s the system to implement daily and weekly to help me stick to the plan?
Creators often set Goals that are business goals - grow a following, make money from it. But they actually have a hobby approach - make content whenever they feel like it, about whatever they feel like. A “business” is something that focuses on adding value to others and making money from that. A “hobby” is something that focuses on being fun for you as its primary goal.
🎧 Pivot podcast: Predictions on The Future of Work: AI, The Gig Economy, and DEI (transcription)
AI
Prediction: AI will make white-collar jobs more effective and that might involve downsizing teams from 6 paralegals to 2 Joes and 2 Susans. CEOs are incentivized to do this because it’ll cut costs and trim the fat of the organization. Scott calls this “Corporate Ozempic”. But CEOs will not say this directly because it will cost uncertainty among workers.
At the same time, AI will create more jobs that didn’t exist before. Like how there used to be payphone people or typists.
Hybrid / remote work
Hybrid work is here to stay.
Scott: Remove work is an enormous unlock for people in their 30s onwards who have kids and dogs and are caregivers. Remote work has been a disaster for people in their 20s. It’s hard to develop soft skills - like how to read a room or how to run a meeting - over a screen.
Kara: Anecdotal evidence: older people like being in the office. Younger people like remote.
Scott: Anecdotal evidence: how much young people like being in the office is correlated to how ambitious they are.
Kara’s prediction: Remote work will accelerate.
Scott’s prediction: Remote work has plateaued and checked back a little bit. More people will be in the office.
The gig economy
Before companies were platforms. Now, by being able to search for jobs on LinkedIn, everyone is their own platform.
Regulators need to force wage requirements and benefits (e.g. healthcare).
Prediction from both: gig economy is going to go up. Companies want to save (less expensive to hire contractors). Young people are more confident and have more access (create a nice website, advertise self on LinkedIn, write a few articles on Medium/Substack and if you’re good, people will find you).
Bachelor degrees vs technical and vocational training
Kara: Vocational training works in Europe. It’s a great way to build a strong society. The jobs will be in the technical & vocational training. AI doesn’t touch this area as much. And it gives people dignity of work, especially to those who can’t afford a four-year college education
Scott: Majority of kids aren’t cut out for university. But they need vocational training at least, and not from degree mills masquerading as technical schools. There should be 1-year programs in specialty construction for nuclear power plants, cybersecurity, pickleball court maintenance.
Prediction from both: Vocational and technical training is going to be bigger than ever and get more respect than ever.
DEI
Prediction from both: DEI has had a bad rep and needs a rebranding. DEI teams will be cut from companies and integrated into other roles (CEO, HR, legal) because widening the pool of talent adds to shareholder value. DEI departments exist in companies that already has the most diverse and inclusive cultures.
Kara: Approach DEI the Mark Cuban way: “When you broaden the scope of your recruiting as widely as possible you find more qualified candidates, that's the D. When you hire someone, you try to put them in the best position to succeed, that's the E. And for all employees, making them feel confident with who they are is a plus for productivity, that's the inclusion."
Scott: A workforce doesn’t need to be perfectly calibrated to society, but it should at least somewhat reflect and not obviously exclude people of certain communities.
March 23, 2024
🎧 Where Should We Begin? With Esther Perel - Sex, Comedy and Context: A Live Conversation with Trevor Noah (transcription)
Gladiators in Rome, before they go to their last fight, would do graffiti with funny stories. They would etch imagery and statements on the walls. Humor is our ultimate freedom. We decide the perspective we take on something.
In French, rire is to laugh, derrière (sp?) is to humiliate. I couldn’t get the accurate translation for the second one. Maybe it’s because I’m not typing French right. But the point is, it’s not possible for someone who feels humiliated to think a joke is funny.
Comedy clubs don’t have windows because comedians can say the most obscene things. But it’s okay in the club itself because the comedian has time to build context with the crowd. Whereas for onlookers just listening to 1-2 lines of a joke, it can seem very out of place.
How to listen: with your whole body. It’s not just your ears. It’s your body language, how present you are. This is why in-person works better than virtual. But when someone is distracted, they’re physically present but psychologically or emotionally gone. Or vice versa, when people are deployed or held hostage or at war, they are physically gone but psychologically and emotionally very present. It’s called ambiguous loss.
Audience is less likely to laugh if the room is well-lit.
The key to good small talk is to acknowledge the environment that both you are sharing. That’s why weather is the most wildly used small talk.
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Cool roundup!