May 2025
Books, articles, podcasts, and thoughts throughout the month
Books read:
📖 Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman
📕 The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
📕 Hell Yeah or No by Derek Sivers
Posts published:
Apps built:
May 17
🎧 U.S.-China Trade Deal, Trump's Plane Grift, and the American Pope - Pivot Pod
Some interviewers try to create a TikTok moment. Others, the generous ones, let you speak and want you to get your views out there, whether they personally agree or not. They want to set you up for success.
Transcript:
Scott Galloway
I've been on Christiana [Amanpour]'s show. I think she's, I also like her because she's one of those journalists that tries to set you up for success and she lets you speak. I find so many journalists are there to- Substantive is the word you're looking for. Well, actually, it's not, but thank you, lemon tree weirdo.
Kara Swisher
Catholic lemon tree.
Scott Galloway
What I was thinking was actually generous, and that is I find there's some times when I go on a show, they're there to try and corner you or get you to say something provocative because They want a TikTok moment. And I'm guilty of this, too. A lot of times I ask questions trying to show how smart I am as opposed to get to an answer. And then there's journalists who will let you just speak and want you to get your views out there, whether they personally agree with them or not. They're generous. They want to set you up for success. And I find that she's one of those people.
Kara Swisher
She is. I really, really adore her. We've become good friends and I really like her. It was a great talk. Anyway, please listen to it.
📰 Vibe Check: Codex—OpenAI’s New Coding Agent by Every
Codex isn’t a vibe coding tool. You can tell it’s built not to replace senior software engineers, but as a tool for them.
📰 The Secret Sauce to Growing Your YouTube Business -
The startup founder Paul Graham famously said “do things that don’t scale” and it couldn’t be more true.
One of the best pieces of advice I can give you as an educational YouTuber is to learn more about your audience. I know, it's so basic. Almost too basic. But it's vital. Get on some 1:1 calls, run audience surveys, and test out offers.
What problems do they actually have? Even better, record the conversations and use AI to analyse everyone's pain points.
📰 7 Email Subject Line Styles That Consistently Deliver Higher Open Rates -
A killer subject line does two things:
It hints at a benefit. For example, “How to get your first 10 sales (without a big list)”* Clear benefit and it removes a mental obstacle.
It creates curiosity. THIS almost killed my launch” What’s “this”? What happened? Instant curiosity.
The 7 Email Subject Line Styles That Consistently Deliver Higher Open Rates You don’t need 1,000 templates. You only need these 7:
Curiosity “THIS changed everything for my business.”
Pain “Still can’t convert traffic into buyers?”
Benefit “How to 2X your leads in 30 days”
Story “I accidentally ordered d*ck cheese” (yes, deliverability took a hit. but replies went crazy.)
Question “Do you make these content mistakes?”
Contrarian “Why storytelling WON’T grow your brand (and what will)”
Proof “How I grew to 70,000 followers in one year”
Use these to match your email type.
Sending a story? Use a story subject.
Giving advice? Use benefit or question.
Writing to sell? Use pain or proof.
once someone exploits a loophole, the rules change. That’s why the top 1% never stop spotting new patterns.
How to engineer luck 💰 It’s simple: Luck = Doing × Telling Once you decode the rules of a game:
Do more things within those rules
Tell more people about what you're doing
The more shots you take in the right playground, and the more people who know about them → the larger your “luck surface area” becomes. (Coined by Jason Roberts)
Lucky people ALLOW themselves to be distracted by new things.
The real question isn’t “How to be more lucky” but “How can I position myself where good things come to me?” The answer is simple:
Understand the playground – find the hidden rules that govern each environment and understand them better than anyone else.
Then, take massive action within those rules. Remember: Luck = Doing × Telling. The more shots you take within the optimal playing field, the more chances you have to win.
May 16
🎧 Was It Worth It? (10 Years of Leaving Wall Street) by
Don't underestimate building a personal brand. For 10 years, Khe Hy has provided value through podcasts, social media, and newsletters by being honest, a good storyteller, funny, and kind. Cultivate relationships by replying to DMs, comments, and tweets. Ensure your digital presence reflects your real-life persona, focusing on being helpful and human. Doing this consistently creates a powerful safety net.
Transcript: Khe Hy So we talked about the financial safety nets, not burning any bridges. I think that I didn't realize this at the time, but building, I hate the phrase, but effectively a personal brand acted as a really powerful safety net. You know, for the past 10 years between the podcast, social media, and the newsletter, you know, I've been in the ears, inboxes, feeds of people, hopefully adding, you know, micro moments Of value, which is what I always strive to do, being honest, being a good storyteller, being funny when I can be, meeting people where they are, being kind. And that's valuable. I mean, if I think about all the ways that I've made money, we just closed, we're about to close this AI accelerator for financial professionals this week, or, you know, we'll close tomorrow, Actually. That's just all from cultivating relationships. I talk to people who DM me, I reply back, I try to respond to every comment that's respectful. I try to respond to every tweet. You do that for 10 years, people start to know you, people see you a certain way. I really do think that my digital presence is an extension of who I am in real life. I think that they are very consistent. If anything, the digital version of me is way more comfortable being vulnerable than the in-person version of me. And so I think that that's probably not the question that was asked, but I do think that that safety net was building that personal brand slash audience. But really what I would say is showing up, being kind, being human, being helpful often for a decade. And that's going to make a significant difference.
Khe realized that while at BlackRock, he was running several side projects like writing an anonymous blog, tweeting anonymously, hosting events, and trying to start a headhunting business. None became legit businesses, but proved he could think creatively and had the hustle to will things into action. This gave him the confidence to leave without a plan.
Transcript: Khe Hy For someone listening who's 80% ready and 100% scared, what's the single experiment they should run this month? Ooh. I've always said, are you running away from something? Are you running to something? And I knew that when I was working on Wall Street, you know, 70, 80 hours a week, probably closer to 70 towards the end, I had a million little side projects. I was writing an anonymous blog. I was tweeting anonymously. I was hosting events in the city. I was trying to start a headhunting business. I had all these projects that I was doing. None of them were going to be legit businesses. I have come to realize none of them became legit businesses, but they were all things that proved to me that you can think creatively. You have the hustle and determination to will things into action. I think for those of you who have followed my story for a while, whether it's the life coaching business, whether it's the notion productivity, SY, supercharger productivity cohort, Whether it's the AI work now, like I have willed many, you know, micro businesses into existence off of sheer passion and work ethic. And I was practicing that while I was at BlackRock on the weekends, in the mornings. And that's why I had the confidence to leave without a plan. It's like, I didn't have a plan, but I had a lot of, um, irons in the fire. And that was really, really powerful. And it gave me confidence.
Don't just think about what could go wrong when making big decisions. People often overemphasize the potential downsides. Remember to also consider the potential upsides and what could go right.
Transcript: Khe Hy When people are in this position, they are always thinking about the downside. What can go wrong? What will happen? Will I be broke? Will I run out of money? Will my spouse get angry at me? And will I fuck up my kids' lives? What can go wrong? Downside planning is really important. But remember, human beings are wired to think, to over-index on the downside, and they forget one really, really important question. And so if you are in that situation, doing the planning, doing the financial modeling, thinking about what you're going to do next. I know that you're asking yourself the question of what can go wrong, but don't forget that there's another question. What can go right?
May 15
- Pathless Podcast by Most non-fiction writers don't make books their primary business. For many, books support other ventures like speaking, coaching, conferences, or courses. Some authors like James Clear or Mark Manson do make books their business, but this's rarer.
Transcript: Nat Eliason For most nonfiction writers, the business is not the books. Paul Millerd Yeah. Nat Eliason Occasionally, you'll have somebody like a James Clear or a Mark Manson or a Ryan Holiday where the books do become the business, but you have a lot more, significantly more cases where The book is like supplementing some other business. It's speaking, it's coaching, it's conferences, it's courses, it's, you know, or it's just like a thing they do on the side while they while they do other work
You've gotta find your 'Asimov limit' which refers to Isaac Asimov, who wrote or edited over 400 books. But even with Asimov, most people only know a couple of his books.
Transcript: Nat Eliason You've got to find your asimov limit limit i know i know right although but even with asimov you know it's like like okay yes he wrote and edited 400 books but most people can only name like Two
Pathless Path surprised his existing audience. Though he only had around 3,000 newsletter and 4,000 Twitter subscribers
Transcript: Paul Millerd It's very narrative driven it's narrative driven around my my life and yeah I hadn't written much of that style of writing I sort of pushed beyond my capacity and writing the book and So what happened was the people that had followed me i had like 3 000 newsletter subscribers i had like 4 000 twitter subscribers um and everyone was like shocked at like how different The book was and like i think it was above stuff i had written before so there was the shock of like, then this word of mouth started spreading.
Don't focus on big names or top-down influencer marketing. Instead, reach out to super fans who are already promoting the book and keep providing them with copies to give away.
Transcript: Paul Millerd I don't really focus on like big names and the sort of like top-down reach of other influencers. I just reach out to these like super fans who are already spreading the book and just keep sending them books to give out.
If you're an author, consider writing a novella to help readers decide if they like your writing style. A shorter story (120 pages) in the same universe can be read in an evening or two, acting as a gateway to your series. This lowers the barrier to entry compared to asking readers to commit to a longer book. Offer a novella as a freebie for joining an email list.
Transcript: Nat Eliason There's always that question of like, do I want to pick up a new series? Right? Or do I want to spend six, eight hours potentially with an author who I don't know if I actually like their writing style yet and so part of what I've been working on the last couple months Is a novella so a much shorter story 120 pages in the same universe but in a different period of time that could be read at any point in the series. So you could read the novella first, or you could read Husk One first. And so now I have a much smaller ask, like, hey, 120 pages, you could probably read it in an evening, maybe two evenings. And then you'll really quickly get a sense of do I want to read more of Nat's books or not or am I interested in this universe or not and that becomes like a really cool way to get people into Your world as well and what a lot of fiction authors will do is they'll just like give a novella away for free if you join their email list
Nat Eliason received a $275,000 advance for Crypto Confidential. The book didn't earn beyond that amount, so the advance served as a guaranteed minimum income.
Transcript: Nat Eliason My advance of crypto confidential was 275k and the book hasn't done well enough where i'll probably ever like see more money than that and so it was nice to have that as like the floor
Nat Eliason acknowledges that writing about diverse characters (beyond just white, male, and heteronormative ones) is encouraged, but recognizes that by writing in the latter category, he's choosing a more difficult path, though it will give him more control.
Transcript: Nat Eliason Just to put it bluntly like if you're a white guy who is writing like mostly male heteronormative characters you're basically like increasing the difficulty by 345x because there Is still a little bit of the like uh you know we want to you know promote other voices or like you know diversity of characters and all these things and like you know, there's definitely Arguments to be made for that. But, you know, if I'm going to be playing on hard mode, like I may as well play on hard mode where I have like more control over everything.
Nat Eliason started writing the first version of Husk in November '23 and had a second draft by July '24. After receiving feedback that it wasn't good, he trashed the 120,000-word novel and started over in August '24, finishing it by February '25 for a May release. He basically wrote two novels in under two years.
Transcript: Nat Eliason Getting the reps in is so I started the first version of Husk in November of 23. And I got it to a good, or I got it to what I thought was a good second draft by like July of 24. And then I got feedback on that and, you know, basically just wasn't very good. Right. But I had written a whole 120,000 word novel at that point. And so I threw that novel in the trash and started over in August of 24 and then basically finished it February of 25. And now it's coming out in May, so next month. And so I wrote two novels in a little under two years.
Fiction presents a unique challenge for beta reading. Unlike non-fiction, where the content is known, fiction relies on surprises and plot twists. Giving a draft to a beta reader means you can't get their unspoiled first impression on later drafts.
Transcript: Nat Eliason That's a whole funny thing in fiction where like with non-fiction everybody knows what the book is about and like what's going to happen in the book. And so you're not like spoiling anything or like wasting a beta reader by giving it to them early. But like fiction has surprises in it and twists and like plot arcs that really only hit the first time you read it. Because the second and third and fourth are always going to be colored by roughly knowing what's happening and that's actually been kind of a challenge for me where it's like okay do I give this draft to someone knowing that I will not be able to give them a later draft and get their like accurate first reader impression on it anymore um that's kind of like a whole challenge With with doing this kind of editing and feedback that i didn't have doing the non-fiction work
Do direct sales to connect with readers. Offer bundles (hardcover, audiobook, ebook, signed copy) to incentivize purchases via your site. Selling directly removes Amazon's cut and provides email and mailing addresses, enabling a direct relationship with readers for future book launches, discounts, and updates. Set a baseline now and improve with each book.
Transcript: Paul Millerd So um with this book husk uh you are uh going direct which means you're printing them yourself and selling directly you can you can also buy it on Amazon and Ingram and all the other places But you're really pushing these direct sales once you can send out signed copies but two I assume you can start to develop this connection with the readers and yeah take some a lot of what You've learned from nonfiction writing to this world. Nat Eliason Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so for the pre-orders for Husk, I did this like bundle deal on my site where for the price of the hardcover, you get the hardcover, the audio book, and the ebook, and you get like A signed hardcover, and I'm going to send them out probably a week before the book publishes for everybody else. So it's kind of this like fun bundle deal that adds a little extra incentive. And then I put it on my own store on Shopify because one, I remove Amazon's cut from the equation. So I'm making more per book, but also I'm getting email addresses and mailing addresses and just building that more direct relationship with the people who are like most interested In the book, right? It's like you sell a book on Amazon. There's no way to follow up with anybody who bought it. You don't even know who bought it. You had no information. And you know, when it's your like most enthusiastic readers, you kind of do want to have a bit of a relationship with them because I can like give them a discount on the next book when it Launches or even just like let them know that it's launching, which you can't do on Amazon. It's one of these things where I didn't have any expectations for it for this one. Because again, no one's read any fiction from me. I don't expect them to completely trust that I've figured it out. I feel very confident in it, but it's kind of a big ask. And I just wanted to set a baseline for this book so that when I do the next book, I'm trying to move that up and try to do bigger and bigger pre-order campaigns as subsequent books in the Series and whatnot come out. And so I put it up on my site about a month ago and I've done like 220 copies directly through my site, which is really cool. You know, that's awesome. Seven or eight grand in revenue.
Not many people are self-publishing on a large scale through Shopify; most are using Amazon. Therefore, publishing via Shopify is an emerging approach.
Transcript: Nat Eliason They're like aren't a ton of people i've found who are doing it at a really big scale, which is exciting. There's a lot of people self-publishing really successfully on Amazon. But doing it through Shopify is a very new thing.
To get a better launch, give early access to a core group. Even if pre-launch sales don't count toward the launch week pop on Amazon, the buzz generated by early readers posting about the book amplifies the launch's echo chamber effect and increases visibility.
Transcript: Nat Eliason There's an argument against it because anybody who's buying from me beforehand is not buying on amazon during launch week so i might not get the same launch week pop, but I think that's Worth it to build that closer relationship. Plus if 50 of these people who are getting pre-orders read it in the week before launch and then post about it during launch week, that's 50 more people talking about the book than I would Have had otherwise. And so that really helps get the like echo chamber effect going during that launch period, which is, again, just pretty important for getting the initial pop.
Consider releasing content frequently for your audience. Think about how musicians, like Drake, constantly release singles to keep their fans engaged. Explore how this model could apply to your own content creation strategy.
Transcript: Paul Millerd People that are following you want to like keep collecting stuff from you right like the the super fans of a musician, and I think music has done this really well. Somebody like Drake is releasing songs literally all the time. Yeah. And just single, single mashup, single, single. And it's nonstop. So it's something I've been thinking about a lot.
Don't assume fewer people read books. The opposite's true! Book sales are at an all-time high. People even buy audiobooks first, then purchase physical copies as 'trophies' if they enjoy them.
Transcript: Nat Eliason That stat that more vinyl records are sold today wow than were sold when vinyl was like at its when vinyl was like the way you bought music they actually sell more of them now than they did Paul Millerd Back then because i think of the same thing people are excited about collecting it yeah and i think there's something there around books I think this is the thing everyone misses oh less Nat Eliason People are reading books but the people that are reading books are reading more books yeah I mean book sales are an all-time high for like all of history right now people are buying and I've heard this a lot too that people will buy the audiobook for a book and then if they like it they'll buy the paperback or the hardcover and that's basically their trophy for listening To the audiobook
📰 We Launched Our First Shopify Theme by Nic Chan
There aren’t many all-women teams in the Shopify theme space, and we felt that we could bring not only our professional experience, but our personal experience as the target audience for the kinds of brands we’d be hoping to reach.
May 14
📰 For Anyone Worried About Being Replaced by AI by
Tim Brown of the design firm IDEO popularized the concept of “The T-Shaped Professional” (TSP). The T-shape refers to the depth and range of expertise. The TSP is someone who can combine deep expertise in one area (the vertical stem of the “T”) and broad, functional knowledge across multiple disciplines (the horizontal bar of the “T”). Brown contrasted TSPs with “I-shaped” specialists (deep but narrow) and “generalists” (broad but shallow).
The TSP is a specialist with a generalist mindset. And I think this is precisely the sort of thing we need to be adaptable in the age of AI. You need deep expertise (the vertical) because…
Depth is needed for AI oversight - only with deep expertise can you accurately assess AI outputs, identify errors, know when to override algorithmic suggestions.
Above-average expertise creates value AI can’t match (yet): I think AI’s really good at producing work at the level of an average professional, but it struggles with mastery. It doesn't have the nuanced understanding that comes from years of being immersed in a topic. Depth gives you pattern recognition that AI lacks. And you need breath (the horizontal) because…
AI excels at specialized, repetitive work within narrow domains. Being confined to one skill set makes you vulnerable when that specific task gets automated.
The ability to pivot is a hedge. As AI reshapes industries, if you have knowledge across domains, you can more easily shift to adjacent areas where your skills are still relevant.
May 13
🎧 Scott on Hotel Brands, Netflix’s Adolescence, and Theranos Takeaways - Prof G Pod
Scott Galloway jokes he doesn't know who is raising his 14-year-old son because he spends so much time on the internet.
Transcript: Scott Galloway I don't know who's raising my 14-year because he spends a lot of time on the internet.
Who is raising our sons? Are we? Schools? Algorithms that don't have their best interests at heart?
Transcript: Scott Galloway Who is raising our sons? Do we really know who is raising our sons? Are we raising our sons or schools raising our sons or algorithms that don't have our best interests at art raising our sons?
🎧 The Worst Karen - Beautiful/Anonymous
Andrea answered the phone by saying, what is on your mind today?
May 12
📰 Don’t quote. Make it yours and say it yourself. by Derek Sivers
If I hear an idea, have considered it, and integrated it into my beliefs, it’s mine. I’ll say it succinctly in my own words, and stand behind it. Like adopting a child, I will take care of this idea and raise it as my own. If anyone wants to know the source, I’ll be happy to tell them. I highly recommend this. Stop referencing. Stop quoting. Paraphrase. Internalize it. Make it yours. Tell me what *you* think, not what someone else thinks.
🎧 OpenAI Abandons for-Profit Plans, Disney and Uber Earnings, and Meta’s “Creepy” AI - Pivot Pod
Economists under 50 don't think stagflation can occur, but it happened in the 70s.
Transcript: Scott Galloway What's so interesting is any economist under the age of 50 doesn't even know the word stagflation. They don't even think it can happen. It can happen. It happened in the 70s.
The biggest threat of AI is that it's going to speedball loneliness. And that is, I'm frustrated. I don't have friends. I can't figure out the social pecking order. I am really upset. I don't have a girlfriend. So I have this incredible AI girlfriend that's a mix of porn. And maybe I even have an AI robot slash sex doll. And I never develop the skills or take the risk to establish a romantic relationship. And this is the fear. This is what young men have fighting against them, is they have the deepest pocketed, most talented people in the world trying to convince them they can have a reasonable facsimile Of life with no human contact. You need the community. Kara Swisher So you're not concerned with loading yourself, which is my question. Scott Galloway Well, okay, it's too late for me. And not only that, quite frankly, I have economic security and people who love me unconditionally. So I'm there. I'm at the promised land. What I'm worried about is young men who are struggling to find a connection to school, to work, or to other people and get a reasonable facsimile of that DOPA hit that you get from a relationship, From Reddit, Discord, porn, Robin Hood. Oh, I'm not gambling, I'm investing. And they spent all of their time in their basement, never going through the hardship of trying to make relationships work. Kara Swisher Let me say, we have to move on, but Scott will be everybody's friend, next friend. Just so you know, Scott is everybody's friend. I'm very unfriendly, but Scott will be everybody's friend.
May 11
📰 The Day My Mother Stopped Cooking by
As a statement, it was up there with, “Will you marry me,” “It’s a boy,” “You’re hired,” and “We’re selling the house.”
They were words that signaled the changing of lives, a past era concluding, and a new one beginning.
📰 You Want What You Actually Do by
I see people complaining about how much they use social media. Stop! You want this. Just figure out *why* you want it.
Have you tried just admitting you want something badly, too? More simply, there are no problems to be fixed. You want everything you are doing!
It’s a weird thing to want in today’s world, especially when I could make more money by denying this want. But the good thing is that I can just love the hell out of this desire, a desire to try to make it work on an unconventional path, to see it as a cool part of myself, and move on with the experimentation of trying to continue to make it work.
May 10
📰
’s father’s poemIn 1870, post Civil War, Julia Howe appealed to mothers
To protest all violence and future wars, so brothers wouldn’t kill brothers.
The day was observed for many years with prayers and tears amply shed,
Primarily where the war had left the most men wounded or dead.
President Wilson, in 1914, declared observance of a day
To be known as Mother’s Day each year on the second Sunday in May.
Though its founders and supporters resisted commercialization,
In the 1930s Mother’s Day underwent a transformation.
A magazine for florists noted profit if the holiday were tied
To honoring mothers with flowers. It was a ploy worth being tried.
🎧 Trump's Meme Coin Scheme, Alphabet's Earnings, and Cybertruck's Competition - Pivot Pod
Kara posits AI's male dominance and lack of safety stem from some men's inability to have children, framing AI creation as a form of 'giving birth' or 'growing beings' for them, especially since women physically grow children. It's a way for them to create.
Transcript:
Kara Swisher Think sometimes I think AI. I told you this theory. I think AI is the way it gets so dominated by men and there's so lack of safety and everything else. I think men can't have children. Certain men, not all of them think this way, but can't have children. This is their way of giving birth or something or creating.
Scott Galloway I never thought about that. Think about it. Fuck you up. But are you saying incel culture or the people who run AI companies?
Kara Swisher No, I think the people who run some of these companies, they can't make beings. It's a very beautiful thing to make a child. Men and women make them together, obviously, but really women grow children, right? And this is men's way of growing things, growing beings. I don't know. Anyway, go ahead. It's such a dystopian, weird
Hospitals reveal our true selves by touching our wounds and showing people from different worlds intersecting. In the face of pain and irreversible loss, we realize our shared humanity and the importance of respect, forgiveness, love, and living intensely, freeing ourselves from judgment and interference. Life's too short to waste fighting, obsessing over appearance, or accumulating wealth. Embrace the present, cherish loved ones, and respect yourself and others.
Transcript: Scott Galloway My win is a little bit longer and I know you're probably interviewing the ghost of Boutros, Boutros Ghali, but you're going to have to put up with me. So, um, he's very handsome, but go ahead. So after the Pope passed, there was something that was attributed to him. I don't know if he said it, a privileged doctor saving the life of a beggar. In intensive care, you see a Jew taking care of a racist, a police officer, and a prisoner in the same room receiving the same care. A wealthy patient waiting for a liver transplant, ready to receive the organ from a poor donor. It's in these moments when the hospital touches the wounds of people that different worlds intersect according to divine design. And in this communion of destinies, we realize that alone we are nothing. The absolute truth of people, most of the time, only reveals itself in moments of pain or in the real threat of an irreversible loss. A hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are, in their purest essence. This life will pass quickly, so do not waste it fighting with people. Do not criticize your body too much. Do not complain excessively. Do not lose sleep over bills. Make sure you hug your loved ones. Do not worry too much about keeping the house spotless. Material goods must be earned by each person. Do not dedicate yourself to accumulating an inheritance. You are waiting far too much. Christmas Friday next year, when you have money, when love arrives, when everything is perfect. Listen, perfection does not exist. A human being cannot attain it because we are simply not made to be fulfilled here. Here, we are given an opportunity to learn. So make the most of this trial of life and do it now. Respect yourself. Respect others. Walk your own path and let go of the path others have chosen for you. Respect. Do not comment. Do not judge. Do not interfere. Love more. Forgive more. Embrace more. Live more intensely. And leave the rest in the hands of the Creator. Anyways, Pope Francis, rest in peace.
May 9
📰 Vibe Check: Gemini 2.5 Pro and Gemini 2.5 Flash by
A thinking model, also known as a reasoning model, is an LLM that pauses to plan a step-by-step solution before answering.
📰 A Few Questions by Morgan Housel
Which of my strongest beliefs were formed on second-hand information vs. first-hand experience?
Is my desire for more money based on the false belief that it will solve personal problems that have nothing to do with money?
Which future memory am I creating right now, and will I be proud to own it?
Dan Shipper enjoyed Nadia Asparouhova's deep dive into her Jhana meditation retreat experience.
Transcript: Dan Shipper And I love reading your stuff in particular. I think a good place to start is you wrote a really deep dive of your experience going on a journey Jhana meditation retreat, which I read and really loved.
Julian Jaynes theorizes that self-talk and self-narrative, which we consider fundamental to the human experience, only began a few thousand years ago. Before that, people attributed thoughts to external sources like gods. Milestones in history, like the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, correlate with increased introspection and exploration of the conscious mind, such as Shakespeare's monologues and the rise of psychoanalysis. The digital revolution, intertwined with the history of psychedelics, marks another inflection point in our curiosity about the conscious mind.
Transcript: Nadia Asparouhova There's sort of like Julian Jaynes and his theory of bicameral mind where he believes that, and he uses the term conscious, and I don't really want to use the term conscious because I Think it's very fraught. But let's say, let's substitute that by saying, you know, he believes some version of people only began to have this kind of self-talk and self-narrative that we think of as being fundamental To the human experience. He thinks that only started a few thousand years ago. And he goes through all these historical texts to sort of demonstrate how it doesn't really show up in at least like people's writing and the artifacts that they're producing until A certain point in time. And before then people attribute it to like voices from the gods or things like that. And you can see these different sort of milestones or inflection points over human history, you know, coinciding often with like explosions in the creation of art. So the Renaissance, people, you know, often say that, you know, Shakespeare was one of the first people to pioneer this idea of monologues and soliloquies in his writing, this idea Of a character would just stand there and talk about like what is going on inside their mind. Like that was a fairly new thing. Industrial revolution, you see the introduction of or interest in psychoanalysis, William James writing about consciousness, this sort of recognition that, oh, there's something Going on in the mind is, again, a fairly new development. I think we had another inflection point more recently with that, with the digital revolution. And so, you know, this famous intertwining of the history of psychedelics, curiosity about the conscious mind happened at the same time as the development of the computer. And these two, these two stories are intertwined somehow. And so there's, I think there's a reason for that
Use Chat GPT as a thought partner. Use it in the early stages for idea formation when you're just throwing stuff at the wall to see if it makes sense. Use it again at the end when you need just the right word to say something. Handle the in-between yourself, turning messy ideas into prose.
Transcript: Nadia Asparouhova As a writer in particular, I mostly work with chat GPT and I just see it as a thought partner that I use every single day, all the time in my writing. I mostly use it in that kind of like early messy idea formation stage where I'm kind of just like throwing stuff at the wall and being like, does this make sense? I'm trying to connect these two ideas together. Does that make sense? You know, that's sort of very high, high level unstructured thinking. And then I'll use it towards the end where it's the very, very fine, like, I need just the right word to say this thing. And I can't figure out what it is. Can you help me figure out what that word is, you know, that kind of stuff. And then all the stuff in between, I think is, is more, I'm on my own, trying to figure out how to take the messy ideas that I now have some shape around and then translate them into prose.
Nadia's new book, Antimimetics, is about ideas that resist spreading or being remembered. These ideas can include taboos or cognitive biases.
Transcript: Dan Shipper You have a new book coming out. What is it? Nadia Asparouhova It's called Antimimetics. And it is about why some ideas resist spreading or being remembered. So you think about like taboos or cognitive biases or yeah, just any of these sorts of ideas where they're kind of slippery and hard to hold on to.
🎧 Lifestyle Arbitrage, Balancing Ambition and Relationships, and What Gives Scott Hope - Prof G Pod
Scott says that a tax swing paid for his cars, housing, and kids' school because he makes good money, but a lot of it was current income. If you make $300,000, saving 13% can become significant capital that grows over time.
Transcript:
Scott Galloway
But basically, my cars, my housing, my kids' school were paid for in that tax swing, because I make really good money, but a lot of it was current income. So 13% of that, then you invest it. If you make $300,000, you're not saving $39,000. You're saving, you have $39,000 in capital that should grow to 78 or 100, 150, 10 years on.
May 7
🎧 An Inside Look at Building an Email Client in 3 Months - Ep. 44 With Kieran Klaassen, Brandon Gell - AI and I
It's getting much cheaper to build software. Now, the question of what to build has become more important, since a rough version of almost anything can be built in just a few days.
Transcript: Dan Shipper For anyone who's thinking about building in AI right now, which is for a long time, we've always talked about solving problems in software, right? But for a long time, the most expensive thing was actually like building the software. And that's changing dramatically. It's much, much cheaper now. And what that does is it makes the question of what you're building way more important. Because like you can build anything in a couple of days if you want, at least like a really rough version.
Kieran builds prompts for new models by envisioning an app while walking. He starts with a base idea, then uses walking to enter a flow state, verbally describing the app's interface and functionality in detail, including visual elements like colors, textures, and layouts. He iteratively adds details until his mind is empty, using terms to influence the model (e.g., 'Apple design').
Transcript: Kieran Klaassen This is an example of something I was thinking of at some point walking somewhere. Normally what I do is when there's a new model coming out, like I think this was 01 coming out, I want to make an app. I want to build an app and I'll see how far I can push it, how far it will go and where it breaks. It's just a good way to test it out. So I was a composer and I wanted to make a music app had a specific thing where you where you click somewhere and there's a synthesizer and a sound generator and like a mirror note like a Whole complex compositional system but really what I do in a moment like this is I just go walk and walking enables me to just like keep going like not thinking too much about it like getting More into a flow state and just start building a prompt in my head. It's kind of weird. Like you're basically talking like it will become a prompt. And this is something I actually learned from you then in the earlier episodes where you said you need to ground it and like how to like push the model into a certain direction so i should Start dropping like oh yeah you are a very good ios engineer and you do like swift swift 18 you're amazing or like just start with something like that and it's a start and you like start Grounding it um here it's like I'm going to describe an app and its elements. This app is called These. If you open it, there's only one screen. Well, I just visualize the app here in my head and just do like I'm opening my phone and just imagine it and just talk through what happens. So maybe every corner has a different color, four-way gradients, tones of green and blue, a little bit of texture on it, like a grainy noisy texture so it looks a little bit fancy. Like using words like fancy and maybe Apple design, like just describing the feel, that's the background. Then in the middle there's a separation there's a line in the middle somewhere in the middle and the line is actually it's not a line but it's like two parts of gradients so you see i i was Thinking about something i was like oh no no no scrap that let's go so i just jam like that uh here you can see everything and until i don't know and and i try to just add details everywhere I can until my brain is empty and then i stop the recording and and i i don't take it anywhere directly from that that's just step one
Prompt engineering is gonna stick around. Being able to describe exactly what you want an app to do, including specific details about the UI, will be very important.
Transcript: Dan Shipper Being able to say like, hey, I want an app that does this and I want the background to look like this and I want the style of the button on the left-hand side to look like this is actually, That's not going away. And that is prompt engineering and that is really, really important being able to know that.
Use voice memos to capture ideas, then convert them to PRDs. Mac Whisper is an option for transcription, or use the new iOS 18's built-in transcription. Once transcribed, use an LLM to refine the idea and develop it into a PRD. Cursor's notebooks or tools like Cloth can help with outlining files or creating artifacts. Don't worry too much about where that initial inspiration goes; just capture it.
Transcript: Kieran Klaassen What i do is i use the voice memos and then i put it into mac whisper which is a free free just whisper converter but actually now voice memos does transcription as well with the new iOS 18. So I use that once in a while as well. Yeah. So yeah, I'll just use that. And then from there, I go into my choice of LLM for the, for the moment and start working on it more and converting this to like into a prd most most of the time i say hey okay i have this idea Um in cursor sometimes i add a like a notebook um and i create like an outline of files or like depending on what it is like if it's simple uh in cloth is great for artifacts but whatever i Want to do after that i take it from there but it's a separate thing. Like that initial burst of inspiration does not matter where it goes.
Replete's agent will be important because it'll host and push your stuff to a website. This makes it accessible regularly so you can do what you want without needing to run in the terminal. This makes luxury and one-time software possible because hosting, not coding, is now the hard part.
Transcript: Brandon Gell That's why like replet replets agent is going to be so important because getting stuff actually like hosted and pushed to a website that you can access it regularly so i can do whatever I want versus like going to need to run nPM run dev in the terminal, which most people don't know what that is. Like that's really where luxury software and one-time software becomes possible. Because like maybe 01 Pro, 01 is the best at writing code, but that's not what's hard anymore. It's what's hard is actually hosting it. Dan Shipper All the environment stuff.
Create a file in your project to correct mistakes and guide the AI. When you see the AI doing something wrong, add an instruction to the file so you don't have to repeat the correction.
Transcript: Kieran Klaassen There's this file that you can create in your project called.cursor rules. And you can write stuff. This is linked to the current project. So normally what I do is when I see things go wrong, like what you said, where I do something wrong, I just go in here and add it. And it's very simple. So for example, for controllers, I like to say, hey, actually there are two helpers always present that you can use. Dan Shipper So basically you're putting like in-cursor rules at the top, you have like a heading that says controllers. And then underneath that you have like some information about controllers in your code that you want it to follow. Is that that's basically how it's structured? Yeah. Kieran Klaassen Go wrong or like things that are like, oh, like it did something. And then I say, oh, but can you actually do it like this? And I'm like, okay, let me add that instruction already in the cursor rules. So I don't have to say that every time.
It's tough to avoid being biased toward your own products. You're likely to use them, potentially overlooking real issues because you want them to work. It's hard to tell if you're downplaying problems.
Transcript: Brandon Gell What the hardest part about this is, which is that we just have a bias to use the products that we make. And sometimes I feel like that can make us feel like the products are working because we use them, even though we may be convincing ourselves that some of the problems that we're encountering Aren't real problems because we want to be using the product. And that is, it's like an impossible question to answer if we're doing it or not, because it's hard to recognize that for some types of problems.
May 5
🎥 How to Make High Quality Videos in 54 Min, 19 Sec, 20 Milliseconds from The Studio
how can I make a better script or how can I write a better story and really no matter the kind of video you're trying to make whether it's I don't know a review maybe a retrospective video essay or like a long form video there are two or three things that you want to keep in mind number one have a thesis number two learn the context and number three unearth all the details
the point of a review is to focus on does this deliver on what it says it is and is it worth your money
for example the video essay a very popular Style video on YouTube right now there's a lot of different really creative ways to do a video essay but something that I personally like to do is to give the audience a ton of context for everything that's leading up to this point that I'm trying to make so that maybe you can care about this as much as I do
understanding the entire story by consuming as much information about a subject as you can do you really start to see The Wider story that might not be as obvious
I do generally consider the video essay kind of the hardest style of video to make because you have to come up with really unique ideas and having a unique idea is probably the hardest thing you can possibly do but the best way to train yourself to come up with these UniQue Ideas is just to immerse yourself in that kind of content look for different stories talk to your friends about this kind of stuff talk to your parents just rant as much as you can and consume as much as you can about a specific subject and get to know it inside and out and that's when some of those bigger stories will kind of like light up in your brain
a lot of that story is actually going to come out in the research process for this project we already know where we ended up right boosted boards went out of business and what we're trying to figure out is why now you could just Google these questions and kind of get broad Strokes answers but the storytelling the thing that really keeps you engrossed in the story is in the details and in order to get those details you want to talk to as many primary sources as he can
80% of these scripts is honestly just Gathering the information and talking to people and it's only that point that you can actually take all that information that you learned and start putting together the story
those first round of interviews are kind of just about like educating myself about the story of what happened what's going on just learning more about the space then I try to put the video together and I realize that I I know a lot more now and I need to really dig into those details so that's when I call those people back and really start putting the meat on those stories
to tell those like long form docummentary style stories you've already kind of got your box of where the story starts and where the story ends you really just have to fill it with detail to tell an engaging narrative
okay so three things one have a point know what you want to talk about revolve all of the content around that point because that video needs to be going somewhere two understand the context immerse yourself in as much detail as physically possible about what you're trying to talk about do research search talk to friends explain it to family understand the context in the detail and three have a passion that you want to chase if you're excited about that dive deeper and deeper into that passion about that project and eventually you'll end up with something
here's really three things that I think of when I think of a Marquez video and it's that it's very distraction free it's very light on the music not a lot of like retention editing he has really crisp and clean b-roll and also just a really simple but effective talking head video
if you're just recording dialogue you're doing it in mono lots of things sound great in Stereo dialogue is not one of them. iPhone mics default to stereo but you can switch it to mono in edit
the boooks thumbnail so you'll see the final and initial image aren't terribly different really the only difference between these two things these two frames is the screen but there's other things in here so from this to this what happens is that his hand is cut out twisted and then punched up so we make the phone about 10 to 15% bigger which helps with legibility it's small scales that's the first thing second thing was changing the screen to be a little bit better at smaller scales so we did things like changed the um artwork for the music we blew up the apps we got rid of the like the labels underneath just things that gave the eye a little bit more breathing space and negative space so you could kind of move around and then we made all the lines thicker again so that it would help just punch up and read at smaller scales
one of our most successful AB comparisons where the Delta between the winner and the loser was actually pretty significant - 44.5% vs 55.5%
the only thing that we did different to it was to try and punch up what the focal point was we want to try and get the product in the center if we can it's either in the thirds or the center Center is nice because it just makes less effort for the eye to move around the frame so we've already got in the middle how can we highlight it even more the cup is yellow what complement yellow violet or purple
price point they work really well if it's priced really low or priced really high those tend to do better in thumbnails
one more thing that we added which you know as a designer can be pretty obnoxious because it's just you know one more thing but arrows arrows work really well um you kind of can't beat them they just do they just do well
🎧 How to Predict the Future With Kevin Kelly, WIRED's Cofounder - AI and I
Balance learning about AI with studying history to get a better understanding of the future. Also, balance wrestling with AI with hands-on activities in the real world.
Transcript: Kevin Kelly All the my favorite people who were best about the future were actually great historians, too. So I would balance reading something about AI with trying to read something historical in the past. And I balance wrestling with the latest AI stuff with working in my workshop and using my hands.
KK thinks humans aren't central but an 'edge species' with unique intelligence. AI will expand the types of intelligences we know, making our current definitions seem limited. We'll look back and barely recognize some future intelligences.
Transcript: Kevin Kelly We're an edge species. We're not at the center of anything, the galaxy or the solar system or evolution. We are an edge. Our kind of intelligence will be revealed to be a very peculiar mixture that's evolved for us. And then what we're going to be doing with AIs is making hundreds of various other kinds and filling out that possibility space with many types of thinking. And so we'll look back and we won't even recognize maybe some of these other things as intelligence right now because we don't have a very good definition.
Kevin Kelly suggests giving young science fiction writers journalistic assignments. Because they are natural storytellers, they'll love being paid to learn and will produce amazing content.
Transcript: Kevin Kelly Get the young science fiction writers of today and give them journalistic assignments they love it because they're born storytellers you're paying them to go learn something they Want to learn and they'll come back with something amazing
A lot of AI-generated content now, like the 50 million images created daily, is mostly for personal enjoyment, with the creator also being the primary audience. People'll make full-length movies for themselves. The pleasure comes from co-creating and directing the movie for oneself.
Transcript: Kevin Kelly What I'm hypothesizing is that a lot of the generative stuff, the 50 million images that are generated each day with AI, 99.999% have the audience of one. They're generated for the pleasure of the co-creator. And this idea of people will be making feature length movies for themselves and the the pleasure will be in the generating of the movie the co-generating of the movie that you're directing You'll be directing the movie for yourself
🎧 Going Independent on YouTube With Becca Farsace - WVFRM Podcast
I think I want to do more Story Time videos in general because it's shocking how many stories that we have that would actually just make a fun piece to just share with people
people are are interested in people which is cool
Do you also think of thumbnails like packaging the whole video before you make the video? I’m bad. I’m really bad at thumbnails, and I try to now because I know that I need to. Um, but usually, thumbnails are like, well I’m exporting the video, I better make the thumbnail now. That’s usually what happens. That’s where we live. I mean, we try to be better at it as well. I mean, I’ve gotten less advice to Flip it on its head like we'd make the whole video, and then as it's uploading, we're like, "Yeah, we should have a title for this probably, and also a thumbnail, huh?" and then that gets made at the last second. Now we try to go through the whole writing process in a way where we can appropriately package the video in our brain first and then make the video that satisfies the packaging. Yeah, which is, I think, good advice. It's just hard to do. It's hard to do. Yeah, yeah. It is good advice considering, uh, 95% of whether or not someone's going to watch a video is the thing that they see on the homepage. 100%. It's the thing that matters the most.
I do challenge myself to make at least two or three thumbnails always. Like, I always make one and even if I love it, I, you know, hide it and make another one, and hide it, and make another one.
Something that he said that really struck me about YouTube was, people always ask about the algorithm: how does the video find the person? How does it push it to certain people? He said to think of it not as the video being pushed by the algorithm; it's that videos are being pulled by users. So when a user logs in, it's up to YouTube to find videos for that user. It knows what they like; it knows what that person's watched before and what it has interacted with, and so it's going to pull what it thinks they'll find, whether they're subscribed or not. So this is why the subscriber metric feels more and more like just a kind of vanity thing. It is because it's really about what you make when it's presented to people that theoretically should be interested
"You know, you have a show and you're a character on that show. If you're consistently that character and you consistently make someone feel a certain way, they're going to keep watching the show. And so that's how I've been thinking about it as well. But it's a similar idea of like shared interest and shared feelings.
subscribers are a metric, they're also really good for a quick sample size for trying out an idea. Yeah, so if you try something new, you just have a whole bunch of people waiting to watch whatever you put out, and that's great. And then some fraction of them will be like, "I hate this," and leave, and that’ll be very informative to the algorithm for who they should serve it to later.
you might find the thing about having a lot of subscribers is that many of them are not active recently. So there are people who might not typically watch videos for years, and then they get resurfaced in the algorithm, and they're like, "I didn’t even know I was subscribed to this channel!" That happens too.
I've seen one tech channel get to the double-digit female percent viewership, and is yours double digits?
it's like 2% female, maybe even like 1%.
the average for my channel might be 9% or so female.
📰 Make Your Story 160% Better! by
in TV drama, we see evidence that the traditional story arc isn’t necessary for success.
📰 How Do I Make Friends as an Adult? by
The formula for friendship is Time + Boredom + Self-Delusion. It usually takes 43 to 60 hours to become friends, and 80 to 100 hours to become really close. So plan lots of ‘empty’ time together (remember all those college hang-outs?). Silent time can be important - see a ballgame together, take a long hike, or just watch TV side-by-side. And simply *assume* the other person *wants* to be your friend: When we believe someone likes us (even if we’re wrong), we naturally act warmer and more open towards them— which, in turn, causes them to like us more. (View Highlight)
📰 The Reading List Email for April 2025 by Ryan Holiday
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick At our staff meetings for Daily Stoic and The Painted Porch, one thing we do is all go around and explain interesting ways we are using AI to be more productive and efficient. I do this because 1) I don’t want people doing it in secret. I want to be clear about ethical and non-ethical uses (for instance, I would *never* use it to write one of these emails) 2) I want to encourage smart and creative productivity gains 3) I like learning new strategies and ways of doing things. This book, which I heard about on Ezra Klein’s episode with the author last April, is a great primer on how and why to use AI to get better at what you do. I like his term “co-intelligence.”
Look at the story of Maya Angelou. > Angelou only realized her ambition to write in her thirties when she was working as a dancer in California. She heard that the writer John Killens was in town and she sent him samples of her work. He advised her to move to New York. There she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, a group that provided support and feedback on her writing. Some years later, her friend the novelist James Baldwin took her to dinner with Jules and Judy Feiffer. Judy Feiffer was a writer and editor. She persuaded Angelou that her incredible life story ought to be turned into a book and introduced her to an editor at Random House. It was in this way that Angelou wrote *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings*, her first book, aged forty. I love this story. By the time her opportunity came along, Angelou was *tired*. She actually didn’t want to go to the dinner party! The fact that she went, that she got *invited*, was lucky. The fact that she was *in a position to get invited* was not lucky; it was the result of years of work. > … that wasn’t random luck: she had spent years in the network, building relationships. And when she got to the dinner, she was able to dazzle with her story. Not everyone gets invitations to parties like that, but you are more likely to get them if you send your work out, take advice, join writers’ groups, and so on.
Look at the story of Maya Angelou. > Angelou only realized her ambition to write in her thirties when she was working as a dancer in California. She heard that the writer John Killens was in town and she sent him samples of her work. He advised her to move to New York. There she joined the Harlem Writers Guild, a group that provided support and feedback on her writing. Some years later, her friend the novelist James Baldwin took her to dinner with Jules and Judy Feiffer. Judy Feiffer was a writer and editor. She persuaded Angelou that her incredible life story ought to be turned into a book and introduced her to an editor at Random House. It was in this way that Angelou wrote *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings*, her first book, aged forty. I love this story. By the time her opportunity came along, Angelou was *tired*. She actually didn’t want to go to the dinner party! The fact that she went, that she got *invited*, was lucky. The fact that she was *in a position to get invited* was not lucky; it was the result of years of work. > … that wasn’t random luck: she had spent years in the network, building relationships. And when she got to the dinner, she was able to dazzle with her story. Not everyone gets invitations to parties like that, but you are more likely to get them if you send your work out
Networking and luck aren’t just about making connections: they are about being able to make *use* of connections.
📰 Jobs-to-Be-Done: A Framework for Writing Newsletters People Want to Read by
The newsletters you open week after week are the ones that help you:
• Make more money
• Save time on work
• Learn something specific
• Look smarter in meetings
• Get ahead of your competition
These are "jobs" you readers need done.
May 4
📰 More This, Less That by
**In my interview with Thomas Frank**, he said he uses Reddit to make videos to solve those problems. It’s a big reason he has 175M+ views. “If there's a problem on Reddit — that's a real person with an actual problem” Frank said.
Here's how you can do that on Reddit, too: 1. Type your niche or keyword 2. Select the most popular subreddit 3. Filter posts by *Top* 4. Read most upvoted comments/questions 5. Make content around that
May 3
🎧 The Next AI Wave Will Be Social, Not Solo | Sarah Tavel, Benchmark and Ex-Pinterest - AI and I
There's an opportunity to build a UGC site specifically for AI prompts, particularly in areas like health and quantified self. Users could follow creators of effective prompts and easily apply them to their profiles.
Transcript: Sarah Tavel If I'm going to an existing UGC site that isn't made for this use case, that feels to me like an opportunity where somebody who's going to be really freaking good, you know, of making, You know, prompts for different health things, quantified self, whatever, like I would love to follow that person and then very easily apply it to my own profile.
A film director uses ChatGPT by creating distinct personalities for different needs. She uses a holistic wellness persona for medical advice, a hype-person for constant encouragement, and a direct feedback persona for writing specific emails.
Transcript: Dan Shipper Yeah, it's interesting. I was at a dinner the other night and I was talking to a film director. Sarah Tavel Oh, cool. Dan Shipper About how she uses ChatCVT. And she has made a bunch of different personalities for it. And she uses the different personalities for different things. For example, I think one of the personalities was she's had a lot of like medical issues that doctors couldn't solve. And one of the personalities was like a sort of like holistic wellness type person that like would recommend both medication and, you know, supplements or body work or whatever. And then, and another one, like the main personality was like just someone who would like gas her up all the time and like compliment her all the time. And then, but then she had another one that was like just super direct and like just gave like really harsh feedback that she would use for writing specific kinds of emails or like that Kind of thing. And it was really interesting that she'd constructed this whole set of personalities for different things in her life to surround...
Some people are really good at creating training data. James, a person Sarah interviewed for her Substack, maintains a spreadsheet of all the movies he's watched with his own reviews. People like James, who are skilled at creating training data, can then have a more personalized and valuable experience.
Transcript: Sarah Tavel Some people that are really good at creating training data. Do you know what I mean? Like there's some people, someone was showing me, I interviewed him, James, for my sub stack. And he showed me like the spreadsheet he creates of all the movies he's ever watched and his own review of it. Right. And so I don't know about you. I've never done that, but the people who are really good at creating training data can then have a more personalized, more valuable experience with an LLM.
📰 The Most Powerful Asymmetries in Life - Sahil Bloom
Send a monthly "state of play" email to your direct manager. Keep it short: what you accomplished, what you’re focused on next, and one thing you’re learning. It builds visibility and shows initiative.
Create an "Idea Folder" where you log interesting business ideas. Whenever you have a spark, drop it in the idea folder. Flip through it for inspiration. One of these ideas might be the 100x opportunity that changes your life.
📰 How to Make a Viral Video -
here’s a step by step breakdown of what virtually every YouTuber who tries to create virality will do in some form or another:
Generate 50+ video ideas every week ("*To have a great idea, have a lot of them.”* - Thomas Edison)
Use your own channel, competitor channels, tools like 1of10 (aff link) and your own imagination to generate these ideas.
To filter for the best ideas, rate them for viral potential out of 5.
How do you predict viral potential? Research, plus experience. It's very hard to predict, but studying YouTube is the best way to get better at it.
The most important data for predicting performance (in order) is what's worked well in the past on your channel, then competitor channels, then channels in similar niches then finally all other channels.
Choose the ideas you're most confident in.
Write *at least* 10 title variations for each one. Keep them to 55 characters or less, and use viral title frameworks you've found in your research.
Generate 2-3 thumbnail concepts per video.
Get feedback from peers you trust on the title and thumbnail concepts.
Finalise the title and thumbnail.
*Then* make the video.
May 2
🎧 You’ve Never Seen Writing Visualized Like This —
- podcastI'd say I'm still stubborn in the sense that I still insist that I write every single sentence. Um, but that said, I am using AI a lot in the process, right? I'm, for example, I might have a draft that's 3,000 words. I'll say, "Hey, tell me this in 10,000 words. Tell me it in 100 words. Tell me it in one sentence." So, it's a great way to structurally compress your drafts and understand the essence of it, right? Like sometimes I'll realize, whoa, AI did this thing in 10% of the space and I get the idea like why am I rambling and then I'll just rewrite it myself with shorter context.
May 1
📰 AI Art: Promise and Peril by
I’m not convinced that Studio Ghibli is harmed by the attention or that they have been diminished in some way. If human artists — or humans using AI tools — want to invoke his style, it doesn’t really take anything away from him. In fact the opposite might be true. It’s better to be copied than forgotten. The worst fate for any artist is oblivion.
AI will alter the relationship between artists and audience. Skilled creators may or may not use these tools, but either way the audience may feel empowered by them. There will always be passive fans, but there will be a new class of artists that we might call "AI-enabled sub-creatives."
For decades there have been fanzines and cosplayers, but that dynamic of the empowered fan is about to explode.
Old-school artists shouldn’t be snobby toward their digital siblings. It’s all art if it moves us. We’re all artists. No one is guarding the gates, but it’s a lot more crowded in here.
Whichever way the work is created, a lasting creation should be more than just attention-getting or meme-worthy. It has to capture the public’s imagination, move the emotions, and reflect the *zeitgeist*.
New art forms will be created by combining AI with analog skills—old school, handmade, analog techniques. That blending of old tech and new tech is similar to what Laika did by combining stop motion with 3D printing, or what the Cuphead game designers did when they used drawn-on-paper animation to guide the look of a modern video game.
The most immediate outcome of the advent of genAI and machine learning is to put a value on live performances, acoustic music, and painting workshops. If it drives a lot of artists back to the basics of sketching and journaling, maybe that’s a good thing.
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