another krappy newsletter #2
choosing what to work on, culture wars, Teen Vogue, do all dogs have to go to heaven?
Hey all!
Over the hump of the first newsletter. Now this is just a thing I do. No pomp and/or circumstance.
Only a matter of time until I create an information product about how to write newsletters and continue the recursive loop of Internet value creation.
Here are some of the topics I found myself deep diving this week:
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CHOOSING WHAT TO WORK ON
In modern society, the most important decision we can make is what we choose to work on.
Here are a collection of three frameworks to help think through what you should work on. (I am going through this exercise myself. I will share my experience at some point.)
Regret Minimization Framework
Interesting story about Bezos that I did not hear until now:
Before he started Amazon, he was working on Wall Street in a stable career that he enjoyed. He tells his boss he is going to leave to start a book company on the Internet. The boss convinced him to think it over for 48 hours before finalizing the decision when he said “that actually sounds like a great idea…for someone who didn't already have a great job.”
Bezos used the following question to decide his fate:
Fast forward to age 80, which project would you most regret not having taken?
He decided that the regret he would feel from not taking his shot with this Internet company would haunt him for the rest of his life. So he walked in and confidently quit.
Other benefit of this technique: Gets away from the “daily confusion” of the decision. By thinking long term, Bezos didn’t think twice about walking away with only a few months remaining before receiving his year end bonus.
Interest/Importance/Contribution Framework
This one comes from Adam Grant:
How to pick a project worth pursuing:
1. Interest: do you think about it in your free time and bring it up in random conversations?
2. Importance: if we understood it, would the world be a better place?
3. Contribution: do you have something novel to add?
Values Framework
This one comes from this phenomenal article by Julian about what to work on.
Write out the values you passionately care about when pursuing a project.
Order the values from most to least important to you today.
Next, for each project you're considering, place a checkmark beside the value that each project has a high likelihood of fulfilling.
Based on how many checkmarks each project has, and how highly you rank the checkmarks, compare the potential fulfillment of each project.
Qualities of a great career framework
Finally, a simple one from James Clear
The 4 qualities of a great career:
1) I enjoy it
2) I’m good at it
3) I make good money
4) I’m around fascinating people
Answer in reverse order:
1) Where are fascinating people?
2) In what ways can I make money with them?
3) Which ones am I good at?
4) Which ones do I enjoy?
Let me know if you have found any other good mental models or frameworks for thinking through this topic!
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ELECTRIC ENGINE VS. ICE
Car engines are fascinating. An electric engine works like your phone while the internal combustion engine works off of controlling explosions. Both of them will get you from point A to point B. Physics is crazy.
Here is a diagram looking at the side by side comparison of the required subsystems for the two designs:
To take a different angle of the design on the left, the following image shows the entire power system and frame of an electric car:
This is called a “skateboard” and it is ingenious.
For internal combustion engines, you need to design the entire car around the heavy engine in the front of the car, but for electric vehicles you can build the whole thing on top of this bad boy. The center portion of it is a huge brick of batteries that provide energy storage and it provides energy to the motors in the front (and sometimes back) wheels.
For design, this is one of Teslas secrets. Same skateboard with different set of stuff on top of it that would make it into a Model S vs a Model 3. There are analogous things you can do with an internal combustion engine in say a Ford Focus vs a Ford Fiesta, but it is not nearly as elegant.
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CULTURE WAR MAP
The lay of the cultural land has changed.
Here is a fun representation to talk about all the different alliances that now exist in this world plotted over the traditional 2x2 matrix we use to talk about left vs right political leans.
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STATE OF THE INFORMATION AGE
We live in a complicated world.
One day you are asking great valuable questions:
The next you are getting outted for not seeing your own hypocrisy:
There is a lot of complexity in this world and it is difficult to stay consistent with your values even when you have the best intentions.
This is why it is a problem that information is presented to us like this:
The death of nuance and the rise of kayfabe (elaborate storylines akin to professional wrestling) on its own is troubling. But we have recently introduced a force multiplier to the equation:
Trusted authority figures aligning themselves with one side of the overly simplified debate.
Trusted authority figures like Teen Vogue:
I used to laugh at something as nonsensical as Teenage entertainment news sources positioning themselves against the police. But I have started to understand the mechanism here and why it is important.
Teen Vogue has spent nearly two decades building a relationship with consumers. People trust them. When you trust someone, you listen to their recommendations. Teen Vogue is affecting politics whether we understand it now or not.
The mechanism looks like this: company builds a following and then they direct that following towards a call to action. It used to stop at “buy these beauty products”, but now it has extended to “vote for Joe Biden.”
As technology moves forward, all of us are able to build our own following. Thus we are increasingly given a choice: build a following and give our opinions or leave it up to Teen Vogue to decide what happens.
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AWESOME COMPANY ALERT!
They develop drugs that treat the underlying causes of aging in dogs. The mission statement is to make sure dogs live forever.
There is no need for nuance here. We can all get behind this.
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Let me know what you think by replying back to this email!