I’ve occasionally written about the experience of writing within small amounts of time. In Big Ideas, Small Papers, I write: One of the most painful things about writing in small amounts of time is the lack of time for re-working. It feels like writing on a scrap of paper that’s way too small. I would […]
Platforms can amplify your voice, certainly. However, publishing directly on them as a medium also changes the way you approach writing. A platform incentivizes you to think of what your work can do for you; true creative work requires you to consider what you can do for your work—and for other people. It’s a platform’s […]
Sometimes you don’t need a good reason to do something. You need a good reason to not do it. Also, “Why not me?” Is there a good reason that you don’t deserve something good to happen to you? Is there a good reason that something positive shouldn’t happen to you? (The same question can be […]
In Truth, Hector Macdonald writes, “A schoolteacher of mine once compared history to a bowl of spaghetti. There are many strands, all mixed up together, he said. Historians have to select a strand and pull it free from the rest to paint a coherent picture of the past. I still think it’s a great metaphor. […]
The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations you’re going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results good and bad as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism. Charlie Munger, via Morgan Housel
50 Cent on his recent Final Lap Tour: I was gonna do four dates internationally, and Live Nation didn’t want to do the four days because they were like, “It’s gonna be COVID, you’re not going to get through the dates,” or whatever. I ended up financing the dates. I paid for the arenas, and […]
Economist and author Tyler Cowen recently spoke to Y Combinator founder Paul Graham. There’s a particular section of their conversation that caught my interest, which was about raising other people’s ambitions. Cowen had previously written a blog post on the topic, concluding, “This is in fact one of the most valuable things you can do […]
Coinbase recently launched a new program to work together with people with extraordinary ability to effectively develop a role within the company. It’s nice to see a formal process for it, especially as there’s evidence that this has generally happened less formally. For example, when professional esports athlete KyeongHyun ‘SeleCT’ Ryoo was looking for an […]
For the better part of a decade, I wanted to be a writer. It was what Robert Greene would have called my life’s task; any minute spent on anything else seemed to be a waste of my time. I made little bits of momentum, spurting and sputtering while exploring businesses that would help pay the […]