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Most dreams stay dreams
I recently revisited a piece I wrote at the blog in March, “To all the dreams I dreamed before.” It’s a precious piece to me, because it was one of the blocks I’d experienced early in my life; I felt unqualified, unready, and undeserving to even aspire to do the things I wanted to do,…
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The classroom parable
At Twitter, entrepreneur Kevin Lee shares an anecdote about how a family business owner, which worked in electricity, turned extra space in its warehouse into a community-based classroom for immigrant workers to learn electrical engineering. That meant every Saturday, for four hours, immigrant workers could attend this free class to learn electrical engineering skills. Hundreds…
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Reversing Medium’s brain drain problem
After 10 years of leading Medium, CEO Ev Williams is stepping down. Medium faces a lot of challenges—I am sure Williams will reflect on many—but to me the main one is basically a way worse version of the problem that Substack currently faces: brain drain, a term used to describe “the emigration of highly trained…
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Yeezy as a turnkey luxury brand
Building a luxury brand is difficult. But luxury brands are the way of the future (better margins, stronger branding, improved longevity, cultural relevance, increased desirability—I want to explain this more in another piece!); every business will need to be or own an upscale brand, the same way that Toyota has Lexus, and Honda has Acura.…
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Instrumentalizing creativity
Creativity is best played as an infinite game; winning means you get to keep playing. This stands out in contrast to the convention of playing a game as a finite game; winning means you get to declare victory over your opponents, and stop playing. For creators, here are some elements to enable you to play…
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Creativity as an infinite game
Writing a book was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The next-best decision was to write something I wanted to make. That may sound dead simple to you, but to me, it wasn’t. I experienced what my friend Hamza Khan calls “marketing brain”, which he describes as, “We think about the product, we…
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Your work and your friends
A few days ago, Paul Graham tweeted, “Ron Conway just discovered my essays and stayed up late reading them. We’ve been friends for 15 years but apparently he’d never read one. Made my month.” It reminds me of a passage I’d read or heard somewhere (and can’t find) that as a creator, you shouldn’t expect…
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I was wrong about audiobooks
In my 20s, I refused to listen to audiobooks. For starters, to me, it didn’t count as actual reading. I also loved, and still love, paper books. To experience an audiobook felt like a betrayal to this admiration. On top of all of that, I also thought it’d be incredibly slow, and I wouldn’t be…
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Quantity? Quality?
My latest at Medium. I never would’ve imagined I’d know so much about this topic. It all just kind of happened!
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My story on Pusha T in Trapital
If you read this blog regularly, you’ll know I’m a big fan of Pusha T’s work (exhibit 1, 2, 3). To me, Push is one of the few artists still focused on quality and on developing his category. Push isn’t afraid to sell fewer records; that doesn’t mean he’s making any less money, which is…