Hello! In the spirit of Halloween, I thoroughly spooked myself this week (“What is the point of writing anything here? Is it even interesting or valuable to anyone?” all the way to “Even if it’s just for myself, great.”) All that said, I think my post this week is better than last week’s, which is really what I’m going for. It’s good to be paranoid that you’re not doing anything of value, is what I tell myself.
The absolute best thing I listened to this week is the Acquired Podcast Nvidia episode series. How have I not listened to it before? They do such an excellent job sharing novel information and breaking down the markets in an insightful and non-obvious way. I’d recommend it to everyone.
Have you heard of the Isaiah Berlin “Hedgehog and the Fox” paper? “Good to Great” author James Collins says that Hedgehogs are better in business, and I remember John Lewis Gaddis claimed that great military and national leaders were foxes. All overly simplistic frameworks are stupid, but this is a particularly sticky one. What do you think?
Make yourself some classic, all American spooky rice krispies and the classic slice n’ bake Pillsbury cookies, please!!! They’re my true favorite.
Everyone’s making a mental health oriented chatbot (hello Character.ai and the 10+ clones!) Are they actually useful?
I loved this sweet Patio11 tweet because it was 1) telling the truth to a child 2) encouraging a positive reaction, even curious reaction, to telling the child that other people will disappoint them and judge them. My reaction (as a child and an adult!) to that situation would have been “fuck the system!”
I finally learned what Straussian Reading means.
I rewatched Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2 and it COMPLETELY holds up. Amazing film franchise, underrated, excellent, no notes.
Nikita is right that the rebrand (and current shenanigans) have basically killed Twitter. I didn’t notice the user engagement drop until recently — it feels really concentrated on a certain type of person.
Taylor Swift loves to work (this is for my pal S, who, despite being a grown man, loves Taylor.)