Hey Everyone,
I hope your 2020 is off to a productive start. Now that the holidays are behind us, it’s time to get back into the flow of everyday life. I’m sure most of you have set goals and resolutions for the New Year and it’s time to get started on them. One of mine is to cut down on reading clickbait/headline news and to spend more time reading content that will stand the test of time. I’m striving to give you the best of that content here every week, and I look forward to doing it throughout this upcoming year. With that, let’s dive into it.
Quick Bites
What Will Happen in the 2020s: I’m a daily reader of Fred Wilson’s AVC blog, and I always look forward to his New Year’s day post outlining his predictions for the upcoming year. With a new decade starting, Fred expanded his scope and gives his views on what to expect in the 2020s in this insightful post. (4 min)
Why Doing Good Makes It Easier to Be Bad: The theory of moral licensing helps to explain why when humans are good in one area, we give ourselves license to be bad in others. This fascinating article delves into the basis of the theory and provides solid examples of it in action. (4 min)
Tech Startups Face New Investor Mandate: Profits Over Discounts: 2019 was a year of reckoning for the massive experiment of using capital as a moat to propel startups into market leaders and sustainable businesses. Following underwhelming IPOs such as Uber and the fall of WeWork, startups are facing increased pressure to focus on profit over growth. This is an interesting WSJ article chronicling the shift in sentiment away from using discounts and subsidized products that’s a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the evolving consumer tech space. (7 min)
Deeper Dives
What You Can't Say: I recently came across this 2004 blog post from Paul Graham, and every word written is more timely today than ever. Paul does a fantastic job of explaining the concept of ‘things we can’t say’ and the moral fashions and taboos associated with them. This is a must-read. (24 min)
99 Good News Stories You Probably Didn't Hear About in 2019: Everywhere you look we’re constantly bombarded with negative news and problems facing our society. Unfortunately, bad news sells better than good news and it often leads to us missing the positive things that are happening across the globe. Here are 99 stories across a variety of subjects to remind you that things aren’t as bad as the media makes them out to be as we start the new decade. (19 min)
The Economist Who Would Fix the American Dream: Raj Chetty has risen to fame in economics circles in recent years with his groundbreaking work on dispelling social mobility with big data. Chetty is on a mission to ignite change in America and is doing so through his Harvard-based Institute, Opportunity Insights. This profile of him by The Atlantic is well worth a read, as Chetty will be a force in American economics for many years to come. (30 min)
Media
This interesting graphic from Our World in Data breaks down how half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture.
Tweet of the Week
Song of the Week
Apple Music Link
Books
Currently Reading
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life (William Finnegan)
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York (Robert A. Caro)
Recently Read
Super Pumped: The Battle For Uber (Mike Isaac): This is a fascinating look into the comeuppance of Uber and the fall of its Founder, Travis Kalanick. I had high expectations for this book, and it didn’t disappoint. Anyone who has followed Uber’s history will thoroughly enjoy this. (4/5)
Parting Thoughts
This Week in History
On January 1, 1985, the Internet’s domain name system was created and ‘.com’ was born. The first domain to be registered was symbolics.com, which was registered a few months later on March 15th, 1985. (Source)
"If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail." – Heraclitus
If you found something interesting, please don’t be shy in forwarding it along to a friend. Until next week.
-Cody