The Chomp #022

Hey Everyone,

Welcome back to The Chomp—your weekly dose of the best content from the internet and beyond, designed to expand your mind and get you thinking. Let’s dive into it.

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Quick Bites

• It’s Time to Build: “Building isn’t easy, or we’d already be doing all this. We need to demand more of our political leaders, of our CEOs, our entrepreneurs, our investors. We need to demand more of our culture, of our society. And we need to demand more from one another. We’re all necessary, and we can all contribute, to building.” Marc Andreesen doesn’t write to often, so when he puts out a piece, it immediately garners attention. In this motivating call to action, Andreesen addresses our nation’s current shortcomings and demands bi-partisan support to get America building again. (8 min)

• Here Are the Innovations We Need to Reopen the Economy (Bill Gates): “World War II was the defining moment of my parents’ generation. Similarly, the coronavirus pandemic — the first in a century — will define this era. But there is one big difference between a world war and a pandemic: All of humanity can work together to learn about the disease and develop the capacity to fight it.” Bill Gates continues to be my favorite source on anything COVID related. In this recent essay penned for The Washington Post, he outlines the steps needed to reopen our economy—safely. (5 min)

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Deeper Dives

• How Tech Can Build: “I do believe that It’s Time to Build stands alone: the point is not the details or the author, but the sentiment. The changes that are necessary for America must go beyond one venture capitalist, or even the entire tech industry. The idea that too much regulation has made tech the only place where innovation is possible is one that must be grappled with, and fixed.” This insightful post from Ben Thompson at Stratechery is a great analysis of Marc Andreeson’s essay shared above. Give this a look after reading Andreeson’s essay, and you’ll have a much better feel for what he was truly trying to convey. (12 min)

• We Need a New Science of Progress: “The success of Progress Studies will come from its ability to identify effective progress-increasing interventions and the extent to which they are adopted by universities, funding agencies, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and other institutions.” Continuing with the above theme, this 2019 essay from renowned economist Tyler Cowen and Patrick Collison (Co-Founder & CEO of Stripe) is a great read in tandem with Marc Andreeson and Ben Thompson’s posts. Cowen and Collison do a great job of outlining why we need to come up with a better system for tracking progress and offer an initial pass at how we can get started. (10 min)

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Media

Below is a great chart from Axios highlighting the initial change in electricity consumption as a result of COVID-19 through the end of March. I’d wager the drop for each negative category is significantly worse for April.

Tweet of the Week

Shane Parrish @ShaneAParrish

Goal-oriented people move faster. Growth-oriented people go further. Goal-oriented people want the answer so they can "get it right" quickly. They skim. Growth-oriented people want to see the process so they understand how, why, and intent. They understand.

Song of the Week

Apple Music Link

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Books

Currently Reading

Recently Read

• I can’t quite remember how this novel landed on my to-read list, but I’m very happy it did. With her debut novel, Namwali Serpell hit nothing short of a home run. The Old Drift is a coming of age epic chronicling life in pre-colonial to modern-day Zambia that hits the full spectrum of emotions. Part history, part sci-fi, part social and political commentary—this novel has it all. (4.5/5)

• This was an inspiring quick read filled with tangible examples of overcoming obstacles—big and small. The writing is blunt and gets straight to the point, which I always appreciate. Perfect for an extra bit of motivation to stay the course as we continue along in this truly weird world of COVID-19. (5/5)

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Parting Thoughts

This Week in History

• On April 23, 2005, YouTube Co-Founder Jawed Karim uploaded the first video to the site. The video of Jawed standing at a zoo has now been viewed over 90 million times. (Source)

“It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.” — Jonathan Swift

If you found something that piqued your interest this week, please help me out in expanding the reach of The Chomp by forwarding it along to a friend or sharing it with others in your network. Until next week.

-Cody