The Connection Newsletter 12 - Expectations

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This is edition #12 of The Connection, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) I’m happy you’re here. You look wonderful.

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This week, I wrote about this condition I heard of called “Paris Syndrome.”

This is a real thing, mostly experienced by Japanese tourists visiting Paris: they get physically sick when their fantasy of Paris doesn’t meet their expectations. It made me think about other areas of our lives where expectations don’t meet reality.

Education remains undisrupted

. I think many (most?) of us can agree there’s something broken with higher education. Bachelor degrees don’t guarantee jobs and graduates are saddled with student loans they can’t pay back. Yet most efforts to disrupt education flop. MissionU is another example.

MissionU promised to “give you the skills and experience needed to launch a successful career” in a one-year alternative from traditional college. But it shuttered its doors after being  acquired by WeGrow (a subsidiary of WeGrow). Most unusual was the fact that MissionU had plenty of runway -- $8 million raised from investors.

Favorite quote: “It’s investors say what the company lacked was not resources, but patience.”

How startups die from their addiction to paid marketing

. Andrew Chen talks about the peril of paid ads. It’s easy to get hooked on spikey growth when you spend marketing dollars, but you’ll hit a ceiling. Payback periods get longer, and top line growth flattens. Businesses need to be thinking about organic growth and growth from a second or third channel as they wean themselves off the teet of paid ads.

Retirement is not an existential crisis, not a financial one

. The author makes the point that once you reach a base level of financial security, quality of retirement is more impacted by sense of purpose than financial assets. Thinking about the article some more, I realized we can replace the word “retirement” with “life,” and it holds true.

My favorite Anthony Bourdain tribute

. There’s been many. Here, the author riffs on how through Mr. Bourdain’s shows, she felt more connected to everyone. Which feels like something we need more of these days.

Favorite quote:

“Watching that scene years ago, I felt connected at the heart level, the “I’ll show you mine since you showed me yours” level, the “I know you won’t mistake me” level, to white people I didn’t know, for the first time ever. Watching it now, I think Bourdain connected to everyone at the heart level all the time.”

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