The Connection Newsletter 16 - 19 jobs

Hello!

This is edition #16 of The Connection, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here, hope you’re having an amazing summer so far.

In SF this week for work. Let me know if you’re around, would love to meet up.

(If you don't want these newsletters, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom. No worries, we'll still be friends.)

Make sure to hit "Display Images" above to see puppy pics. 

Find The Connection helpful? Share it with a friend.

First, this week’s article:

19 Jobs in 4 Industries Later, What I Wish I Knew About Starting My CareerI had big goals for my first year in LA that involved landing an agent and selling scripts. Instead, I lost 20 pounds, drank 3 Bud Lites alone for Thanksgiving, and had to beg to get my job back waiting tables. 

It was worth it, but there are a few things I would have done differently.

Note: I’m experimenting with publishing these articles on Medium.

If you like this piece, it’d be a HUGE help to push the “clap” button at the bottom.

The more “claps” the article gets, the more people will see it. There’s also no limit to how many claps you can give it, so feel free to

click and hold down

on that sucker :)

Onto this week’s reads:

…

This is rad: 

CDs and digital downloads are dying, while streaming and the vinyl niche are growing

. This is anecdotal evidence of two growing trends:

(1) Power in the extremes, a la Amazon exploring both drone delivery and physical bookstores

(2) Power in nostalgia, a la Nintendo, Disney live-action remakes, Budweiser “wasss up” partnership with Burger King

…

Unilever discovered 20% of their mid-level influencers’ followers are fake

. Kinda of a big problem, considering they spent $9B on brand marketing last year. And as influencer marketing continues to eat up more ad budget (a 2017 poll showed 75% of marketers use influencer marketing), the incentives to “fake it till you make it” will continue to grow.

…

The secret behind every loving relationship?

Try not to fart or shit in front of each other.

A terrific post on relationships.

…

Lloyd Blankfein, CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs

:

"I can’t say why it should work. But if it did work, I’d be able to explain it in hindsight."

This is a terrific device we all can use to think through trends, as well as the success or failure of any business. It’s similar to a pre-mortem, which is covered in Daniel Kahneman’s

Thinking, Fast and Slow.

…

I

read and summarized

Scott Galloway’s

The Four: The Hidden DNA of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.

Professor Galloway dissects and analyzes the biggest companies in the world: how did they get so big? What makes their defensive moats so powerful? And how do individuals and smaller companies thrive in a world of The Four?

There were some parallels to

The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

by Kevin Kelly. Both were good, but I appreciated the specifics of

The Four

, while

The Inevitable

felt a bit more hand-wavey.

Thanks for reading!

Any questions, comments, or recommendations, feel free to reply directly to this email.

Forward

Share