The Connection Newsletter 54 - Not today

The Connection Newsletter 54 - Not today

May 06, 2019

Hello!

This is edition #54 of

The Connection

, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.

I'm finishing this email at a standing desk in Philadelphia airport, waiting for my connection flight to San Francisco. FWIW, the Philadelphia airport has improved a lot since the last time I've been here. I spent last weekend hanging out in Brooklyn with cousins and watching the next generation of cousins (our kids) play. It was a terrific reminder that quality time doesn’t just happen - it’s something you schedule and create.(In that vein, this is your friendly reminder that Mother’s Day is next week, so if you haven’t made plans for brunch yet, remember to do so 💐)In the interest of creating more free time, I’m trying to cut down or cut out trips to the grocery store. I’m not on the Instacart train yet (don’t know anyone in Albany who uses it) so I’ve taken an intermediary position: using Hannaford To Go. You order your groceries online, reserve a time to pick them up, and they’ll bring the groceries out to your car. The service ($5 service fee for orders less than $125) probably saves us 2 hours per week.This weekend I checked off an item that’s been on my to-do list for years: interviewing family members. The goal is to build up an archive of family interviews that future generations can go back and watch/listen to.I tested the new microphone and my camera “setup” (two iPhones 📱📱) precariously perched around the room. The iPhones worked great, but for some reason, the audio kicked the bucket after a few minutes. Still some kinks to work out.

Book notes created this week:

 by Jen Chaney. I’ve made the argument that Clueless is one of the most important and underrated films of the 90s. This book (which I read

after

making that assertion) was extremely helpful in bolstering my argument.

 by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace. Sometimes this went too far into the weeds, but if you work on creative teams, Ed Catmull’s explanation of the rules and guidelines to successfully run a Braintrust are invaluable.

That’s it. Thanks as always for reading. Here are this week’s articles:

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

Profile of Chris Cox, one of Facebook’s earliest engineers who rose through the ranks to become the #3 person in the company, after Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg.

This article serves as a reminder that at small, fast-moving organizations, your empathy, attitude, and inclusiveness have as much impact as your ability.

“He is an incredible combination of engineering-level IQ combined with EQ. That makes him not only brilliant but approachable. There’s no left brain. No right brain. “He’s good at everything.”

---

The rise of social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) has turned everyone into a critic (let’s not even get into Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Google Reviews). But it’s also given those whom we critique - from celebrities to restaurant owners to artists - a platform to fight back against unfair criticism or straight vitriol.

Personally, I’m all for this power struggle because

I hope

it drives towards accountability for our words, even if we only use 280 characters.

As Alison Herman writes at the Ringer, “Thanks to social media, it’s both harder than ever for stars to shield themselves from the noise and easier than ever for them to respond directly to what surely feels like an all-out assault on their character.”

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Because the benchmarking of ourselves against others (keeping up with the Joneses) is now a 24-7 endeavor.  

This piece is thoughtful about the culture of work today, but I’ll add sometimes I find it difficult to empathize with these pieces. “Misery” is a luxury immigrants or those raised by immigrants rarely subscribe too.

Social media is constantly shoving accolades, promotions, vacations, 30 under 30 lists, and the fake Internet lives of Instagram “celebrities” down your throat. In the past, we compared ourselves to our peers, co-workers, family, friends, and members of our communities. There were always standouts among these communities but the Internet has made everyone is a small fish in a big pond.

---

A trip into the shadow-realm of bland blogs about motherhood, written by women who aspire to make big money by selling printables and encouraging other mothers to blog.

Wealthy or stylish moms can sell ads and products by trading on their appearance and their aspirational — or perfectly imperfect — lifestyle, but what does an ordinary, unglamorous woman have that the public will want to buy? In barren, late-capitalist terrain, selling the ability to blog, even if that blog itself will be about little more than the act of blogging, seems to be a viable commodity.

---

Loved Nat’s distinction between a passive product vs. a passive sales machine here (if you don’t have a passive sales machine, you’re not creating passive income).

Passive income is based on the faulty assumption that once you hit a goal, you’ll be happy and satisfied and can go on with your happy life. But as pretty much anyone who has ever gotten something they want knows, that’s not really how it works.

---

Liquidity is overrated.

Once you identify a trend, your goal should be to buy assets that benefit from that trend, and hold on for as long as possible. Of course, if you think an impending bear market is on the horizon, holding more cash is good. However, over the long-term, having too much liquidity I argue is a detriment.

---

There are parallels in the difficulty of deal/compensation attribution between VC firms and Hollywood agencies. Closing deals (or clients) as a team is great in theory until it’s time to distribute profits.

All of a sudden, [Meeker’s] monster growth fund starts working, and there was a lot of credit-seeking and lobbying for their share, claiming, ‘I did this,’ and ‘I helped with that,’ ” says a former Kleiner investor. According to someone close to the growth team, its members began to ask: “Why do we want to give such a big portion of the ­money we earn to people who aren’t contributing anything?”

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An honest look at trying to get into a crowded channel right now. If you’re interested in starting a podcast, I definitely don’t want to discourage it, but just pointing out there’s a lot of work that goes into creating a

popular

podcast.

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I’ve cut back on my procrastination a great deal. It only took 5-6 years. This article summarized many of the frameworks that worked for me.

Freedom is your enemy. The fact is that, if you want to get things done, you need rules. What are some things that research proved to be effective? If you combine the right productivity tactics, you have a productivity system. The deadlines create urgency, accountability will create responsibility, working in intervals improves your focus, exercising will give you more energy, so does a healthy diet, and eliminating distractions will take away the temptations.

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Good inspiration as I continue my own journey to become more technical. If you’re trying to uplevel any of your skills, the frameworks Steph describes here are applicable.

I can say that I spent approximately 300 hours learning and launching applications… 1 hour per day (7h/week) will get you there in <1 year. ~2 hours per day (15h/week) will get you there in <5 months. A full-time commitment (if possible) will get you there in <2 months.

Thanks for reading!

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