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- The Connection Newsletter 83 - Free work, network effects, reusable components.
The Connection Newsletter 83 - Free work, network effects, reusable components.
The Connection Newsletter 83 - The only decisions that matter. Apartments around the world. The greatest bank heist ever.
Hello!
This is edition #83 of
The Connection
, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.
Last week I updated an article I’d written about why you should work for free.
One question I got was: “fine, but how long should you work for free? How much time is 'enough' before you ask for a paid position or move on?"
There are benchmarks you can use (for example, if you’re doing a consulting gig, a 1-3 month trial is fair) but
I also shared a story about something that happened at Oliver’s daycare. I got a lot of good feedback on parenting, and how to help your kids think about their race and culture.
(I strongly recommend reading the comments).
Finally: I’m officially in the
.
Okay, let’s jump into the articles this week!
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On Life Hacking
There are only a handful of life decisions that really matter, called “Crossroad Decisions.”
The little decisions you make daily are orders of magnitude less important than your crossroad decisions, e.g.
choosing your first job, a life partner, and where you live.
Takeaway:
The options available to you in life are determined by your network, and your network is the result of this handful of Crossroad Decisions.
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. I really like this idea: buy a few vacation homes by splitting the cost with your friends. This is how Tynan owns homes in Vegas, Budapest, Hawaii, and Tokyo (he also covers why it’s better than just Airbnb’ing).
On Work
. You can think of everything you do digitally (writing, coding, drawing, etc.) as a component. Almost all digital components can be reused via templates, code snippets, swipe files, etc. Great framework for productivity.
---
You don’t have to work 16 hours a day and convince yourself you’re happy because work is fulfilling. Nor should you feel guilty if you wake up and you’re less than thrilled with what’s on your plate.
Takeaway:
Contrary to the Silicon Valley mantra, your work may not be making the world a better place. That’s okay.
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. How you and your colleagues communicate is essential for creating a cohesive company culture, building institutional knowledge, and driving work forward.
Key rule: Context is king
.
Whenever possible, all communication should be public and share real estate with what you’re commenting on (e.g. keep comments in document vs. chatting about the document in Slack). All communication should be public and happen in context and
---
This is hilarious: “A lot of work is done on the internet and the internet is its own special hellscape.”
On Stories
. The crew got away with $20 million. The police had zero leads. Everything was going so well. Then one of the crew members tried leaving his wife.
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The AAirpass is a thing of legends: an unlimited ticket to fly anywhere in the world. In 1987, Steven Rothstein purchased one for $250,000. Then in December 2008, American Airlines took it away.
.
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In a world with TMZ, Twitter, and Instagram Influencers, somehow a gossip newspaper column printed on actual paper still matters… This is how they do it.
Fave quote:
“Gawker was pretty much nothing compared to Page Six. Page Six broke news every day and night and worked their butts off, while Gawker was busy doing their hair or something.”
On MMA
. This is Joseph Benavidez’s fourth attempt to become a world champion in the UFC.
“Who knows what might have happened if I would have won the first time, or the second time, I fought for the title? I don’t know how the heck my life or my journey would be. Those fights I lose, they’re what got me to this opportunity, so the way it worked out, it’s going to make me value this so much more.”
Spoiler:
Benavidez loses to Figueiredo by TKO in the second round of the match.
---
Leg locks were once frowned upon.
of how two elite leg lockers (Garry Tonon and Ryan Hall) have found success in MMA.
Thanks for reading!
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