The fact that humans exist with the capacity to observe and theorize about the universe is the explanation for the universe being the way that it is. The physics that creates the preconditions for intelligent life means that intelligent life could only ever observe this kind of universe. If other universes don’t support intelligent life, they will have different physics from our universe and, potentially, our physics is universal to intelligent life.

From The Beginning of Infinity and A Brief History of Time.

See also:

• It’s a neat little theory but could be easy to vary to fit all kinds of new observations and could easily be a parochial error

Growth marketing is simple to get started. Sell the product directly to 10 paying customers. Review the sales process with those customers and identify an ideal customer profile and their “aha” moment—preferring customers with low friction and grow organically. Experiment with automated ways to acquire the next 100 customers from that profile. Once you’ve built a playbook that works repeatedly, move on to the next cohort.

When you sell the product directly you’re getting immediate feedback on what’s working and you can iterate on the messaging (and product) much faster. If they’re not buying then something isn’t working. If you can sell 10 times you start to get clarity on the right people to talk to and their “aha” moment that crystallizes the value of what you are selling.

Choosing a single ideal customer profile focuses your efforts in finding the next 100 customers. If your profile encompasses too many use cases and kinds of buyers, it will make it harder to find repeatable ways to find them.

Experimenting with different ways to identify potential customers that match the ideal customer profile and reach them is important for error correction. Using automation is a key constraint otherwise you won’t be able to reach enough people to make the next 100 sales (not everyone you talk to will be interested or respond at all).

If you find a repeatable playbook then great, keep running it while you work on the next customer profile and repeat the cycle.

Based on my conversation with Jesus Requena, VP of Growth at Figma.

See also:

• Product-led growth is another way to do this but isn’t a fit for every kind of product
• You should be able to get from Seed to Series A on your network alone and get your first 10 customers

One of the issues with the big bang theory and observations of the cosmos is that there ought to be more stuff. The presence of dark matter must be there because we can measure its effects via gravitational waves. A possible explanation for why dark matter exists at all is that there is an anti-universe—the same as “our” universe but with neutrinos spinning the opposite way and time going backwards. If that’s true, it would be expanding in the opposite direction as the big bang.

See also:

• Absolute time does not exist and in an anti-universe relativity probably also exists
• The symmetry of a universe/anti-universe sounds similar to black hole / white hole theories and our universe existing inside of a black hole

A sentence that, upon closer inspection, has no real meaning.

The theory of relativity shows that time is not a constant, but a relative measurement to the observer. For example, it’s long been established that clocks running further away from the Earth’s gravity run slightly slower than those on the surface when they are compared.

See also:

• I read about this in A Brief History of Time (although I already know GPS clocks have to adjust for this)
• Time is relative but it can also break the law of conservation of energy: time crystals break time-translation symmetry

According to the Q1 2022 survey by Ladders, 24% of all job posting in the US and Canada are now for permanent remote positions—an increase from 18% in Q4 2021 or roughly 3MM jobs.

This is mostly led by fields in technology but similar trends are happening everywhere. For example, software development job postings went from 2.9% remote in Q1 2020 to 33.44% in Q1 2022.

See also:

• The share of remote workers fell from 35% to 11% of those who were working remotely due to COVID-19
• A 10x increase in remote hiring creates challenges for the back office
• Nearly 15 percent of all high-paying job listings are remote showing that these trends are impacting the top jobs in the country

Using license-finder by GitLab makes it easy to list all open source licenses from dependencies of your codebase. What’s nice is that it uses a docker image so it’s easy to run in any environment with no setup.

In the directory to scan, run:

docker run \
–volume “$PWD”:/code \
–env=LM_REPORT_VERSION=“2.1” \
–env=CI_PROJECT_DIR=/code \
registry.gitlab.com/gitlab-org/security-products/analyzers/license-finder:latest

Employment and tax compliance is not static. Requirements change because of new laws, hiring in a new state, employees relocating, or when government agencies tell you they’ve changed—UI rate changes, notifications and enforcements. Companies change too as headcount grows, revenue increases in more places, and what they are registered in each jurisdiction.

Since compliance is constantly changing, businesses need to answer “what do I need to do to be compliant?” continuously. Compliance is really a workflow, one that never stops over the course of doing business.

See also:

• People intuitively know that they need to be compliant, but a challenge with compliance products is selling non-compliance
• Building compliance products is like reading Kafka but you get to fix it

I bought the Sinn u50 automatic watch in February 2022 and have worn it every day since.

What I was looking for was simple—a way to tell the time and date that doesn’t constantly send me notifications or need to be charged. I want to admire the analog engineering of an automatic mechanical watch. I want it to look good for the kind of lifestyle I have—casual, functional, understated, and maybe ready for adventure.

The Sinn u50 ticks the boxes and appeals to me in a way that no other watch has yet. It looks really good and I enjoy looking at it every day.

It’s so totally overbuilt in a way that I can appreciate. It’s a time fortress sitting on your wrist that is reassuring. The Sinn u50 makes you feel a little bit invincible.

Three-month review

After three months, what do I think of the Sinn u50? I still get excited to wear it and it’s held up as advertised—not a single scratch so far. Now that I’ve adjusted the bracelet, it’s very comfortable and I forget that it’s on my wrist. I even wear it overnight so I can check the time when I wake up in the middle of the night.

I see much more clearly how brutalist the design is. It’s so dull (bead-blasted matte finish) and the steel is a darker gray that somehow makes it even less conspicuous. I can see the need for having a dressier watch especially after going to a fancy event and deciding not to wear Sinn u50.

Six-month review

The Sinn u50 has been on my wrist continuously for about 6 months now. Still no wear, no scratches, and it looks brand new.

At this point, I’ve purchased a few straps to try out from Nick Mankey Designs. This is a nice change of pace from the metal bracelet and extremely comfortable. I’ll probably keep playing around with new straps to keep things interesting.

I did a little bit of traveling with it. I went to New York City, explored the Oberland of Switzerland, and went to Hawaii. The Sinn u50 felt out of place only a handful of times at a fancy dinner or wedding. In Hawaii, it was great to not worry about it in the water and heat.

The design still feels great to me. Very unique but understated. Doesn’t work in every situation but most. I am starting to eye the Explorer I after trying it on in Switzerland so we’ll see if that starts to change my opinions.

Twelve-month review

Now that I’ve had the Sinn u50 for a year and I’ve worn it almost every day since getting it. Everything I wrote earlier is still true—I love the design, there are still no visible signs of wear, and I’ve taken it with me just about everywhere.

So what’s different? In September, I received the Cartier Tank Must as a gift. The two watches complement each other perfectly. The Cartier Tank is the exact opposite of the Sinn u50—elegant, classic design, white dial, square case, and compact. The pairing addresses one of the few issues I have with the Sinn u50, it doesn’t fit well in situations that require a dress watch.

My taste in watches has not changed much, despite visiting the Phillipe Patek Museum in Geneva, Switzerland. After a year on the wrist, I still think the Sinn u50 is going to be a classic it it’s own right—unapologetic in its modern design and rooted in utility.

There is not a great way to dynamically fill the vertical space in a parent element in CSS without setting a fixed height. To do this in React using flexbox, you need to get a reference to the parent element and calculate the height using a callback hook.

For example:

const [interiorHeight, setInteriorHeight] = useState<number>(0);
const measuredRef = useCallback((node) => {
  // Before the component mounts the node ref will be null
  if (node !== null) {
    setInteriorHeight(
      node.current.getBoundingClientRect().height
    );
  }
}, []);

return (
  <div ref={measuredRef} className="p-6 pt-10">
    <div className="flex items-center" style={{height: `${interiorHeight}px`}}>
      I'm {interiorHeight} pixels tall!
    </div>
  </div>
)

The March WFH Research survey results show that 54% of unemployed respondents are either exclusively looking for jobs that allow them to work from home or prefer jobs that allow them to work from home.

This presents a large opportunity for employers who are hiring remotely to attract more talent.

See also:

• Half of Millennials and Gen Z would consider quitting if employers don’t allow remote work
• 4.3 million people quit their job in August 2021

The way I write more is by doing it every day. I write first thing in the morning (journaling and note taking) and publishing my notes (like this one). For work, I write product briefs to clarify the situation, my interpretation of the facts, and what we should do about it. I write memos for the team for anything important. I write investor updates. I do it without thinking—even when drafting a tricky email I’ll write it out to understand what I’m trying to do.

Taking an interest in good writing helps. Being curious about what makes for good communication, reading about writing, and trying out new things to try and communicate more clearly. To cultivate that, I recommend The Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto which is the best business writing book and reading about knowledge creation with The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch.

Using tools you enjoy gives something to look forward to while building up a writing habit. For example, a fountain pen, a nice notebook, a mechanical keyboard, beautifying your favorite text editor, or generally improving the ‘hand feel’.

See also:

• Atomic Habits is a useful book to read when starting new habits including writing more
• Building a note-taking habit

When it comes to raising money, being a solo founder goes against the grain. Many investors figure it’s safer to invest in founders that come in pairs. (Possibly because of this essay from Paul Graham)

It makes some sense if you think about it. Founder drama happens and if there are multiple co-founders the company goes on, if it’s a solo-founder and they leave—game over.

The good news is that fundraising as a solo founder stops being a problem after raising the seed round. The bad news is that you have to be able to raise the seed round in the first place.

Fundraising is always hard despite what people might tell you. Ignore anyone who hasn’t recently raised money for their own startup.

The way to mitigate the challenges of raising solo is to 1) have all of the skills needed to lead the company (if you’re building a software product that means being an engineer and/or product leader) 2) have unique knowledge about the market problem you are going to solve (maybe by having built something related before) 3) increase the positive signal around you (e.g. coming out of a high-profile company, exited a previous startup, have a large following) and 4) already have the relationships with investors so they know you before you raise money.

See also:

• It’s not all disadvantages, companies started by solo founders survive longer and generate more revenue

One of the reasons making broad, sweeping predictions about the future tend to be wrong is that it does not account for the creation of new knowledge. Trends are not explanations and without an explanatory model of how knowledge will change (i.e. creativity) predictions such as the end of the world are just another example of a Malthusian catastrophe.

That doesn’t mean they are not useful. In the case of climate change, we should not assume success is guaranteed simply and predictions based on current trends is useful if only to lay out the possible scenarios. However, trying to know the unknowable leads to pessimism in policy (e.g. consumption reduction) rather than optimism (e.g. investing in renewable energy research).

See also:

• David Deutsch touches on this in The Beginning of Infinity

According to Betteridge’s Law pretty much any headline that is posed as a question is usually going to be answered with a ‘no’ in the body. I’ve found this to be pretty much always the case to the point where it’s funny that it’s even used in news writing.

Three things lead me to believe that websites will soon become an heirloom passed down generation to generation: 1) the ubiquity of the web generally (which is still only 59% of the world’s population) 2) the scarcity of web domains 3) the value of search engine ranking.

Similar to passing down a piece of jewelry that has both sentimental value and actual wealth attached to it, an old domain that is well established in existing search indices would increase in value over time. The next generation would see the previous generation’s toil and old technology as something to be restored and preserved while adding to it.

See also:

• Heirlooms foster long term thinking—if your website is going to be passed down to the next generation, maybe you hold off on that hot take
• Most compounding interest benefits occur at the end—in 100 years does a websites intrinsic value compound?

The equivalence of mass and energy means that an object (having mass) can not reach the speed of light. As it approaches the speed of light, the mass of the object would become infinite thereby taking an infinite amount of energy. Therefore, only something without any intrinsic mass (like light or a wave) can go the speed of light.

See also:

• A Brief History of Time
• The universe expands faster than the speed of light, but doesn’t actually have a speed. The universe is not infinite.
• In omega point universes, perhaps you could have infinite energy

This note does not have a description yet.

In an infinite multiverse, where every possibility allowed by physics is certain, the argument goes that one could be absolutely sure of winning the lottery using the following hack. Buy a lottery ticket and set up a machine that will automatically kill you in your sleep if you lose. Supposing you don’t care about any history in which you are not a lottery winner, this is way of winning the lottery with certainty…at least in universes where you are a lottery winner.

See also:

• The Beginning of Infinity discusses this to show how anthropic arguments rely on probabilities of infinity which we don’t have a way of measuring so it’s likely the assumptions made are false

From the 2021 business update letter from Stripe, Atlas is now used by 1 in 10 new incorporations in Delaware.

This makes me extremely happy having built Atlas from 2016 to 2020 and experienced many of the “years of tireless iteration and improvement by the team” mentioned in the letter.

See also:

• This is a good example of using time horizons as a competitive advantage. In hindsight this feels like an obviously good idea, but it takes willingness to push out the payback period far enough to have a chance for it to work.

A universe that collapses to a single point due to baryon annihilation required to produce energy needed for colonization. The universe is not infinite and even though we observe the universe expansion accelerating, that doesn’t mean it will continue to accelerate forever. This is like the counterpoint of the Big Bang—the “Big Crunch”.

In The Beginning of Infinity, the author argues an omega-point universe is necessary for the energy required to achieve infinite knowledge creation. This can be thought of as a computation problem—how could there be infinite computation if there is not infinite time? Similar to the trick used to measure infinity, an advanced civilization would increase the computation speed (speeding up thought) as the universe collapses, harnessing the heat energy from the collapse to further accelerate computation, and approach infinite computation.

(This reminds me of one of my favorite books, Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami.)

Anthropologist studying non-industrial societies found that the most common activity was idling—not doing anything. This is surprising when contrasted to industrial societies which are constantly consuming (watching TV, social media, reading, hobbies) and boredom vilified.

This raises a number of questions about the changes in society and what, if any, are the benefits of idling. It’s important to keep in mind that just because it is a “natural” default state doesn’t mean that it’s better without an explanation for why that is so.

Read the Twitter thread from mnvrsngh and the accompanying data.

Despite common ancestry between humans and apes, humans have the ability to grow collective knowledge through the replication of memes.

Memes are ideas paired with behaviors. Replicating a meme means you’ve internalized the idea and behaviors to transmit them to others.

You can teach apes to open a nut using a tool and a process, but they are not replicating memes they are emulating the motions. Humans don’t learn through emulation but through explanation.

Creativity is required to replicate memes. The same creativity needed to acquire existing knowledge is the same thing needed to create new knowledge.

This also explains how vast collective knowledge can start from a static society that tries its best to inhibit any change or new ideas. It takes creativity to perfectly replicate existing knowledge and ideas.

The Beginning of Infinity

It seems that the best explanations are often the most elegant. Sometimes it’s in the simplicity, sometimes it’s in the obviousness. Looking at some of the biggest discoveries in math and science (e.g. relativity, DNA, calculus, evolution, computing) and thinking, “how could it not have been so?”

It happens so often that it might be a useful heuristic for finding objective truth. If explanations require major contortions and gymnastics, it’s probably a sign it’s not objectively true.

From The Beginning of Infinity.