Driving word of mouth needed for product-led growth comes from a passion for one’s tools. This can be hard to attain for categories of products that aren’t all that interesting. Someone might brag about how one email client is better than another, but what about an ERP? See also:
The notion that “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (Ludwig Wittgenstein) is only partially true. To a young developing mind, delays in language development hinder math (it’s hard to count above 5 without words for it) and inferring other people’s thoughts—as is the case with some deaf children. However, adults that lose their language facilities (global aphasia) do not lose other cognitive functions such as the ability to do math, theory of mind, music, and more. Read Language Is the Scaffold of the Mind. See also:
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported the share of remote workers fell from 35% to 11% from May 2020 to October 2021. Data is collected as part of the Current Population Survey to estimate the impact of COVID-19 on the workforce. An important caveat to the data (emphasis mine): Data refer to those who teleworked or worked at home for pay specifically because of the coronavirus pandemic. This does not include those whose telework was unrelated to the pandemic, such as those who worked entirely from home before the pandemic. See supplemental data measuring the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on the labor market.
Right now my personal note taking practice is mostly structured text with a few conventions, published as a really long list. This makes it difficult to explore and uninviting. What if there were more types of notes? Ones that included images, videos, diagrams, etc.? It would certainly make the content pleasing to the eye, but is it actually useful? Instead of content types, notes could have tags visualized. Special tags might have their own icon and clicking them shows you other items tagged that way. One thing I really like about org-roam-ui is how you can select a subgraph and see adjacent nodes N hops away. The overall graph is intimidating, but a subgraph of Wherever there are links to notes, show a short summary on hover without having to click. This prevents some of the issues with gardens where you “lose the path”. Embed a history of the notes you visited so you can see your path and go back to specific notes without losing your place. Could this all be done statelessly?Content types
Visualize subgraphs
< 20 items is approachable. Maybe you could see a sparkline of a graph and click on it to see it’s connections to explore right there.Hover to see summary of linked notes
Show click history as you navigate to more notes
A trait of digital gardening is to include metadata in a post to indicate how confident the author is in the post. This is a neat way of making space for half-finished ideas and works-in-progress. For example, confidence tags in gwern.net. Read A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden by Maggie Appleton. See also:
My dad used to tell me about an old car he used to have—the Chevrolet Chevette. It was an inexpensive compact car with rear-wheel drive from the late 70s. As he described it, “all the thrills of high-speed driving at low speeds.” That’s how I feel about the JavaScript ecosystem sometimes. There are so many dependencies and libraries that dealing with breaking changes, performing security updates, and figuring out subtle bugs between versions is a high-scale activity. The problem is, you have all the thrills of high-scale software development even on small-scale projects. (Although maybe it’s more of Pinto which had a habit of exploding into a fiery mess when rear-ended). See also:
The founder of Startmate, who went on to found Australia’s best venture capital firm (Blackbird VC), always gave what he called “the Godzilla speech” to people when they joined. His whole idea was that you get one chance to try to put a dent in a path. People join a job, an organization, and they take a linear path. Through the Godzilla speech, he would say, “Look, all these fucking giant lizards were once tiny, and you might think you’re tiny, but you have to pretend to be giant.” https://www.theobservereffect.org/mikecannonbrookes.html See also:
OSHA issued an emergency temporary standard (ETS) that requires large employers (100+ employees) to enforce COVID-19 vaccination and testing. This is a major step in mandating vaccination although it does leave open the possibility of getting a weekly negative COVID-19 test instead. Interestingly, OSHA doesn’t have a way to enforce this thoroughly as there are not enough agents to check every large employer. That means they are probably prioritizing audits based on complaints made against a company. Read the OSHA ETS summary.
Low retention products eventually die, even if they grow really fast to begin with. Spammy invite mechanisms no longer work (invite 100 people from your contacts). Virality requires retention and engagement. A better model for today’s world is that a viral feature is used by a % of users, used multiple times, over the course of % of users that are retained. Without engagement, no one will use the viral feature. Without retention, the number of sessions where someone uses the viral feature doesn’t happen. That’s why the highest retention products are also the most viral. Read Why the best way to drive viral growth to increase retention and engagement from Andrew Chen.
Dictator Book Club: Orban from Astral Codex Ten describes the rise to power of Viktor Orban, dictator of Hungary. Viktor started out as a leftist liberal, rebelling against the Soviet Union. After a brief stint as an MP (and with no experience or political skill), he lost his election. He switched from a liberal democrat to a far-right nationalist. (Having power can easily override idealists, see Robert Moses and The Power Broker). Remade himself as a religious man with traditional family values—completely counter to his previous political identity. He fostered nationalist appeal, drawing on a proud history of steppe nomads, how they were humiliated throughout history, and how they would rise. Orban briefly became Prime Minister and led the Socialist party until he lost control. Orban found an opening by targeting the socialist party leader. With a leaked speech, he started rumors that socialists were liars. When they bit and denied it, he showed the leaked speech. He organized a massive protest during a Hungarian parade that injured hundreds and destroyed property. He and his party won a 2/3rds majority in 2010. That’s where they tightened the noose. They changed the constitution to remove road blocks to power. They passed laws to nationalize schools. He made favorable deals to his cronies, rewarded loyalists, and stamped out dissent (he could fire any civil servant, most media outlets were owned by loyalists, etc.). When the party was threatened due to a far-right platform that wanted to disallow refugees from the Syrian War, Orban co-opted it—keeping his party firmly in control and eliminating a rival party in one fell swoop. Thus he became an American far-right hero by pulling off what Trump could not. Orban erected a border wall, stopped migrants, and instituted all manner of political maneuvering needed to stay in power. Republicans cozying up to Orban include Steve Bannon, Mike Pence, and Rod Dreher, envious of a unambiguously far-right dictator.
Sometimes there are topics that are triggering, even tweets from people you follow that you genuinely want to see. Heavy use of mute words significantly improves the day-to-day experience. As of writing, it’s in Settings -> Privacy and safety -> Mute and block -> muted words. This can be particularly useful if you enjoy following artists on Twitter, but don’t want to be bombarded by NFT spam. Unfortunately, a hack to mute things like suggested content and topics no longer works. See also:
An analysis by Fidelity found that women, on average, earn 0.4% more than men annually when investing. Women bought and sold half as much as male customers. Fidelity’s analysis covered 5.2 million customer accounts (some people had more than one), from 2011 to 2020. It looked at individual retirement accounts, 529 plans and basic brokerage accounts that individuals (not financial advisers) controlled, but not workplace accounts like 401(k)s. No strategies were excluded: Those who traded individual stocks were tracked along with those who stuck to mutual funds. Read Women May Be Better Investors Than Men. Let Me Mansplain Why.
An essay from Richard P. Gabriel that argues that worse tools and solutions can actually be better in some cases. Read The Rise of Worse is Better.
With remote teams, it’s not like you can look over someone’s shoulder or visibly see if they are struggling—the only observable information is the outputs. That’s why remote team management needs to be centered around saying what you’re going to do and then comparing that to the output. This is difficult for most teams to do because estimation is hard and course corrections are required. Still, this must become a core skill for a remote team or you won’t make the right adjustments that are needed to become a high-performing team. See also:
A recent paper analyzed the causal effects of delays in updating unemployment insurance systems written in COBOL. States that used COBOL to process UI claims had a 4.4% decline in total card consumption compared to states that didn’t use COBOL. The author’s Fermi estimate is a $181B decline in real GDP due to COBOL. Read COBOLing Together UI Benefits: How Delays in Fiscal Stabilizers Impact Aggregate Consumption. See also:
When everyone gets the same thing, the smallest differences become status symbols. For example, on Twitter everyone gets the same platform, the same profile template, and so on. As a result, single word usernames and having a “blue check” are status symbols—they convey belonging to an exclusive group that is not accessible to others. People naturally try to raise their status. See also:
The Melanzana Micro Grid fleece is a casual and warm midlayer. As someone not wearing it for any serious hiking or physical activity, it’s appeal is being a cozy fleece for chilly SF mornings. The sweet spot for the Melanzana as an outer layer is very narrow—temperatures in the low to mid-60’s when walking around the city. Anything colder and the lack of wind resistance makes it too chilly. Anything warmer and it’s easy to overheat after 10 minutes of walking uphill. Unless I’m wearing it around the house, I much prefer using it as a mid-layer underneath an unzipped jacket in cooler temperatures (50’s). That way it’s comfortable, doesn’t overheat, and looks nice. At 10-12oz it’s easy to throw it in a bag or pack it when traveling. It would also make a decent airplane hoodie.
With so much of our time spent with computers and the internet, we ought to think about the quality of our digital lives. What makes for a good digital life? How do you achieve it? What should we do to improve it? Wealth is usually described as an abundance of tangible things. Fancy cars, a big house, a boat, and lots of money—that sort of thing. Wealth as it relates to our digital lives though is different. Few limitations exist on the contents of our digital life. Information on pretty much anything is available instantly. Communication is possible with anyone, nearly anywhere, at any time. The internet is available to billions of people (and growing) and access to broadband connections is increasing. That’s not to say it’s equitable, but it’s not like there’s an internet only for Billionaires. What does it mean to have a rich digital life when there is already abundance? See also:
A Voluntary Disclosure Agreement is a process in which a company comes clean about not collecting or paying taxes when they should have (usually sales tax and corporate income tax). This helps to minimize penalties and the look-back period for paying back taxes. Without it, the tax agency will come after the company for the full amount and penalties. In fact, many States will not accept a VDA if they notify you first (e.g. sending a tax questionnaire). See also:
Each State has a process administrating a Voluntary Disclosure Agreement to pay back taxes. The Multistate Tax Commission runs a program to standardize the VDAs and make it easier for companies to meet their tax obligations and pay back taxes. Member States: See also:
State
NNP Member
Alabama
Yes
Alaska
No
Arizona
Yes
Arkansas
Yes
California (FTB)
No
California (BOE)
No
Colorado
Yes
Connecticut
Yes
Delaware
Yes
District of Columbia
Yes
Florida
Yes
Georgia
Yes
Hawaii
Yes
Idaho
Yes
Illinois
No
Indiana
No
Iowa
Yes
Kansas
Yes
Kentucky
Yes
Louisiana
Yes
Maine
No
Maryland
Yes
Massachusetts
Yes
Michigan
Yes
Minnesota
Yes
Mississippi
No
Missouri
Yes
Montana
Yes
Nebraska
Yes
Nevada
No
New Hampshire
Yes
New Jersey
Yes
* New Mexico
Yes
New York
No
North Carolina
Yes
North Dakota
Yes
Ohio
No
Oklahoma
Yes
Oregon
Yes
Pennsylvania
No
Rhode Island
Yes
South Carolina
Yes
South Dakota
Yes
Tennessee
Yes
Texas
Yes
Utah
Yes
Vermont
Yes
Virginia
No
Washington
Yes
West Virginia
Yes
Wisconsin
Yes
Wyoming
No
Current consensus is that Mark Zuckerberg is an evil billionaire. A contrarian view would be this: Zuckerberg is an anti-hero who, in an unprecedented position of power, advances technological progress and well-being. Take the metaverse—a bundle of interesting ideas that are, more or less, already happening (VR, AR, crypto, NFTs, and so on). It’s easy to mock, but what if we’re wrong that it’s a dumb idea? What if it’s a useful abstraction that fosters a new kind of digital economy that creates opportunity for more people?
In What Is a Tech Company on Stratechery, a tech company is defined by the following characteristics. Software has zero marginal costs
Providing the product to subsequent customers costs nothing (or near nothing) once it’s created. Software improves over time
Updates to the product happen continuously which increases the value to the user after they buy it. Software offers infinite leverage
Software creates efficiency that opens up new levels of scale and markets (e.g. the whole world can be your customers). Software creates ecosystems
The software creates and ecosystem that wasn’t available before like connecting buyers and sellers or third-party software vendors on a platform. Software enables zero transaction costs
Self-serve software reduces or eliminates the need to be hands-on with customers making each additional transaction cost nothing. Not every technology business will meet all of them, but it is highly skeptical if a company purports to be a tech company and doesn’t exhibit most of these characteristics (like WeWork).
More people in the US have quit their job in 2021 then ever before (since it started being tracked). COVID-19 made people re-evaluate whether or not their jobs were worth it—many have decided to change jobs are quit altogether, especially in retail and food services. See also:
recieve.HTTP_REFERER header can’t spell it correctly, neither will you.