Weekly Mix #170 - My New Ebook, Building Companies & Advice From Spotify's CEO

Weekly Mix #170 - My New Ebook, Building Companies & Advice From Spotify's CEO

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Happy Monday!

We're getting close to the holidays now, which has me thinking about two things: remote work and annual reviews.

Friday marked the start of several holiday events for our teams at Unito. It reminded me of the downsides of remote work—the event was a lot of fun, but normally we'd do it in person.

The increase in remote work has been one of the consequences of the pandemic, and while it has benefits—no commute, more time with family, fewer geographic restrictions—there are definite downsides, and building camaraderie and friendship amongst teams is certainly one of them.

As for annual reviews, I always do one, and this year will be no different. I'm revising my process and will share more in the upcoming weeks (I like doing mine after Christmas).

In this week's newsletter:

E-book: 72 Tips for Living a Better Life​

Article: A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About - Morgan Housel​

Article: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company - Sahil Lavingia​

Article: 25 Things I’ve Learned From a Decade of Podcasts - Ryan Holiday​

Article: Earnestness - Paul Graham​

Podcast: Daniel Ek on The Tim Ferriss Show​

Have a wonderful week!

Graham

E-book: 72 Tips for Living a Better Life​

Last week I published a short ebook with a bunch of tips categorized in: habits, healthy, wealthy and wise.

You can grab it at the link above (just put $0 in the amount!).

If you do get it, please let me know what you think!

Article: A Few Things I’m Pretty Sure About - Morgan Housel​

I posted the book notes from The Psychology of Money a couple weeks ago, and this week I enjoyed another piece from Morgan Housel.

Some highlights:

Most professions would benefit from at least one a day month where you did nothing but think. No meetings, no calls, no deliverables. Just a seat on the couch thinking about what’s working, what’s not, and what to do about it. One day a week is necessary for some fields.

Risk is what you can’t see, think only happens to other people, aren’t paying attention to, are willfully ignoring, and isn’t in the news.

Daniel Kahneman says a key to investing is having “a well-calibrated sense of your future regret,” which might actually be the key to understanding all forms of risk.

Uncertainty amid danger feels awful. So it’s comforting to have strong opinions even if you have no idea what you’re talking about, because shrugging your shoulders feels reckless when the stakes are high. Complex things are always uncertain, uncertainty feels dangerous, and having an answer makes danger feel reduced. We want firm answers when things are the most uncertain, which is when firm answers don’t really exist.

Covid-19 is the first global crisis in the social media age, and what we’ve learned from social media in the last decade is that 1) information spreads fast, 2) false information spreads fastest because it’s more sensational, and 3) tribal identities are heightened when debates take place online vs. in person, so healthy debate quickly descends to a my-team-versus-yours battle.

Article: Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company - Sahil Lavingia​

If you clicked through to the e-book above, you’ll have seen Gumroad, the product I used to host it.

Sahil Lavingia, the founder, originally intended it to be a billion-dollar company, and raised venture capital money to achieve it.

It is now a profitable lifestyle business, but in this post he reflects on the “failure,” how it affected his happiness, and how his definition of success has changed as a result.

A few quotes:

Where did my singular focus on building a billion-dollar company come from in the first place? I think I inherited it from a society that worships wealth.

Wealth can be a measure of being able to improve the well-being of those around you, as seems to be the case for someone like Bill Gates, who has invested heavily in philanthropy. But it’s not the only way to measure success, nor is it the best one.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to build the next Microsoft. I personally don’t think billionaires are evil. And there’s a part of me that wishes I was still on that path. But for better or worse, I’m on this one now.

Article: 25 Things I’ve Learned From a Decade of Podcasts - Ryan Holiday​

This one is full of great little gems on life, philosophy, decision-making—pretty much everything. Here are a few:

It’s not fair. When I interviewed Tim Ferriss for the Daily Stoic podcast, he advised that we strip those three words out of our vocabulary. Because they are impotent and meaningless. Because they don’t do anything but make us upset or make us believe we don’t have options.

An essential piece of advice I got from the author Steven Pressfield: There are professional habits and amateur ones. Which are you practicing? Is this a pro or an amateur move? Ask yourself that. Constantly.

I asked one of my favorite writers, Rich Cohen, about how he’s able to be so consistently productive at such a high level. He said he approaches a big project like he approaches a cross-country road trip. “The way you deal with long road trips is you set yourself a minimum number of hours a day, no matter how you feel.”

The great basketball coach Shaka Smart said something similar. He tells his players not to figure out their priorities, but to figure out their priority. “The root of the word ‘priority’ is singular… It was a singular word—the one thing. Just do one high-quality thing every day, he said; it adds up.

Article: Earnestness - Paul Graham​

Another good essay from Paul Graham, who talks about how him and Jessica Livingston, his wife, identify good startup founders.

Earnestness is a quality that I think we can all aspire to a little more…it speaks of an honest desire to improve, to get better, and to learn.

The highest compliment we can pay to founders is to describe them as “earnest.” When you call someone earnest, you’re making a statement about their motives. It means both that they’re doing something for the right reasons, and that they’re trying as hard as they can.

Podcast: Daniel Ek, CEO of Spotify on The Tim Ferriss Show​

Daniel Ek is the CEO of Spotify, and Swedish, and this conversation with Tim was interesting in unearthing some psychological differences between Europe and the US in terms of entrepreneurship, happiness, and philosophy. He also suggested the same billboard message I would: be kind.

Here are some highlights:

Daniel grew up in a working class family, so no entrepreneurs around. But what his parents did do was provide psychological safety. They allowed him to explore things, and to sit and be part of grown up conversations.

Creativity is the product of constraints. Some of the most creative people in the world are also the most disciplined and constrained in how they produce their work.

On his schedule, which includes a lot of thinking and reading: in general, most people don’t stop enough and think hard enough about their priorities, and what problems are most worthwhile for them to solve.

Your leadership style has to be authentic to you. If you’re not Elon Musk, you shouldn’t be leading like he does.

The US is very individual-centric, while Sweden, Europe, and even Canada, are more focused on the collective.

In terms of goals, Daniel looks more at habits, has a weekly goal, and reviews larger goals on a quarterly and semi-annual basis so there’s not as much overhead.

When evaluating the potential for success of a future leader at Spotify, the rate of their learning growth is a prime criteria. If they can learn quickly, and iterate quickly, they will be successful.

Message to put on a billboard: be kind.

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