Weekly Mix #273 - Daily Mental Models, Inspired, Arguments Against EVs & Interview Questions

Daily Mental Models, Inspired, Arguments Against EVs & Interview Questions

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Happy Monday!

The saying goes: "all models are wrong but some are useful."

Well, some models are more useful than others.

Here are 3 that I use every day:

Less but better: Designer Dieter Rams is attributed most with this phrase, and if I had a mantra, this would be it. Whenever I encounter friction or a problem in my life, it's nearly always solved by subtracting something. It's also a reminder to focus deeply on fewer things at a time.

Extreme ownership: Author and former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink popularized this idea, and it's a powerful one. Whenever something happens, good or bad, assume you are responsible. It's a perspective shift that moves you from assigning blame to figuring out what can be done about it.

Practice analytically, perform intuitively: This comes from David Perell, and while it's obviously applicable to things like sports, it's applicable in daily life too. When you're performing—producing something—go with the flow and don't think too much. When you're practicing, be focused on improving something specific—when rewriting or editing, for example.

Have a great week!

Graham

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Links

📚 Book Notes: Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love - Marty Cagan - If I had to recommend one book for people building products—especially product managers—to read, this would be it.

Extensive, detailed, and very tactical, this is a great book for building high-performance product teams (and avoiding many of the classic mistakes).

📖 All the arguments against EVs are wrong - Noah Smith - My parents were early EV adopters—they got their first one in 2015. I still remember going for the first test-drive and realizing "oh wow, this is going to be a game-changer."

Eight years later, having seen the electric car lifestyle and driven thousands of kilometres myself, I still believe it. They're much, much better.

This is an excellent article summarizing most of the arguments against EVs, and why they don't make sense.

I also re-ran my car purchase spreadsheet recently, and with the incentives offered here in Canada ($5K-$12K depending on province), depending on how far you drive each month, if you're buying a new car, the price where it starts to make more sense to get an EV (from a purely financial perspective) is ~$30-$35K.

Electric is the future.

🚘 Aptera Sol - Speaking of electric cars, this is one of the coolest I've seen. Yes it looks odd, but it's beautiful from an aero-efficiency perspective.

Solar panels and ultra-efficient shape mean it can get up to 64km of solar-only range per day, and their top model can get 1600km+ of range on a single charge.

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Graham Mann-->

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@grahamkmann

We overestimate what we can do in a day, but underestimate what we can do in a year.

Try and take one step towards your goal each day, and wait long enough to see what happens.

May 26th 2023

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Dickie Bush 🚢-->

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@dickiebush

Writer's block? Maybe.

Talker's block? Never.

If you're feeling stuck, try this:

• Go for a walk
• Download Otter (dot) ai
• Talk through your idea
• Let Otter transcribe it

Then, use the transcription as your online.

Boom! No more blank page.

May 30th 2023

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