#88 He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch
Fresh ideas from Stoa newsletter, Startupy & Every
I just finished listening to “Surely you're Joking Mr Feynman”. It’s a biography unlike any other I’ve read. There are stories after stories with no particular structure except that they are collected in some phase of his life & career. The following description from the Amazon listing describes Feynman’s personality beautifully:
Winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965, Richard Feynman was one of the world's greatest theoretical physicists, but he was also a man who fell, often jumped, into adventure. An artist, safecracker, practical joker and storyteller, Feynman's life was a series of combustible combinations made possible by his unique mixture of high intelligence, unquenchable curiosity and eternal skepticism.
This book tells us numerous anecdotes to describe Feynman’s life. Curiosity is a common theme throughout. His persistence to master anything is another one. It’s a light read (and a fun listen thanks to phenomenal narration by Raymond Todd). Give it a shot!
We’re discovering a lot of new ideas today. I cannot wait anymore. Let’s jump right away.
1. Managing your manager
Brie Wolfson has a gift of observation, she picks up ideas that often get overlooked. Her articulation makes them simple & memorable. In “Managing your manager”, she talks about nuances of your manager’s way of working and how you can help them help you.
She shares simple yet very relatable inputs on the management styles. I can easily relate to most of these and can vouch for some of the suggestions that she has made. I’ve been there and done that.
Only thing that I am unclear about is if these positions are expected to be fixed at a given stage of one’s managerial journey. I can see myself operating at different points on the scale in different scenarios. I feel finding that right position in any circumstance or with that person is the key to success. What do you think?
If you’ve not read her previous post about her time at Stripe in #64, please do read. One of my all time favourite posts about things that matter in a work culture.
(via Gaurav Gupta)
2. Dead person goals
Casey Rosengren touches on some learning from ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) - in his recent post “How to live by your values this year” for Every. One concept “dead person goal” is worth pondering upon.
He shares some suggestions on how to bring life to these dead person goals. It’s a simple trick: ask the question, “What is doing less of {X} making room for? What are you hoping to bring more of into your life?”
3. Ideas from Stoa Daily newsletter
Stoa team is dishing out some really good reads with their daily newsletter. They pickup a core idea and weave a couple of good stories around it to make a useful read. I am sharing a bunch of ideas that I picked from some of their recent work.
Greedy algorithm: Greedy is an algorithm that finds its way to a solution step by step, always choosing the next best step that offers the most obvious and immediate benefit (covered in busting the myth of the career ladder)
Observability: Observability measures how well a system's internal states can be inferred from knowledge of its external outputs. A system is considered “observable” to the degree that its current state can be accurately mapped by only using information from the outputs it is producing, as captured by your sensors. (covered in measurebating)
4. Naming the thing
Satyajit Rout had shared the following snippet in his 2022 roundup post.
I could not have put it any better. Naming the thing is a superpower. And a good name (or the one where you put some effort into making it stick) can actually make a long lasting impact.
(via Stoa Daily)
5. Demanding & supporting
I came across Ravi Gupta’s blog recently. He writes fairly short posts expanding on one core idea. His anecdotes make reading them fun and his ideas more memorable.
Check out this one around bosses that are both demanding & supporting. His “What do you need?” is such a powerful story!
What I’ve come to realize over time is that, far from being contradictory, being demanding and supportive are inextricably linked. It’s the way you are when you believe in someone more than they believe in themselves.
(via Startupy)
6. Longreads
And here are some long reads for exposing you to new stories & events.
I felt like I was part of some shared human experience, the newest member of an obscure club. Maybe the other reviewers would disagree, but this moment felt powerful, like seeing other people’s names etched into a park bench or finding yourself deeply moved by the graffiti inside a public bathroom stall. But it was also weird: This tool for consumer reviews had become a digital guestbook for anything and everything in the world.
Our struggle - Andolan, Motwane family, Chicago radio - some lost pages from history of India’s movie industry.
7. Everything else
Some random goodness from the internet:
Earth clock (via Morning Brew)
The expensive act of advertising his own product is a reliable sign of the advertiser’s own confidence in it. It’s like a racehorse owner betting heavily on his own horse.
Best data visualization projects of 2022 - some really interesting stories in this list (via Sidebar)
Shift Happens - a website for a book about keyboards
What is “Escape Room” - some insights into Spotify’s genre system.
Every Noise - discovered in the Spotify piece. It’s fun playing around and discovering new genre & artists here
Unnecessary Inventions designs & builds products to solve problems that don’t exist.
Title of today’s post is a quote by Jean-Luc Godard. I found it in the latest post of Tuesday Dispatch by Luca Sartoni.
Before we sign off, here's a beautiful thought thanks to Lasya.
That's all for this week, folks!
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
If you enjoyed this post, show your love by commenting and liking it. I write this newsletter to share what I learnt from others. If you learnt something from this today, why not share it with a couple of your friends to continue this chain?
Thanks for the post on dead person values. As much as I love the framing, i see merit in applying the principle of inversion, especially in an age of abundance of voice. If you've tried to pick a.place for dinner for a group of friends, you would know the value of subtracting. The path to genius first avoids stupid. But there may be more when it comes to values. ACT seems interesting. I'll try and understand it better.
Thanks for the shout-out! Here are stories on two very famous names. First name is prospect theory. Brought a Nobel prize to Kahneman. In his words, they changed the name because the term ‘value theory was misleading, and we decided to have a completely meaningless term, which would become meaningful if by some lucky break the theory became important. “Prospect” fitted the bill.’
Next is even more famous. Dilbert. ‘Any name you give him, somebody’s going to be a hater. So you’re taking people out of the equation as soon as you name him. Maybe it’s a name they’ve heard of. There’s a reason why it’s Dilbert and not Bob, you know?’ This is from Scott Admas..In both examples, the creators came up with names that worked around any pre-existing associations that may have distorted the intended meaning of their idea–be it a concept like prospect theory or a comic character like Dilbert.