đ Stay Curious #239
AI Eats the World, Curate People, Friction was the Feature, Public Libraries, Model for Attention, Saregama, Product Insight from Social games and more
Hello,
Welcome to Stay Curious #239.
Winter is slowly arriving. The early mornings are chilly, but the gentle sun brings a warmth that makes me want to step outside every single time.
Last week, I touched on two themes: curiosity and boredom. I then came across a lovely post by Tim Harford titled âAm I Boring You? Good.â It captures how these two forces can collide to create something worthwhile. None of it is accidental. The discoveries Harford talks about come from intention and determination. These are the magic ingredients, important and often ignored. See if you can play with them a little.
Here is what we are covering today:
Itâs a lot to cover, letâs get goingâŠ
đ€ AI Eats the World
Twice every year, Benedict Evans releases a big presentation that explores the macro and strategic trends shaping the tech industry. He makes sharp observations, asks fundamental questions, and leaves you with ideas that go deeper than most other decks in this space.
His latest, âAI Eats the World,â came out last week and fully lives up to expectations. I am sharing a couple of slides to give you a taste of his work. The full presentation is a beautifully curated bouquet of insights worth spending time with.
And hereâs my coverage of his earlier presentations from the Stay Curious Archives: The New Gatekeepers and AI, and everything else.
đ€ Curate People
Recruiting and culture are my big priorities at work right now. The latest episode of Navalâs podcast, Curate People, came as a blessing. It is fifty minutes of pure Navalism on recruiting, hiring, teams, and culture.
On hiring folks with low egoâŠ
Thereâs the old Warren Buffett line of âIntelligence, energy, integrity.â I would add âlow ego.â Low-ego people are just much easier to manage. They tend to engage less in interpersonal conflict. They care more about the work than about politicking or fighting for credit.
On how to spot undiscovered talentâŠ
Now, if youâre in a more crowded space, you need to get creative and find the undiscovered talent in that space. By the time someoneâs famous on Twitter, itâs too late to recruit them. Everybody knows. Even by the time someone is pedigreedâtheyâve won all the awards and the papersâvery hard to recruit. Youâre going to have to hack your way to them.
So to be a great recruiter, you have to first be a great sourcer, and a great sourcer is a good hunter of undiscovered talent, which means you have to have taste, and you have to have interest in other people, and you have to put in the time.
On working with ambiguity.
All new information starts as misinformation. It starts as not being obviously true, and so itâs accused of being misinformation. Eventually, over time, itâs proven right or wrong. If itâs right then itâs information you can then build upon.
đź Product Insights from Social Games
Dharmesh Baâs podcast episode with Anshumani Ruddra hit home for many reasons.
Anshumaniâs career of âside questsâ felt a lot like my own journey over the last fifteen years. The challenges and the learning shaped the moves, and the titles became incidental. People who get to build a career this way are truly lucky.
The ZyngaâFacebook era, the rise of Play Stores, and Indiaâs mobile revolution are things I have watched unfold. His stories brought those years back to life and helped me relive some of my own memories.
It is a wonderful conversation, made even better by Dharmeshâs questions. He has a special way of building context and drawing out great stories.
đ¶ Saregama & Indian Music Industry
HMV, Saregama, T Series, Tips, Venus. These were the labels that shaped our tiny music collections before streaming took over. I still remember having audio cassette tapes from all of them.
Today, T Series is still going strong and taking Indian music to the global stage. It is even fighting to stay at the top in the YouTube channel race. Most of the others have struggled to stay relevant, and a few have faded away.
In a recent India Dispatch post, Manish Singh explored the journey and current state of Saregama. His piece takes a deep look at the music industry and how it is evolving in the world of streaming audio and YouTube content.
It gave me a mix of new discoveries and a warm visit to nostalgia. A light and insightful read.
đ Friction was the Feature
Let us recall Jevonsâs paradox from a couple of weeks back:
When you dramatically cut the cost of something important, you do not save resources. The efficiency gains unlock new demand that overwhelms the savings.
That is exactly what is happening with the GenAI and LLM wave around us.
When the marginal cost of ideation, drafting, and refactoring words drops toward zero, we donât get fewer, better artifacts. We get more of everything: more job applications, more emails, more grant proposals, more slide decks, more status updates. Talk becomes cheap.
We have all seen this. In many cases, we have even contributed to it. And most of us do not like what we see. The irony is loud and clear: In all these cases we were better off earlier.
The effort it took to produce something was a strong signal of intent and willingness. Now we need to find new ways to read that signal so that we can spot the needle in the haystack.
đ€ł A Model for Attention
My friend Abhishek Verma is on a quest to live A Polymathing Life. Every week he picks a new theme, follows his curiosity, and builds something around it. He is not just exploring ideas, he is actually creating.
One of his recent projects was to apply microeconomics to build a model for attention. In a world drowning in doomscrolling, this feels like an exploration worth checking out.
His post covers the broader observations. The white paper goes deeper and shares the economic model he created to capture his insights. It is a little more academic than my usual appetite, but still a very good read.
Here is a snippet that captures his suggestions for curing doomscrolling. All of them are good ideas and worth trying.
đą Public Library as Model Organization
Craig Shapiroâs The Case of Investing in Public Imagination suggests that leaders should treat the public library as a model for creating spaces where people feel inspired, curious, and connected.
I picked this snippet about the kind of interaction we have with libraries. It is a beautiful way to describe an environment that encourages exploration without forcing everything through the lens of ROI.
Libraries donât ask you to justify your interests. You can check out a book on astrophysics or attend a poetry reading. No oneâs measuring your productivity. The door is open, and the invitation is simple: explore.
Amazing isnât it?
âš Everything else
Explaining to Your Parents Why Certain Celebrities Are Famous. I am so ignorant. First we explained all the Gods and mythical characters to them. Now they get their revenge. McSweeneyâs magic never disappoints.
Charles Young is an Edinburgh based paper sculpture artist. His Instagram feed is pure joy for the eyes. I have already added one of his creations to my desk wishlist.
The sights and sounds of Bhutan. My second Wait But Why pick in two weeks. Tim Urban is a master of many crafts, and this piece proves it again.
ICYMI, here is the link to last weekâs post:
Buffettâs letter, Orange Julius, Good Execution and Toddlerhood - those are just a few of the things we explored, and I must say they were all my absolute favorites. Go check them out.
Thatâs all for this week, folks!
I hope Iâve earned the privilege of your time.
See you next Monday.