đ MAYA products, Filters for problem solving, How to build fast, Rules of good science, Beauty of chalk
+ Best of Durga Pandals from Kolkata, Tiny paper homes & Long term art projects
Hi, this is post #130.Â
For the readers from India, there is a new movie in your nearest theaters - 12th Fail. It is based on the life of IPS officer Manoj Sharma & IRS Officer Shraddha Joshi. Manojâs struggles to clear one of the most difficult entrance exams (UPSC) is the central theme. TVFâs Aspirants & later Sandeep Bhaiya have covered the same theme, but this movie connected much deeper. There are a lot of emotional moments that make the movie highly touching. I highly recommend this one.
For the readers outside of India, what exam comes to your mind when you talk of "the toughest exam to crackâ and why? Iâve seen a lot of movies around the journeys of professional athletes. Anything from the academic or professional front?
Thereâs a lot of goodness in todayâs post, even by the standards of âStay Curiousâ.Â
Letâs take a quick look at the list & get to the ideas right away:
đď¸ Sequoiaâs YouTube Investment Memo
â MAYA products
đą Secular or sacred values
đ Filters for problem solving
đď¸ How to build fast
𧪠Rules of good scienceÂ
đĄ Mind the gaps
âď¸ Beauty of chalk
𧹠Long term art projects
And much more
Letâs go.
1. Sequoiaâs YouTube Investment MemoÂ
This is one of the first âexpertâ commentary on a fledgling business that went on to change the way video content is created & distributed.Â
Sequoiaâs YouTube investment memo is a simple read, and thatâs the beauty of it. It has got less jargon per paragraph than most work project pitch documents Iâve read (or made).Â
Donât look at this one as a template or anything. Itâs just a good example of âsimpleâ business writing. I aspire to build the clarity to be able to write âsimpleâ and still describe an idea whose time is yet to come.
Two Ideas for Building Successful Products
The most advanced yet acceptable products win. Patrick Morgan proposes a level of design that balances novelty & familiarity and is often the reason some products are successful. He uses examples of iPhone, ChatGPT etc to make his point.
MAYA dictates that the ideal design sits between solutions that are completely novel and entirely familiar. Be too novel and customers will tune you out. Be too familiar and customers will look right past you. Or, in Loewyâs words, âThe adult publicâs taste is not necessarily ready to accept the logical solutions to their requirements if the solution implies too vast a departure from what they have been conditioned into accepting as the norm.â
Are you selling the secular or sacred? Chris Paik on why ideas like âmarketplaces for monogamous demandâwherein you want the same provider each time, as with nannies and cleaning servicesâdiscovery apps, etc.or a stock market for peopleâ donât work. He defines two types of value that a user ascribes to a product or service.
Secular - measurable, quantifiable value
Sacred - value or utility where every person has their own highly varied ascribed value and there is no market clearing price.
Any business operates as an atomic value swap, and the nature of swap defines the cause for its success or failure. These are three popular value swaps that successful businesses have built.
A stock market for people / talent does not fit this and thus becomes a difficult to crack proposition. If you are keen to understand how, read the post for Morganâs take.
Three Filters to Think Through Problems
FS Blog picks up some useful advice from Garrett Hardinâs âFilters Against Follyâ. These are Hardinâs three filters that help interpret reality. Or as Shane Parrish puts it, these are three filters needed to think through problems.Â
Hereâre the filters and one liner explanation about them.
1. The Literate Filter: Try to understand what is really being said. What do the words and the labels actually mean?
2. The Numerate Filter: The ability to count, weigh, and compare values in a general or specific way is essential to understanding the claims of experts or assessing any problem rationally.
3. The Ecolacy Filter: Even if we understand what is truly being said and have quantified the effects of a proposed policy or solution, it is imperative that we consider the second layer of effects or beyond.
*Fair warning: This one is not for snacking, park it for when youâve some time to chew it well.
4. How to build fast
Jacob Lagerrosâs âA golden age of buildingâ talks of a time when ambitious projects were done in unimaginable speed. He captures lessons from Empire State, Pentagon, Skunk Works and SpaceX and tries to figure out how it was possible then.
How do you build the world's tallest building in only a year? The world's largest building in the same amount of time? Or America's first fighter jet in just 6 months? Â
This idea incidentally has intrigued Patrick Collison as well. He maintains a list titled fast where he puts together examples of people quickly accomplishing ambitious things together. One quick look at that list and you will know why this topic creates so much curiosity.
This post is filled with stories & details that outline how it was possible. How speed could be made a goal without compromising on quality. These goals are like wishful thinking now, as weâve changed the way teams work & decisions are done. Even the startups in todayâs world suffer from some of these ailments. If you have similar feelings, then give this one a read. You will know whatâs ailing your teams.
*Highly recommended.
Five Rules for Good Science
Spencer Greenberg says âI have a few rules that I aim to use when I run studies. By considering what it looks like when these rules are inverted, they also may help guide you in thinking about which studies are not reliable.â
And here are his five rules for good science (and how they can help you spot bad science) :
(1) Donât use a net with big holes to catch a small fish
(2) Donât use calculus to help you assemble IKEA furnitureÂ
(3) Donât claim you saw a bear if all that happened is you heard a growl in the distance
(4) Finding out youâve backed the wrong horse is better than being a horseâs ass
(5) When you win at poker, remember that youâre in a casino
They mean what they read. Still if you want to know more, the post is super short and does a fairly good job in making his point.
6. Light reads & videos
Some interesting blogs & videos from not so usual topics of interest.
Mind the Gaps. Dinesh Raju on good advice.Â
Words are lossy approximations though. The bandwidth of language is lower than the bandwidth of perception. Sampling with words is like taking a photo with an old camera that can see only a small number of colors.
In Defense of the Rat by J. B. MacKinnon
Rats are better known, of course, as our immediate neighbors in cities, in towns, and on farms. Science defines the ratâs relationship to humans as commensal: an association between two species in which one benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed. The label is awkward, however, since many people feel harmed by the mere existence of rats. When they shuffle and scratch in our walls at night, rats assail our mental health. Some feel physical disgust at the mere sight of ratsâ ball-bearing eyes and maggot-colored tails. As one rat researcher recently put it in an interview with the New York Times, we tend to place rats in a âspecial category of things we donât want to exist.â
The Road Through Britain: Roger W. Smith. A passionate watchmaker, fulfilling his passion in a remote workshop away from everything (via Jason Fried)
The Beauty of Chalk by Roy Peachey
Chalkboards are easier on the eye than whiteboards, and while writing with chalk is slower than with a âsmelly pen,â in this case slower may be better because it allows the reader time to process.
7. Everything else
Some random goodness from the internet:
Ronaan Roy shares 11 best Kolkata Durga pandals from 2023. Each one has a story to tell. He has linked to an Instagram story for more visuals from dozens others. What an experience!
Charles Young creates beautiful tiny homes using paper. Itâs impossible to tell if they are actually real or just pure animation.
Until 3183 A.D., the âTime Pyramidâ is a work in progress. A German town invests in a Long Term Art Project. Some things are beyond the daily hustle of life. Â
That's all for this week, folks! Â
I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.
Please leave a comment or send a message with your feedback. Itâs highly helpful & encouraging. If thatâs too much of an effort (or not required), at least hit the â¤ď¸ at the start or end of the post to show your love.Â
excellent read Pritesh...thanks a lot for bringing us this treasure trove which otherwise is so difficult to get access to...
Great Job done..
Super work. Thanks