📚 Monetizable truths, AgeTech, Empowering agents, Strong opinions, weakly held

How to Walk and Talk + more interesting finds from across the internet

Hi and welcome to the post #142. 

I binge watched Sapne Vs Everyone this weekend. It’s a 5 episode drama series and has its plot based in Gurgaon. For those interested to watch, it is available on Youtube. Here’s what the IMDB description reads - “Two obsessive dreamers collide with the resistance of expectations, morality and each other.” And it tells their story amagingly well. There is so much I loved about it.

1. Great acting. Most actors seem to be fresh faces (or at least no big names from bollywood), and have done a fantastic job making the character come alive. 

2. There is a ‘Gulaal’ feel to the storyline, the actors and the treatment (rap songs here vs poetic narrative in Gulaal).

3. It’s from TVF. They have made big bold moves this last year with the kind of format & genre they are entering. It’s so great to see them reinventing themselves and doing it so well. I am rooting for this team.

If you’re up for watching a good drama from India, give this one a shot.

I’m super excited about sharing today’s ideas. From a novel method to have intimate group conversations to some suggestions of next big bold challenges to work on - I’ve something for every mood. I hope you like them as much as I loved curating this one.

And finally, before we jump in, one quick request. 🙏

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✒️ Economics of news & Monetizable truths 

FF Daily newsletter starts with insightful bits from books & other sources to comment on a topic of current relevance. I read this newsletter for this section and have found some great gems every now and then.

Here’re a couple of good opening acts from recent editions.

1. Economics of news 

“An important aspect of the new media derives from the fundamental economics of information in the new age: collecting information remains costly, but dissemination is costless. In the old days, it was possible to finance information collection by bundling news with advertising or by state subsidy of some kind, as with the BBC and similar entities. But the new technologies have unbundled news gathering from advertising, with the ads shifting to the technology platforms, which take little responsibility for verifying the information they publish. In the US, “digital ad revenue has grown exponentially, but a majority goes to Facebook and Google rather than to publishers.” Thus, half of all display advertising revenue in 2018 went to Facebook (40 percent) and Google (12 percent). Meanwhile, advertising revenue of newspapers has continued to fall. The result is a collapse “of the economics of news gathering.”

2. Where to find monetizable truths 

“The newest technical papers and the oldest books are the best sources of arbitrage. They contain the least popular facts and the most monetizable truths. What do you know to be true that others cannot or will not bring themselves to admit? There is your competitive advantage.”

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🧓 AgeTech Idea Graveyard

Sameer Dhar’s “Eldercare idea graveyard” is a treasure trove of insights for someone interested in the Eldercare / AgeTech space. Sameer has invalidated 15th ideas in this space. The document captures the things he explored and lessons he collected. Here’re a bunch of ideas that are covered here:

• Scaling daycares together with retirement homes

• “Mom in a box” - pairing international students with concierge “moms” to help them get settled in a new location and provide ongoing support

• Concierge service for seniors

• Job marketplace for seniors

• Virtual book+ club platform 

Thanks

Ben Yoskovitz

for collating this and sharing it. 

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⚡ How to take bigger, bolder bets

Noah Desai Weiss shares his approach of building a culture in Slack that encourages taking bigger, bolder product bets.  

Two things that stand out for me. 

Hot Take #1: You can’t experiment your way out of every product problem

Hot Take #2: Focus on your own hand, not the whole card table 

Both are difficult to follow, but worth trying out.

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🤼 Empowering Agents

Gautam Shewakramani’s “Empowering agents” shares an interesting idea. Framework or catchphrases aside, it focuses on the principal agent interactions and how this is driving many business practices (resulting in issues or opportunities as you see it) in India.

Here’s the core idea - technology companies that empower these agents, or better still turn these agents into principals will be the next generation of large technology companies being built in India.

Thanks

Sajith Pai

for surfacing this one.

I would like to explore more & expand on this idea. If you are interested, let’s connect.

This post also led to another discovery and I am glad I clicked it. That’s the next find.

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☑️ Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

Paul Saffo described what we know as “Strong opinions, weakly held” in the following manner.

“I have found that the fastest way to an effective forecast is often through a sequence of lousy forecasts. Instead of withholding judgment until an exhaustive search for data is complete, I will force myself to make a tentative forecast based on the information available, and then systematically tear it apart, using the insights gained to guide my search for further indicators and information. Iterate the process a few times, and it is surprising how quickly one can get to a useful forecast.”

He insisted on forming a “strong opinion” quickly. The operating word is quickly. So that it gives you time to actively seek contradiction in your thinking to arrive at a better solution. 

Here’s one trick for doing the difficult thing - “weakly held”.

Now comes the “weakly held” part. You want to actively prove yourself wrong by seeking disconfirming evidence. Surround yourself with people who will dare to disagree with you, who will surface this disconfirming evidence and challenge your thinking. This will enable you to pressure test your thinking and continue iterating your hypothesis.

Finally, there is a suggestion of “having an on-demand decision”

One other reason why this approach is helpful is that after you form your “strong opinion,” you always have a working decision that you can fall back on at any point in time. You may try to gather additional data as part of “weakly held,” but based on the data that you have already reviewed at that point in time, your current hypothesis is your current decision. In other words, you have an “on-demand” decision ready whenever you are forced into making it. This decision is your current thinking based on the Strong Opinions, Weakly held approach.

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🚶 How to Walk and Talk

A walk-and-talk is a moveable salon. A small group of people walk together for a week, having casual conversations side-by-side during most of the day. In the evening the group sits down to an intense hours-long discussion centered on a daily chosen topic by those present. A moderator keeps the conversation on that day’s single topic to sharpen it and make it memorable.

Kevin Kelly & Craig Mod host these walk-and-talk trips regularly and have documented their howto in this beautiful document. 

There is something charming and exciting about what they have described. I would love to do this one day - my own version possibly.

I loved this document for the structure & clarity it has. I was hooked, felt the energy and passion of the people behind it. Loved it!

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🇯🇵 Tokyo Diaries

In “Impressions from a longer stay in Tokyo,” Ben Casnocha combines Pico Iyer’s magical world with his astute observations to describe his time in Tokyo. Brilliant post, takes you all the way to Japan in so few words!

It turns out that the Japanese have figured out ways to smooth the jagged edges of modern living. Yes, there’s a dark side to smoothing out the edges in a question for perfection. Here’s Pico Iyer: “Perfection, in fact, is part of what makes Japan wonderfully welcoming to foreigners, and unyieldingly inhospitable, deep down.” But all visitors and most long-term visitors never get “deep down” — they just enjoy the wonderful surface. They exist in the mid-depth warm bath of perfection.

(via @nikhiljoisr on X)

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✨ Everything else

1. If you’re up for listening to something novel, try “20 Acts in 60 Minutes” by This American Life. I picked it up for the format - 20 short stories narrated in just 60 minutes. The stories made it super enjoyable. It’s a curation of surprises, I loved it. By the way, the last two stories are the best of the lot!

2. Greg Olijnyk is a cardboard artist and creates extremely detailed small things. His mechanical insects and robots are really amazing. (via Colossal)

3. Nikola Faller is a sculptor and ‘land artist’ who uses natural surfaces as his canvas and creates super detailed & geometrically precise art using natural materials. His work is sheer beauty. (via Dense Discovery) 

4. Andrew Scott is a Frame Experimenter and you may have seen some of his work in some recent viral threads & reels. Check out his feed for a lot more cool examples of art that feels real. (via Dense Discovery)

That's all for this week, folks! 

I hope I've earned the privilege of your time.

Please leave a comment or send a message with your feedback. It’s highly helpful & encouraging. If that’s too much of an effort (or not required), at least hit the ❤️ at the start or end of the post to show your love. 

Pritesh