P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #335

my story 🚀

We’re not waiting until it’s too late to renew Petra’s passport!

i’ve been thinking 💭

fun facts 🙌

Zoom’s CEO complains you can’t get anything done on Zoom. "We cannot have a great conversation. We cannot debate each other well because everyone tends to be very friendly when you join a Zoom call." ~ learn more

Routinely greeting six neighbors maximizes wellbeing outcomes. “Americans’ wellbeing score increases steadily by the number of neighbors greeted, from 51.5 among those saying hello to zero neighbors to 64.1 for those greeting six neighbors.” ~ learn more

oh, chicago 🏆

Peeved Chicago diners create spreadsheet tracking restaurant service fees. “The Chicago spreadsheet itself is a growing mess of more than 100 restaurants with tallying fees between 2.5 percent and 25 percent.” ~ learn more

tech, startups, internet ⚡

Interview with internet stud who acts like a value investor. I’m thrilled to have heard this interview with Syed Balkhi. He’s been making money on the internet since his childhood, and reading between the lines he had a strong start during the heyday of affiliate marketing’s sketchiest era. His business portfolio now does more than $100 million in annual revenue in a more acceptable manner. He answers all questions through a consistent value investing lens, applying principals from Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger, and Mohnish Pabrai (who I learned of this year). ~ learn more

Tech is a fashion industry. “In the fashion industry, you can’t make something that is really ugly and stupid into something popular. But from all the possible things that could be popular, you can influence what gets to the top.” ~ learn more

better doing 🎯

Squeeze the hell out of the system you have. Systems have scale limitations. Sometimes you just need to upgrade to the next level of system to handle the next level of scale. That upgrade comes at a price, both up-front and forever. So before taking the plunge, do try to kick the can down the road as much as possible. “When complexity leaps are on the table, there’s usually also an opportunity to squeeze some extra juice out of the system you have. By tweaking the workload, tuning performance, or supplementing the system in some way, you may be able to add months or even years of runway.” ~ learn more

How to communicate when trust is low. This is written in a co-founder context, yet broadly applicable. Will revisit the next time I find myself in a low-trust relationship. There’s tons of valuable reminders in here. “The way trust gets rebuilt is by ✨small, positive interactions✨. If you’re in a trust hole, you can’t hear them clearly, and they can’t hear you (or your intent) clearly. So you have to bend over backwards to overcommunicate and overcompensate.” ~ learn more

retail therapy 💸

Texas influenced an entire generation with one campaign. I did not know the background of the phrase “don’t mess with Texas” until reading this. What great marketing. It was invented to solve the problem of littering on Texas highways by “Bubba’s in pickup trucks.” ~ learn more

under the microscope 🔬

Routine vaccines reduce Alzheimer’s risk by up to 30% in over 65s. “Controlling for some sociodemographic and comorbid conditions, they found that there were significant decreases in AD for patients 65 and older who’d received a Tdap/Td vaccination (30% lower risk), an HZ vaccination (25%) or a pneumococcal vaccination (27%) versus unvaccinated groups.” ~ learn more

Photomechanical materials are designed to transform light directly into mechanical force. “They found that when the crystals changed shape with a load attached, they acted like an actuator and moved the load. The 0.02-mg crystal array was able to lift a 20-mg nylon ball – that’s 1,000 times its own mass.” ~ learn more

LK-99 isn’t a superconductor. “Efforts to replicate the material have pieced together the puzzle of why it displayed superconducting-like behaviours.” ~ learn more

teaching the kids 👩‍🏫

For many home-schoolers, parents are no longer doing the teaching. The Washington Post covers Prenda and the rise of microschools. “Her program is part of a company called Prenda, which last year served about 2,000 students across several states. It connects home-school families with microschool leaders who host students, often in their homes. It’s like Airbnb for education, says Prenda’s CEO, because its website allows customers — in this case, parents — to enter their criteria, search and make a match.” ~ learn more

on the blockchain ⛓

Next crypto pile-in is happening. “Friend.tech, which lets X (formerly Twitter) personalities issue shares on its app for access to a closed group chat, has made over $1.04 million in fees, set at 5% of the value of each transaction over the past 24 hours.” ~ learn more

thanks for reading!