P.S. You Should Know... | Issue #450
Not all playgrounds have monkey bars
my story 🚀
🛝 We’ve been in a ‘monkey bars’ stage of development the past few weeks. In fact, we now rule out several playgrounds from our candidate pool because they lack this very important equipment. I remain ever-grateful for the lovely weather in Austin this time of year!
fun facts 🙌
Thank you Los Angeles for the sport of Sperm Racing? You can go straight to the event video. Or check out the site. ~ learn more
Barefoot running’s wild ride. “The ‘Great Barefoot Running Hysteria of 2010’ took the amateur running world by storm.” Propelled by bold claims of injury prevention and performance boosts, the trend reshaped both running cultures and shoe designs. ~ learn more
Parallel Parking Championship. “It’s weird, kind of stupid, and everyone ends up having a really good time,” says Dan Leber, founder of the Pittsburgh Parallel Parking Championship. This quirky contest blends sport and silliness, attracting skilled drivers and spectators to celebrate the art of parking. ~ learn more
oh, chicago 🏆
The ultimate list of Chicago consumer startups. The list of over 500 companies was assembled by Jaime Yoon of Chicago’s Listen Ventures. ~ learn more
tech, startups, internet ⚡
How I use every Claude Code feature. This post by Shrivu Shankar has tons of advice that I consider quite specific and practical. “Having stuck to Claude Code for the last few months, this post is my set of reflections on Claude Code’s entire ecosystem. We’ll cover nearly every feature I use (and, just as importantly, the ones I don’t), from the foundational CLAUDE.md file and custom slash commands to the powerful world of Subagents, Hooks, and GitHub Actions.” ~ learn more
AI image generation showdown. “We ran over 600 image generations to compare Al models.” LateNiteSoft shares their extensive evaluation of AI-generated image quality using three models: OpenAI, Gemini, and Seedream. Each model shines in different scenarios, from realistic edits to creative style transfers. ~ learn more
Arbitrage windows in VC selection. “Such windows are brief periods wherein venture capitalists can exploit discrepancies in valuations.” ~ learn more
better doing 🎯
Threat of reference check. “When you use the TORC technique, you inform candidates before even speaking to them that a final step in hiring is for them to arrange reference calls with the managers they have reported to.” By ensuring candidates arrange their own reference calls, it filters out underperformers and confirms the authenticity of their credentials. ~ learn more
Already they are men. “Children are overbearing, supercilious, passionate, envious, inquisitive, egotistical,” noted French satirist Jean de La Bruyère in the 1600s. Before critiquing the selfishness of children, it’s a chance to reflect on our adult selves. ~ learn more
Meet the worst programmer. “Tim’s score was consistently zero. Zero! Not just low, or trending downwards, but literally zero.” Despite these metrics, Tim excelled at elevating the entire team’s productivity through collaboration and mentoring. ~ learn more
retail therapy 💸
They’re not hiding this turnaround. From Christian Friedland, cofounder of Build.com, who once shared the small town of Chico, CA with this company: “[Lulu’s Fashion Lounge (NASDAQ: LVLU)] is trading at 0.046x sales ($14.4M market cap on $316M revenue) - a 92% discount to comparable retailers.” He lays out his case for buying the stock of this fashion retailer that’s executing a public market operational turnaround, protected by tangible assets, with a potential upside of 3-5x if successful. (his assessment, not mine). ~ learn more
under the microscope 🔬
The magic of moiré quantum matter. Though this subject matter is dense and was frankly intimidating to me, this video by Pablo Jarillo-Herrero is a fantastic introduction to “strongly-correlated quantum matter [that] has challenged physicists for decades.” ~ learn more
teaching the kids 👩🏫
Negative press for Alpha School. I’m intrigued by this school’s approach to education, which uses AI to instruct and test students individually at their specific level of mastery in any given subject. Someone sent me this WIRED article to temper my excitement, but they hadn’t read beyond the headline and lede. After reading the whole thing, I mostly discount the author’s implications about the school. Still, worth reading to hear all points of view. ~ learn more
big ideas 📚
The scale of China’s renewables. “The 22m tonnes of steel used to build new wind turbines and solar panels in 2024 would have been enough to build a Golden Gate Bridge on every working day of every week that year.” This massive expansion signals China’s commitment to clean energy. ~ learn more
The story about Tim, the 'worst programmer' with zero productivity metrics but tremendous team impact, really resonates. It's a perfect reminder that traditional measurments often miss the intangible value of mentorship and collaboration. Also fascinated by the scale of China's renewables buildout - a Golden Gate Bridge worth of steel every day is mind boggling.