One Thing I Learned Each Week – 2018

Last year I did a collection of articles based on one thing I learned each week. Turns out, people liked that so here’s my list for 2018, plus a special section shout out to the three writers that impacted me the most.

There’s no expectation that you read them all, instead; pick and choose. What looks interesting? What’s outside your filter bubble? What can you use as a conversation starter over a whiskey after a meal?

 

Ethics & Psychology in Tech

16 mins – The Truth is Useless: We’ve been told that facts have lost their power, that debunking lies only makes them stronger and that the internet divides us. This article examines the science behind the post-truth world and concludes that we shouldn’t believe any of it.

14 mins – Why Cloudflare Let an Extremist Stronghold Burn: Cloudflare prevents DDOS attacks on websites, but when they choose which websites can access their services and which can’t, they’re effectively filtering the internet. We’ve seen similar discussions happening at Google and FaceBook. It begs the question: is Internet access a “utility” like power and water and therefore should be treated (and regulated) in the same way? Is that even possible?

18 mins – Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet: Andrew Marantz and the New Yorker tackle one of the trending topics for this year, how do you allow people to have open, honest and authentic conversations without limiting free speech? And similar to Cloudflare, who should have the power to police topics and conversations?

12 mins – Who owns a Scientists Mind: a fascinating dive into the history of how businesses have taken control of knowledge and ideas by Physics Today. As jobs transition to more and more “knowledge work” this becomes a bigger issue for the wider economy as businesses try and extend control through non-competes and trade secrets acts while economic research seems to suggest that knowledge mobility (employees being able to take their skills to a new role) benefits society more as a whole. Watch this space!

17 mins – The Follower Factory: A New York Times expose into the black market that traffics in social media followers (primarily bots but also click farmers). Had some really interesting conversations with my data science friends about how this messes up analytics and how bad this could get with improvements in conversational AI.

22 mins – The Psychology of Money: is an insightful inspection of our biases and wants that drive our behaviour towards money. The ‘earned success and deserved failure’ fallacy, cost avoidance, signaling, compounding value, pessimism vs. Optimism,  our inability to forecast and an overweighted sample size of one (our own experience) are all identified, cataloged as well as the antidote. A great read to help understand yourself.

7 mins – Why Rich Kids Are So Good at the Marshmallow Test: and while we’re thinking about psychology and money, some additional insight into the classic Marshmallow test of children’s willpower which was retested (it’s been a great year for scientists retesting previously accepted results). Qualitative sociological research supports the idea that environmental context has as much to do with behaviour as willpower or any other character trait.

9 mins – People Don’t Actually Know Themselves Very Well: self-awareness (or the lack of it) is a fascinating topic and any article that helps uncover the patchwork of biases and shortcuts used to protect our ego is guaranteed a click from me. Adam Grant from the Atlantic does a great job of identifying where those traps are so you can get an external reference point to work from.

7 mins – Thinking of your work self as separate from your home self could lead to unethical decisions: a treatise on the dangers of compartmentalization and while your mileage may vary, understanding the context in which you can potentially fool yourself (or put others in a position to compromise their morals) help you avoid it.

15 mins – Half-Life: The Decay of Knowledge and What to Do About It: an exploration of the time that it takes knowledge to “lose half its effects”. The rate of change for facts varies widely across subjects but we often treat them the same way. e.g.: you learn it in school, then it’s learned, which is generally fine for mathematics but unlikely to be so for psychology or economics. All of which supports the idea that lifelong learning is the best way to minimize the traps here.

40 mins – How to configure your iPhone to work for you: the treatise on taking control back from your phone. No matter what level of life-hacking you operate at, if one of your new year’s resolutions is to have a healthier interaction with your mobile device, this is the most robust and well-researched piece I’ve seen on the topic.

 

Disruption

17 mins – Killing Strategy: The Disruption Of Management Consulting: the team at CB insights dives into an industry that meets all the criteria for disruption. Some interesting questions like “will consulting follow the path of law firms?” Back in the day, the in-house counsel was very much second chair to the big law firms and technology was the enabler for this rebalancing of power.

9 mins – How To Keep Your Job As Your Startup Grows: disrupting work. Steve Blank hits the nail on the head about the different skills and attitudes needed as a start-up grows. Some great guidelines for founders and early employees combined with thoughtful ideas for everyone on how to remain flexible and intellectually curious.

13 mins – Nikon versus Canon: A Story Of Technology Change: while we’re on disruption, this is the best article explaining what’s happened, competition-wise, in the photography world in the 30 years (70’s-2000’s) pre-digitization. There’s plenty written about what happened with Kodak and missing the digital opportunity but this is a great way to establish context and understand the forces that led to this.

12 mins – Beware the lessons of growing up Galapagos: plenty of people were thinking about the “end of the age of scarcity” this year. Eugene Wei has some great reflections on how that’s affecting the entertainment models of Hollywood movies, TV and professional sports. The question you’re left with is: which models aren’t going to survive the shift and will be the ‘opera’ of the next generation (NFL?) and what will replace it (e-sports?)

 

The Economy and Tech

9 mins – You decide Australia’s population, we’ll show you how it looks: an amazing interactive site put together by Inga Ting, Mark Doman, Ri Liu, and Nathan Hoad at the ABC where you can pull the demographic and political levers and see what the impact is on the population. Very cleverly tells the story of how different factors drive the change, how long we can kick the ‘aging population’ can down the road and the likely impact when that’s no longer an option and the role immigration will play in softening it.

8 mins – ~1 trillion of real estate is on the move… here’s why: an amazing article by Phil Levin of 99mph looking at how Autonomous Vehicles are going to impact the real estate market. US-centric but the change will happen everywhere. The implications section highlights some of the systemic risk that the market isn’t thinking about yet.

15 mins – Yes it’s a bubble. So what? Mostly in here because of the quote “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent” but also because there’s some good, practical advice around how to manage your asset exposure for when the next downturn happens. Really interesting when paired with this article on sources of risk in 2019 (Student Debt, Chinese Debt, Brexit/Further exits from the EU).

6 mins – The Economy Is Soaring, And Now So Is The Deficit. That’s A Bad Combination: Evan Horowitz from fivethirtyeight has a great, inward-facing piece on what a growing economy and a growing budget deficit means for the US (fewer levers to pull in the next down-cycle). A shout-out on the side to fivethirtyeight’s Significant Digits, a daily digest of numbers in the news, which is well worth subscribing to!

7 mins – Tariffs Can Work — When They’re Part Of A Plan: despite reading FiveThirtyEight pretty much every day, I’ve tried to avoid including too many of their articles but this one is really handy for understanding where trade tariffs can help. I found this interesting because a lot of what I’ve read up to now has universally decried tariffs as a bad thing (protectionist) and this was a well-reasoned counterpoint.

5 mins – How the U.S. Squandered Its Steel Superiority: suggests that the problems facing US steel don’t stem from unfair trade practices but rather a lack of innovation and re-investment in technology and the eventual disruption within the industry itself. Interesting that the last true “steel baron” in the US was distinctly anti-protectionist.

6 mins – Why doe the US run a trade deficit? To maintain the dollars privileged position: and then there’s the other side of the fiscal policy coin where economists explain why you can’t have a trade surplus and be the worlds reserve currency. Good to reinforce the understanding that national debt is not like household debt.

14 mins – The 8 Major Forces Shaping the Future of the Global Economy: the visual economist has some of the most engaging graphics that thoughtfully present a lot of information while still remaining digestible. Where we are today is not where we will be in 5 years and the information here will help you understand the spectrum of options and maybe select the future you want to see.

7 mins – What Theme Parks Teach Us About Market Segmentation: how theme parks capture surplus value, written in a style that makes you appreciate and commiserate all at once.

 

Lies, Bugs, Scams and Damned Statistics

12 mins – The Great Big Spotify Scam: a deep-dive into how a Bulgarian playlist creator allegedly made a fortune on Spotify over a couple of months in 2017. I’m fascinated by the creativity that goes into something like this. This was pre-IPO and I can only imagine the frantic work that would have been going on to limit the damage before they listed.

11 mins – Bugs Are Coming Soon to Your Dinner Table: in Switzerland, regulators approved insects as a source of protein for humans in 2017 and this year we started to see products available in supermarkets and restaurants. As someone who grew up on a farm, I can appreciate that the consumption footprint we have today cannot meet the needs of the expected population in 2050.

9 mins – How to Steal 50 Million Bees: while we’re on the illegal theme, an awesome investigation into the larcenous activities that go on as beekeepers bring their hives to California each year to pollinate the almond trees there (there’s also one more 20 min read on the dirty games played by Amazon sellers which rounds out the illicit activities section!)

6 mins – Your body wasn’t built to last: a lesson from human mortality rates: a 6-minute read with 25-minutes worth of comments underneath on the probability theory around mortality rates (otherwise known as insurance curves!) A fascinating blend of statistics, physiology and human biases!

18 mins – How to spot a perfect fake: the world’s top art forgery detective: a fascinating insight into the world of high-priced art forgeries. Better than an episode of CSI because there’s so much here to explore. Hat tip Krys Modrewski for sparking my interest in this area. Really interested to see how blockchain is going to impact traceability because of its ability to verify ownership, anonymously.

 

FAANG

9 mins – Tech Platforms and the Knowledge Problem: a lot of the ways we think about distributed and unstructured knowledge are changing in the face of AI and data aggregators. Several of my favorite writers explored the topic of how this changes the definition of monopoly and how the existing anti-trust rules based around “harm to the consumer” tests don’t work anymore because stuff is getting cheaper and better but this misses the systemic cost.

12 mins – How Amazon’s Bottomless Appetite Became Corporate America’s Nightmare: there were a lot of articles on Amazon this year as it contended for the worlds most valuable company. Can easily be extrapolated to what’s happening in China with Ali Baba and Tencent and give some great background context for a lot of the other Amazon articles.

15 mins – The Friendship That Made Google Huge: the New Yorker captures the essence of the professional relationship between Jeff Dean and Sanjay Ghemawat that helped Google build some of the most important features in their products. Got me thinking a lot about pair programming and collaboration and encouraged me to start experimenting again with this to drive outsized results.

20 mins – Inside the Two Years That Shook Facebook—and the World: this is worth it just for the ‘Zuck as Atlas’ graphic but Wired does a great job of summarizing the challenges (internal and external) that Facebook has faced over the last couple of years. The massive psychological toll on employees (and Mark) feels all too familiar after working at (Uber), I found this article timely, relatable and incredibly sad.

6 mins – Instead of courting Amazon, cities should court freelancers: a fascinating exploration of the idea that as the nature of work shifts, there are things that cities can do to attract the mobile, gig economy and the knock-on benefits to the local economy (and the workers). Also not being beholden to a single entity for your region’s economy is a lesson we probably should have learned last century.

 

US, China & the Nature of Work & Wealth

7 mins – Why America is the World’s First Poor Rich Country: one of the themes I spent a lot of time reading about this year was income inequality and its impact on society. Umair Haque explores how the relatively high cost of necessities means that it’s much harder for people to maintain their quality of life on a low income and the shift in who carries the risk, from institutions to people, without a rebalancing of the reward.

5 mins – American Workers are getting Ripped Off: continuing the theme, traditional macroeconomic indicators are great: unemployment is low; openings outnumber people looking for work. But other parts of the labour agreement aren’t working. Wages aren’t keeping pace with inflation and the surplus is going to shareholders and owners. OECD reporting cites the lack of protection for American workers, multi-generational financial disadvantage and lack of government safety net as factors driving some really scary numbers.

13 mins – Why We Should Value ‘Invisible Labor’: last year I posted quite a few articles on universal basic income and I’m continuing to explore the topic because the system we have right now (post-capitalism or whatever you want to call it) is definitely going to need to change as AI and automation reshape how we define work. Reading this makes you feel incredibly lucky to be alive and in the position you are at this time in our journey as a species.

8 mins – Your “Financial Shock” Wealth: explores the idea that being wealthy can be defined as your ability to withstand financial shock (unexpected health issues, car accident etc.) Really important in light of the other two articles because it shows how if people are unable to save up a financial buffer, how skewed the odds are of them ending up financially destitute.

11 mins – Disposable America: the history of capitalism in the US, told from the perspective of a straw (the thing you stick in your drink). A treatise on the nature of the rise of the disposable and how that influenced both companies and the economic system and eventually, the way that people live.

8 mins – The Origins of America’s Unique and Spectacular Cruelty: a brutal finale on the state of US society. The author states that because of what a predatory capitalist society rewards, its people are disincentivized to develop values like gentleness and empathy and in so doing, have lost their ability to be civil.

13 mins – China’s Great Leap Backward: a foreign policy piece on the reforms that led to the unprecedented growth in China and how Xi Jinping is dismantling those in his bid to concentrate his powerbase. An introduction into the mindset that Chinas ruling elite hold and the potential knock-on-effects that the rest of the world should be aware of.

 

Crypto & Blockchain

9 + 9 mins – Two articles from Hackernoon on Crypto: a perspective on the cycle behind the crypto market bust and a fascinating read on how the technology behind crypto is what is valuable, specifically because it enables triple ledger accounting (trustless ledger) which is a game changer.

10 mins/article – A multi-article series (still going) by Viktor Makarskyy looking at how crypto impacts economic theory and social order. Dives into the: history of chaos to order; market vs. Planned economies; pricing and game theory. Start here.

 

Biographies

17 mins – How New Zealand made Edmund Hillary, the man who conquered Everest: I don’t read a lot of biographical pieces but this one on Sir Edmund Hillary is fascinating. Not only Everest but Antartica, filmmaking, engineering, humanitarian and political service contribute to the tale of an introvert who just got on with it. Well written and researched and a nice break from all the economics and politics!

12 mins – The Tragedy of Fritz Haber: The Monster Who Fed The World: the dichotomy of the man responsible for the use of Chlorine gas by Germany in WW1 but also a Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry for the creation of liquid fertilizer. Worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy, the author, Paul Barach, captures the genius and the cruelty of humankind.

 

Millennials

25 mins – In a news cycle that focused on my generation eating too much avocado on toast and traveling while not doing our part for the economy by buying the stuff we’re supposed to (cars, houses!) these were a couple of standout articles. The Atlantic on that very topic as well as millennial voting patterns and impact of disengagement.

14 mins – Style Is an Algorithm: Vox takes a peek into the near future as IoT devices begin to leverage cameras (Amazon Echo Look, Facebook Portal) and how that could impact clothing selection and styling especially as it’s a natural endpoint for advertising (Facebook) and selling (Amazon). Extending existing tools to data-based fashion and algorithmic curation gives an interesting insight into a potential future for fashionistas. Not sure I agree with the homogenization position they take but it’s a reasonable argument to make.

 

My Top Three Thinkers

I read everything they write and half of this list would’ve been their articles if I didn’t pull their stuff out here. If you want engaging ideas combined with amazing writing for a snapshot of a potential future, look no further.

Benedict Evans is a Partner at a venture capital firm called Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). His superpower is synthesizing ideas so that they are understandable and relatable without losing their complexity. His presentation “The End of the Beginning” is the best way you can possibly invest 24 minutes. If you want writing rather than video, check out: his take on Smart Homes and IoT; the steps to autonomous vehicles and; his thoughts on newsfeeds.

Ben Thompson has an amazing website (Stratechery) and podcast (Exponent) where he explores strategy, technology and the competitive marketplace. He constantly tests and expands his pet theory (aggregation theory) and if you’re looking for a place to start, check out: Apple’s Middle Age; Amazon Health; Lessons from Spotify and; Techs two Philosophies.

Tim Urban, author of Wait But Why isn’t as prolific as the other two but his long-form pieces are truly amazing. This year he did an article on how to pick a career (that actually fits you) and that was pretty much it, but that one piece… man… that was worth waiting for. He also did a great podcast with Tim Ferriss. Technically this was 2017 but if you agree to bend the rules on this one then I’ll give you a special offer: if you can make it through without laughing I’ll buy you lunch!

 

If you made it to the bottom, good on you!

Drop me a line and let me know what you liked or didn’t, what you’d already seen, and anything you’ve read that adds to the conversation! Have a great break.