What I Read This Week - 2.18.24
Weekly finds from across the internet.
Hi Everyone,
Back for round two this week with some finds from sports, AI, business, and more. Also, in the spirit of Valentine’s Week, I’m including this piece from Polina Pompliano at the Profile. A throwback from 2020, it pulls out common themes she gathered when asking her readers for what they’ve learned about successful relationships. Highly recommend - I’ve read it a couple of years in a row around this time as a reminder and hope you’ll find it valuable as well.
That said, lets get to it!
Sports/High Performance
How Erling Haaland’s ‘Incedible Physique Has Powered Him to the Very Top - The Athletic (~10 min)
It’s a personal conviction that we do not properly appreciate the rate of athletic development that has occurred in sport over the last 10-15 years. We can debate technique, strategy, and style of play all we want - but the one thing that is definitive is that athletes at every level are bigger/faster/stronger than at any other point in human history. This article is a great highlight of what this looks like for one of the world’s top soccer players - Erling Haaland. I mean, just look at this. Great example of what combining A+ talent with A+ discipline and attention to detail gets you.
On this topic, I’ve always been fascinated with what the peaks of human performance can look like when paired with science. Recent advancements in technology are continuing to push sports forwards in areas such as biomechanics, nutrition, sleep/recovery, and much more. Supplementation/doping has always been a tricky topic, and rightfully so - how do you create a level playing field when only a few have access or are willing? Well, famed investor Peter Thiel is putting together a new sports contest to find out. There are some major investors behind this league with some serious scientific & technological chops. I’m looking forward to seeing what responsible, ethical science can do to bring the best out of the human body.
Storytelling
Your Ignorance is My Opportunity - David Perell (~<1 min)
A quick snippet from David extending Jeff Bezos’s famous quote ‘Your margin is my opportunity’ to writing. Helpful framework for carving out an advantage in a competitive world.
New Technologies (Crypto, AI, etc.)
The Era of Abstractions & New Creative Tensions - Scott Belsky (~10 min)
A thought provoking read on the implications of LLMs (large language models) and the role they will play as abstraction devices in the future. Scott argues that one of the great superpowers of AI tools arises out of their abilities to summarize, meaning we will go to the primary sources of information less and less. While this has the potential to put sources that thrive on ‘bias’ under siege, it will also mean rising tensions on authenticity of information as well as creativity.
Mental Models/ Frameworks
Technical Surfing, Looking Glass Phenomenon & High Performance Doctrine - Kpaxs (<3 min)
Kpaxs writes an excellent weekly newsletter that highlights various mental models from a wide variety of sources and domains. Especially liked the concept of ‘Technical Surfing’ from this one, which discusses how one can create advantage over others with similar skills and intelligence by staying abreast of emerging technologies as their demand builds to a crest.
Business
The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2023 - First Round (~35 min)
A guest piece on Forbes from famed venture capital firm First Round, in which they interviewed their best portfolio companies for advice. Jam packed with outstanding insight for any professional - entrepreneurs, managers, CEOs and the like. A couple of my favorites:
Set Goals by Trying to Tell a Story - Resist the urge to drill down into KPIs and hard numbers when it comes to what the finish line looks like. Instead, craft a story with a big picture narrative broken into ‘chapters’ that, once finished, pull the whole thing together.
Opinions Come at a Cost - Spend Wisely - Strong opinions as a manager can often come at the cost of empowering those that you lead. Before you give your opinion, ask yourself “Am I right or do I just have an opinion?”.