What I Read This Week - 4.28.24
Weekly finds from across the internet.
Hey Everyone,
Happy Sunday, and welcome back for a special post-birthday edition of Weekly Reads. I turned 30 yesterday and, thanks to some incredible (and sneaky) planning from my amazing wife, I was able to celebrate with some of my closest friends. Feeling especially grateful today for my time on this Earth so far and all of the relationships that have brought it to life. Thanks to all of you that have been a part of it.
Before we get into this week’s edition, I wanted to share something I thought might be valuable. With 12 editions now of Weekly Reads, I took the time to put all of the shared clips and commentary up to this point into an easily accessible, filterable Notion database. You can think of this as a place to find aggregated ‘signal’ - if someone were to ask me for the best resources on a specific topic, I would point them to this page.
You can find the link to it here. If you have any thought/comments on this, please let me know!
Now, to this week’s newsletter, featuring:
Why operating from a “copycat league” standpoint in sport misses the point
An important counter to the ever-increasing ‘biohacking’ movement
“Why” Leading to “How” in Crypto
And, as always, more. Enjoy, and see you next week!
- CG
Sports/High Performance
Inside the Mind of David Stearns - ESPN (~17 min)
A great read on one of the more widely respected executives in professional sports. While I’ll leave the commentary on the nuances of organizational philosophy alone, there is a powerful sentiment in here that I personally ascribe to, encapsulated in this quote from Stearns (emphasis mine):
“With all of these things, it’s important to recognize that every situation is unique… We aren’t trying to be the Dodgers. We have to create our own identity, our own organizational way and be elite in a way that is unique to the New York Mets.”
You’ve probably heard the words “copycat league” at some point in the past in reference to the NFL, MLB, NBA, or other professional sports leagues. The phrase stems from a commonality across sports: everyone spends an inordinate amount of time looking around at everyone else, mimicking strategies, styles, and techniques that have bred success. Competitive advantages don’t last long according to this logic - if you find something that works before everyone else, well, congrats. But you best get back to work - others are paying attention and will quickly copy it for themselves.
Generally, this phrase is true and stems from sound logic. Success leaves clues, after all. But there is a dark side to spending too much time looking outward at others, whether in sports or in life: it makes it far too easy to forget who you are in the first place. Follow others, but do so with the recognition that the cost can be yourself.
There is a more effective strategy, which Stearns hits on in the quote. Order of operations matters here: you want to look inward first, so that you can establish what makes you both successful and unique. Only with this foundation in place does it then make sense to start looking externally - borrowing what you find to enhance your processes and principles, pushing the rest to the side.
You can’t ignore the industry completely; that is as good a recipe as any for getting left behind. But too many people and organizations spend time trying to copy those around them. It’s far more effective to lean into being yourself instead.
Found this to be an insightful piece that hit on an often under-discussed aspect of high level sport: the brain and decision making.
Whether to the evaluator or the common fan, it is easy to fawn over raw athletic traits; things like power, speed, or explosiveness. They are the things that jump off the screen at us, the components of sport that we can most easily identify with our eyes. They give us the “wow” factor, causing us to ooh and awe at the hitter that puts a ball 20 rows deep into the seats, or the quarterback that unleashes a 60 yard pass with but a flick of the wrist.
But while these traits are often necessary, that does not mean they are sufficient. We can think of them like a ticket to the dance - you’ll need them to gain admission, but having them alone is no guarantee that you’ll be crowned the belle of the ball. Instead, at the highest levels of sport where the margins are increasingly thin, there is something else that is often the separator: skill.
Skill, unlike athleticism, operates a bit more under the surface. It is a manifestation of an athlete’s hardwiring - their eyes, their brain, their bodies - all working in conjunction. It is an ability to process what the game in front of you requires at that moment, to decide and act according to the task at hand. Skill is harder to see, but that makes it no less important. In chaotic environments - which high level sport provides in spades - it is often how one reacts that demarcates the line between success and failure.
And just like you can get stronger in the gym or faster through sprints, skill at the highest level can be trained. The process to doing so is a a bit finer, and requires some more unorthodox measures. But the logic is quite simple: the more chaotic we make the environment in practice, the easier we make it for the athlete to respond to the challenges of the game. By incorporating various stimuli into training that force the brain and body to work together, we can take raw athleticism and work to smooth out its edges.
So, some simple advice for anyone working with athletes: Train the bodies. But don’t neglect the brain.
Health/Fitness
Why Biohacking Sends the Wrong Messages - Peter Attia (~7 min)
A great video from Dr. Peter Attia, whose work in the longevity space I highly respect, that hits on an important topic: the shortcomings of biohacking.
I see this as especially relevant considering the current landscape of health and fitness content, with the proliferation of people on the internet claiming to provide a golden supplement or protocol to both enhance and extend your life.
I share Peter’s perspective that biohacking is a trap. Truth be told, there is no shortcut to health and longevity. Rather than searching for the perfect supplement or training regimen, you are much better off mastering the basics: eat well, sleep well, train well. Do these three things at a high level, each in conjunction with the others, and the ROI will drastically outpace any single ‘miracle’ drug you could ever find.
The best part? The highest leverage actions are virtually zero cost. It takes a very limited amount of money to consume nutritious foods, get 8 hours of quality sleep, and find ways to enhance your fitness. Don’t fall into the trap thinking you need to spend an exorbitant amount of your hard earned dollars to move the needle. The things that matter are more likely than not free.
I’ll leave off with a quote I came across recently that I think puts the final nail of the coffin of biohacking: you can’t out-science hard f***ing training (hat tip to Layne Norton for this blunt truth).
The Future (AI, Tech, etc.)
The Robotics Renaissance - The Generalist (~10 min)
Thought this was an insightful read on a slightly different topic than I’ve shared here in the past: physical robotics. In it, Mario lays out the case that while AI is captivating the mindshare of the tech space currently, we shouldn’t discount the coming impact that physical machines will have on every aspect of daily life. Major progress has been made in the robotics space of late, with companies such as Tesla, Amazon, Google and others investing a substantial amount of human and financial capital to bring functional products to market.
While I appreciated the commentary at large, there was one point that stuck out to towards the end. Mario argues that as a result of VC money and hype cycles, it is likely robotics turns into somewhat of a ‘bubble’. Irrational investments and poor decisions will almost certainly be made. But the important piece is that regardless of whether said bubble ‘pops’, it is still likely to be productive. While many companies in the space will fall and rise, the ones that persist will usher in some of the most valuable technologies for our future.
I think this speaks to a broader principle underlying the arc of innovation, one we’ve seen at play in sectors such as crypto and AI already. Optimism in a technology tends to bring attention along with it as people sense opportunity. And where people see opportunity, money closely follows.
Both the attention and money are critically important for innovation - the presence of both increases the likelihood that a future altering technology will come to fruition. The more money and attention on a space, the more builders will flock to it. And while it is the building that ultimately matters most, the conditions that give rise to it are a critical component of the equation.
Crypto As Culture / Crypto as Tech (”Why” vs. “How”) - Jesse Walden (~2 min)
A good, short framing of crypto along two avenues by Jesse Walden of Variant Fund: crypto as culture (the ‘why’) vs. crypto as tech (the ‘how’).
In it, he argues that crypto as a technology will ultimately feel invisible as it becomes baked into the backend of products and services we use daily. Soon it will be the ‘how’ behind things that work. I tend to agree, as I see similarities between crypto’s arc and the evolution of the internet during the late 1990s.
As the Internet grew, a proliferation of self-described “Internet companies” followed - companies that significantly leveraged the web as their main platform for their services, products, or business models. Over time, this moniker disappeared as virtually every company came to rely on the Internet. No one today describes themselves as an “Internet company” - doing so would be like a Golden Retriever using the word “dog” to describe itself. Duh, we know.
In a similar fashion, I expect the term “crypto company” will fade out of style as it becomes engrained into the backbone of more and more services. If everyone is a crypto company, then no-one is a crypto company (side note: the same is likely to happen with AI as LLMs become plugged into the fabric of pre-existing products).
But where I find Jesse’s take to be most insightful is the path he provides for how we get there: crypto as culture. The ‘how’ will only come as a function of the ‘why’, he argues - it starts with having enough convicted builders to make the technology work in the first place. The specific reason for participation carries less significance than the fact that one exists - libertarians, cyperphunks, technologists, and traders are all in crypto for different ‘whys’. But they are all here, and that is the thing that matters most.
The why leads to the how. One is here already, and the other is coming soon as a result.
Personal Growth
7 Questions that Improved My Life - Sahil Bloom (~ 8 min)
One of my favorite quotes comes from the end of Tim Ferriss’s book Tools of Titans:
If you want better answers, ask better questions.
Ever since reading it, I’ve been on the lookout for insightful questions that can help me think about the world more effectively. This piece from Sahil provides a great starting list, derived from his personal experiences. Two of my favorites:
If someone observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are?
This one has some parallels to a quote from the stoic philosopher Epictetus, which happens to be the background of my phone: “Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody It.”
The point is one with which we are familiar: actions speak louder than words. But oftentimes, it is difficult to zoom out and see what our actions are saying; we are all the main character in our own plays, and with that comes challenges of perspective. This question is a helpful antidote: asking it takes us out of the staring role and puts us into the shoes of others more easily. Clarity increases as a result.
Am I allowing more information to get in the way of more action?
This one resonated with me because it hits at what the core of this newsletter means for me: a shift from consumption to production, from inaction to action. As Sahil mentions, increased information comes with a silent downside: it makes us more likely to get stuck in consumption mode. We sit in idle adding gas to the tank, rather than putting the car in motion. Information is but a means to an end - don’t fall into the trap of letting it become the goal itself.
Note: I’ve written more deeply on this concept in my pieces Philosophy of Focus and Focus in Practice.
Mental Models/Principles
High Capacity People - Kpaxs (~2 min)
I was drawn to the concept of ‘High Capacity People’ in Kpaxs most recent newsletter. The crux of the model is this: people possess varying degrees of ‘Capacity’ - the ability to consciously make things happen around them.
I find this especially insightful on two levels. First, from a personal standpoint - ‘High Capacity’ is something we should strive for and work towards. In my mind, this is what the pursuit of knowledge and skills helps us acquire: the ability to get things done. The more things we add to our toolbox, the higher our capacity becomes. And the more we are able to bend the world to our will.
Secondly, I see clear implications from a hiring perspective. ‘High Capacity People’ often form the bedrock of successful organizations. They solve problems that materialize out of nowhere, can put together novel connections for results, and generally operate better in high stakes environments. They are also incredibly fun to manage, if only for the reason that they are incredibly easy to manage. Simply give them a problem, get out of their way, and let them solve it.
To summarize: more capacity = more results. Build your own and bring others into the fold that have it in spades.