What I Read This Week - 5.26.24
Weekly finds from across the internet.
Good Morning Everyone!
And Happy Memorial Day Weekend. I hope you all are having a fantastic time with friends and family and finding opportunities to enjoy the long weekend. My family and I are doing just that, as we are out in Pebble Beach, CA for a delayed birthday celebration for my father and I. It’s a bucket list trip for the both of us, and I will report back next week on whether or not I skulled a wedge into the ocean on Number 7.
So in the interest of time, let’s get into the newsletter. This week, finds featuring:
Lessons from Jerry Seinfeld’s pursuit of mastery
What fish oil research can tell us about the traps of headlines
Technology as a cumulative concept and
What a big legal week for crypto tells us about the industry going ‘political’
As always, hope you all enjoy! See you next week.
- CG
Sports/High Performance
Jerry Seinfeld, Ichiro Suzuki, and the Pursuit of Mastery - Trung Phan (~20 min)
This was a fascinating breakdown on the concept of mastery and the commonalities that underly it across various domains. I found the inspiration for the piece especially interesting, as Trung looks through the eyes of Jerry Seinfeld in an attempt to understand his the comedian’s life journey.
In recent years, Seinfeld has shared a great deal about the intricacies of his creative process. And while a number of themes stand out (practice and repetition, namely), it is the continual pursuit of mastery that seems to drive Seinfeld more than anything else. Because for him, mastery is is not just a concept - it is a calling. It is something he believes we should all strive for, as we can see in this response to a interview questions from The New Yorker:
David Remnick: It is possible that you've probably made a dollar or two from Seinfeld, and yet you still work so hard. Why?
Jerry Seinfeld: Because the only thing in life that's really worth having is good skill. Good skill is the greatest possession. The things that money buys are fine. They're good. I like them. But having a skill [is the most important thing].
I very much like this perspective that one of life’s goals is to maximize our abilities, as if it is a responsibility for each of us to find a skill that we can hone in pursuit of mastery. It’s a powerful thought - one that gives a challenge for each of us to rise to.
But what does that process look like? According to Trung, there are a few core concepts to keep in mind when it comes to mastery:
Anyone Can Pursue It
It Is a Lifelong Journey of Plateaus and Progress
The Path Requires a Child-like Mindset
Practice is a Requisite for Achieving It
Lastly, he wraps up with four commonalities found in masters of their craft that were originally shared in a 1987 article of Esquire (which supposedly served as inspiration for Seinfeld himself):
Enthusiasm - Masters of their craft are shamelessly enthusiastic about their calling.
Generosity - When it comes to their own pursuits of excellence, masters have an endless ability to give everything and hold nothing back.
Zonshin - A Japanese concept that roughly translates to ‘unbroken concentration’. Masters seem always be in ‘on’ mode when it comes to performing their craft.
Playfulness - They are willing to take chances and play the fool.
There is much more to be said on this concept, but I’d encourage you to give this piece a more in depth read. And for those interested in diving into the concept further, I’d highly recommend checking out the books Mastery (by Robert Greene) and Peak (by Anders Ericsson).
Health/Fitness
Does Fish Oil Cause Cardiac Arrhythmia in High-Risk Individuals? - Peter Attia (~6 min)
Fish Oil has become a hot topic of late as the debate over different types of oils and fats has grown to a crescendo. A new study published this week in the BMJ Journal of Medicine added further fuel to the fire, suggesting that regular fish oil supplementation use might boost first time heart disease and stroke risk. Per usual, the internet took a headline and ran much too far, much too quickly.
Back in 2021, Peter Attia shared some of his own thoughts on the matter that he resurfaced this week in his newsletter. His take is significantly more measured, leaving room for nuance on both sides of the equation:
An association between supplemental [Fish Oil] and increased risk of AFib seems likely to exists, but perhaps only for those already at significant risk for cardiovascular events… Pending further insight, all patients who are advised to take supplemental or prescription [Fish Oil] products should also be advised of the potential risks, and caution is warranted particularly for those with a predisposition to AFib.
Considering that a wide variety of research has shown Omega3s to be beneficial on a number of avenues such as cardiovascular health, neurodegenerative diseases, and age-related decline, it is worth squaring new evidence up against the old. Like most things, it is likely that there is a balance of risks and rewards to be managed here.
Yet another good reminder that headlines tell the ‘news’ but often miss the story.
Storytelling
Jeff Bezos on Writing Well - @nurijanian (~2 min)
I’ve long been fascinated with Amazon’s culture as a ‘writing company’, and have been fortunate enough to get a behind the scenes look from my wife’s work there over the last few years. While it may be a stretch to say that every company should take a cue from Amazon, I do think it’s worth considering how little most businesses focus on the role of communication in the workplace - and the ways in which they can use writing specifically to level up.
This was a great short synopsis of some of Amazon’s highest leverage writing principles. A couple of my favorites:
Avoid jargon and acronyms as they exclude non-experts and newcomers
Weasel words are vague and create the impressed of meaning. Don’t use them!
Replace adjectives with data.
The Future (AI, Tech, etc.)
Better Tools, Bigger Companies - Packy McCormick, Not Boring (~20 min)
This was one of the better pieces I have read on how technology shapes the future - period. The gist from Packy: technologies are cumulative. As he writes:
As technologists develop and improve new technologies, they contribute them to a global toolkit that entrepreneurs can pull from to tackle ever-grander challenges. The more and better tools, the bigger and harder challenges builders can address with them.
You have likely read this perspective in this newsletter before: we stand on the shoulders of giants. The future is built from the past, such that each innovation we see today is enabled only by the thousands that came before it. One leads to the next as if we are building a ‘ladder of innovation’ - we can only get to the highest rungs if the lowest ones are already in place. This graphic from Packy sums up the concept perfectly:
But why is this important?
Well, it means that even if you believe strongly in a future made better by technology, it is likely that you are drastically underestimating what that future will look like.
Technology already compounds at a rate that is difficult for us to comprehend. And that pace is only accelerating up. Time has granted us an embarrassment of riches - of technologies - with which to build. And as our world becomes increasingly more digital, our ability to search for the right building blocks and figure out how to combine them to solve the problems of the world is only becoming easier.
With each day, our toolset with which to solve problems is becoming more well supplied.
So bet on those building the future - if only because we know what it is they will be able to work with.
Ethereum ETF Approved - Decrypt (~3 min)
It was an enormous week in the crypto space, with multiple highly surprising policy wins coming in the span of a mere 2-3 days.
First, the House voted in favor of passing a The Financial Innovation and Technology for the 21st Century Act, which seeks to establish a clear regulatory framework for utilizing and building with crypto technologies in America. This is a big step forward in establishing the United States as a leader in the crypto industry - with a bill that provides both clear rules and positive incentives for builders. Doing so makes it increasingly likely that the US will be viewed as a safe haven for technological innovation - something that has been a national calling card for many decades and was at risk of slipping away with a heavily anti-crypto stance.
Adding fuel to the fire, the SEC made a big flip on Thursday when they approved the first spot Ethereum ETFs for trading. As recently as Tuesday, prediction markets were showing an 85% rejection probability - so what changed?
While hard to fully know, I think something is happening behind the scenes: crypto is becoming political. There is a growing rallying cry in the crypto space for taking a ‘single-issue’ stance in the upcoming election, and supporting the candidate(s) that promise to create the most promising future in America. And with nearly 50 million people in the US owning crypto-assets, politicians are starting to recognize that taking a pro-crypto stance is a potentially high-leverage opportunity to capture votes.
While I have no idea how this will turn out, I am certainly intrigued for what the election cycle will do for the industry as a whole. If ‘all press is good press’, then this should be a fun and fascinating ride.