Dickie's Digest #20
Shopify, WannaCry, Real Estate, and Album-Dropping Animals
Hey there 👋🏻👋🏻
Happy Sunday! Back-to-back 70 degree days in NYC this week for the first time since October. The city is finally starting to open back up a bit and most businesses are onto some creative ideas. Nearly every restaurant is serving cocktails and food right from their windows and “socially distant” happy hours are taking place right on the sidewalk — like a mini New Orleans. With lockdown orders extended another month, who knows what they’ll come up with next.
If you’re reading the Digest every week, I would love to hear your thoughts on it. What are your favorite parts? What could be done to make it more readable? Does anyone even read the intro? As always, you can respond directly to this email to get in touch.
Have an epic week!
Dickie
Things I Enjoyed This Week—
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke on Invest Like the Best — This podcast explores the mind of Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, a technology leader whose insights I am seeking more and more often. The conversation touches on how COVID-19 is accelerating eCommerce, using personality tests in the workplace, how Tobi practices stoicism, and the concept of raising your “ground state” which I ponder in this tweet thread. Any CEO with a stock chart that looks like this is worth paying attention to. Full show notes found here.
The Confessions of Marcus Hutchins, the Hacker Who Saved the Internet — A thrilling long-form profile on Marcus Hutchins, the 23-year-old hacker who stopped the infamous WannaCry Ransomware Attack. Stopping the attack turned him into a global celebrity. Edward Snowden congratulated him, the New York Daily News put him on the cover, and strangers accosted him for selfies. And then, the FBI arrested him. This is the untold story of how he went from an international hero to a convict looking at 10 years in prison.
Manhattan Faces a Reckoning if Working From Home Becomes the Norm — Late March saw companies scrambling together the infrastructure to allow their employees to work from home. Now they’re wondering if they ever need to bring them back. Companies such as Barclays, JP Morgan, and Morgan Stanley rent more than 10 million square feet of office space in NYC. Will they look to downsize? One can see the effects rippling not only through the commercial real estate market but also through the small businesses that rely heavily on these employees for their revenue.
30 Animals That Look Like They're About to Drop the Hottest Albums of the Year — Just click and enjoy. My two favorites:
This dad trying out VR — surely this is not the only accident to happen since the launch of Facebook’s Oculus Quest.
"Anger is never without a reason but seldom with a good one."
From Poor Richard's Almanac by Ben Franklin. Resurfaced with Readwise.
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