Dickie's Digest #70 - Basecamp, David Ogilvy, Moore's Law, Ethereum, and Lifelong Learning
Hey my friends, happy Sunday.
In this week’s PACKED Digest:
Only one thing from me this week: there are two weeks left to enroll in the June 21st Ship 30 for 30 cohort! If you’re looking to start writing online, hit reply and let me know. We’d love to have you!
📖🗣 Basecamp’s internal company communications guide. I’m working on a new idea right now. In the world of remote work, clear written communication is worth 10x more than it used to be. This means there is a new hiring criterion every employer has to think about: writing quality.
Companies now need to do two things. The first: build an internal culture of strong writing with clear documentation of how, where, and when employees should communicate. The second: teach their employees exactly how to communicate effectively in a business setting.
My prediction: someone will form a company and agency that both advises companies on developing their internal communication documents, and also trains new employees to become better writers. 👀 Someone has to do it.
How this relates to Basecamp: they’ve been remote for years, and their internal company communications guide is something every company will have in the future.
🧵 💵 Sahil Bloom on how to become a lifelong learner. Another strong thread from my friend Sahil, this time on the best 20 learning habits you can build. In a world of unlimited access to information (both useful and not useful), having a solid learning system is a superpower. A few of my favorites:
Build a learning engine. Better inputs → better outputs.
Build learning circles. Whenever you want to learn something new, find two or three others to learn it with you.
School is the starting line. Lifelong learning starts when you realize school was the beginning, not the end.
🎧 📈 Vitalik Buterin on The Lex Fridman Podcast. I don’t think I was on enough drugs to fully appreciate this conversation because, man, it got pretty far out there. Full disclosure: this podcast will be pretty confusing for anyone not familiar with Ethereum or cryptocurrency in general. But in the last hour, Lex and Vitalik talk about the future of money, government, and life extension. It’s worth tuning in just for that part.
There’s a world where Ethereum is truly the world’s decentralized internet computer, and Vitalik is the de-facto head of it. So it’s probably worth taking a peek into this guy’s worldview. But be careful, it’s not easy to keep up with.
📚 💾 Moore’s Law for everything. I’m a bit late to this one, but I finally got around to reading Sam Alman’s most recent post. Sam’s thesis is as AI and technology continue to perform a higher share of labor, profit margins expand and fewer workers are needed. This will drive prices lower and lower but at the expense of employment. And the result will be tremendous wealth inequality as corporations benefit from the collapsing cost of labor (because software is cheaper than humans).
His solution is to begin taxing capital over labor, starting with a 2.5% tax on real estate and a 2.5% tax on corporations by market cap, payable in shares of their company into the “American Equity Fund.” Every American gets shares in that fund (since corporations will be capturing handsome profits), which he says aligns everyone’s incentives towards better American growth.
I haven’t thought too hard about the counter-arguments, but it’s a fascinating thought experiment. If you give this a read, hit reply and let me know your thoughts.
🧵 ✍🏼 10 writing tips from the world’s best marketer. This week I wrote a thread of writing tips from one of the world’s best marketers: David Ogilvy. Swiped from an internal company memo, David lays out a writing masterclass in 10 short bullets. And I love the way the memo starts:
“The better you write, the higher you will go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well. Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well.”
Give this a read and staple them to your desktop.
🔥 Last week’s most popular link: 🧵✍🏼 7 Headline mistakes that once you see, you’ll never make again
Knowing how to use Twitter Advanced Search is a 21st-century superpower. And apparently, quite a few people didn’t know about it.
That’s it for this week. As always, I appreciate your time and attention. Shoot anything you find interesting this week my way.
Have an epic week.
Dickie
