Dickie's Digest - Audio, High Performance, First Principles, and GameStop
Hey there, happy Sunday!
A handful of things from me this week:
I was on the Louis and Kyle Show talking about the leverage of writing online, building habits and systems, and the mental models I use as an investor. You can read the big takeaways in this thread or listen to the episode here.
Enrollments in the February Ship 30 for 30 cohort end on Friday! Digest readers can lock in their spot for $100 off using this link.
My most popular Atomic Essay was on the world’s best-kept secret.
That’s it from me! In this week’s Digest:
Have an epic week!
Dickie
🎙The State of Audio in 2021
The future of audio fascinates me. Streaming, podcasts, long-form, short-form, casual, quality, you name it, it piques my interest. Which is why this breakdown of the State of Audio in 2021 from Packy McCormick sprung to the top of my reading list.
In this industry deep dive, Packy audits the podcast industry and the up-and-coming casual audio industry (think, Clubhouse). The casual audio industry is one I’m keeping a close eye on. If Twitter can successively loop in a drop-in conversational platform on top of its new newsletter platform, it could become the go-to spot for every type of content.
Packy also explores one of the biggest challenges the audio industry faces: discoverability.
Enter: Podz, a new podcast player looking to become the TikTok of podcasting. Podz’ algorithms extract the TL;DR section of every podcast, presenting it to you in a single feed based on your interests. If you like what you hear, you can dive into the full episode. If not, you can keep scrolling. Over time, the algorithm learns your preferences, showing you new shows you might be interested in (and most importantly, letting you listen to the good bits first).
The magic of Podz is that it takes advantage of this double human-in-the-loop system to deliver quality and novelty:
First, podcast hosts serve as curators, filtering all the noise to find the best guests or angles on a given topic.
Then, Podz algorithm, trained by human journalists and audio editors, sorts through all the content out there to find the very best parts, even in places you wouldn’t expect.
With Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces going after casual audio, Podz is looking to capture quality audio and deliver it to you before you even knew you needed it.
I’ve been playing around with Podz, and it’s been neat so far. I love the idea of audio clips going viral, much like text and video have been doing for years. The feed idea is interesting, but it’s not perfect yet. There should be multiple clips for each podcast (not just a single preview), and I wish you could speed up the preview clips. \
If you’re interested in joining the Podz beta, you can download it below!
Read more: The State of Audio in 2021
🧠 The Forcing Function Performance Library
This week, one of my favorite high-performance writers Chris Sparks released the Forcing Function Performance Library, a curation of blog posts, books, videos, and academic papers on all aspects of high performance.
Here’s the breakdown of the different topics covered inside the library:
You can filter the library by topic, by medium, or by the level of recommendation. This is quite the dense collection, one I’m excited to dive into.
Explore more: The Forcing Function Performance Library
🔥 Last week’s most popular link
🧵This Week in Threads
How James Clear runs his business
Clear, concise, first-principles thinking on building and scaling from a solopreneur side-hustle to a full-fledged business.
The Untold Story of Reddit’s Golden Investor
Quite the breakdown of the $GME madness from my business partner Nicolas Cole. This is one rollercoaster of a story.
The Ultimate Guide to First Principles Thinking
As usual, my friends Jack and Sahil simplify a complex concept into easy to understand language and aesthetic visuals.
🎧 This Week in Podcasts
Dickie Bush on the Louis and Kyle Show
Shameless plug of my own podcast appearance, but this was one of the better conversations I’ve had in a while. In this episode, Louis, Kyle, and I talk about the leverage of writing online, building sustainable habits, and my frameworks for investing.
The All-In Podcast | Breaking Down Robinhood’s GameStop Decision
Another fire episode of my new favorite podcast. In this conversation, the besties debate this week’s Robinhood/GameStop debacle and give a sneak peek of Chamath’s bid for California governor. With Jason as an early Robinhood investor and Chamath as the new zealot for r/wallstreetbets, this one does not disappoint.
Michael Phelps and Grant Hackett on the Tim Ferriss Show
This was a strong deep dive into the minds of two elite Olympic athletes. In this conversation, Michael, Grant, and Tim talk about their training consistency, the dark side of elite performance, and their recent struggles with mental health after their competitive careers ended.
🧠 Tweet of the Week
Thanks for reading!
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