Dickie's Digest - Chamath, Personal Moats, Newsletters, Superhuman, and the Latticework
2020 - what a year and what a week. 2020 has desensitized me to absurd events.
Remember oil prices going to -$22? That would be the most absurd event in just about every other year. But it doesn’t even crack the top 10 of 2020.
The best (or worst) part? There are still three months to go. Buckle up.
In this week’s Digest:
Have an epic week!
Dickie
🏘 The Unusual Ambitions of Chamath Palihapitiya
If you work in startups, finance, or media, chances are you’ve heard of Social Capital CEO Chamath Palihapitiya. He was the Head of Growth at Facebook and is now co-owner of the Golden State Warriors and CEO of Social Capital. He’s taken the world by storm with his SPACs - merging with Virgin Galatic and most recently Opendoor.
I’m drawn to him for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because he sees the world very clearly. He has $3bn in cash on his balance sheet. He is looking to place it in three companies, taking three $1bn bets that he thinks can 10-50x in the next 10 years. The first of those bets was on Opendoor, the company that wants you to buy and sell your home through an app. Skeptical at first, I read this Not Boring deep dive and now I’m sold that Opendoor is the Amazon of housing. They could easily 10-50x in the next 10 years.
This long-read profile of his early career and path to today was fascinating. He’s brash, outspoken, and doesn’t mince words. And he’s been that way his entire career. Here’s my favorite quote 👇🏼
“Chamath wore the same jacket every day — a light-tan velour jacket — and jeans,” one former colleague recalls. When the colleague asked Palihapitiya about his sartorial choices at the time, the young analyst talked about “low ROI,” meaning he didn’t want to spend his time and money worrying about clothes.
Read more: The Unusual Ambitions of Chamath Palihapitiya
🎰 Personal Moats and Asymmetric Bets
I’ve been enjoying the Career Advice series from OnDeck CEO Erik Torenberg.
In these two posts, he explains why people early in their career should focus on building a personal moat and taking asymmetric bets.
Your personal moat is:
Something unique to you.
Something easy for you but hard for others.
Something that compounds over time.
Something that is hard to reverse engineer.
Another way to think about it: find the overlap of things you love, things you’re good at, and things the world will pay you for. Then do everything you can to work on those things.
He also explains that the way most people think about risk is wrong. We’re taught that something is “risky” (i.e. starting a company) when it buys optionality, and we’re taught something is safe (i.e. joining Goldman Sachs) when it sells optionality.
But risk is just the opposite. In starting a company, you are capping your downside - this isn’t risky. In joining Goldman Sachs, you are capping your upside - this is risky.
We shouldn’t view asymmetric bets as risky. The “risky” thing is failing to take “risk 1 to win 100”-type bets when you’re young. With time on your side, you can get away with losing quite a few of these in a row.
Read more: Take Asymmetric Bets
💌 How to Tame Your Newsletter Inbox
It's never been easier to learn online.
The internet has democratized access to writing, sharing, and publishing content. But this is a double-edged sword. Since anyone can hit publish, the tails are fatter. There's been a 10x increase in the amount of high-quality content, but the same goes for low-quality content.
Newsletters (like this one..!) are the best way to filter for high-quality, well-written content. Newsletter creators establish a one-on-one relationship with their audience, building trust with each edition.
But newsletters can be hard to manage. The best ones get lost in the promotions folder and we end up subscribing to way too many. So I created a system to keep track of them in Gmail. In this post, I detail how I set my system up.
Read more: How to Tame Your Newsletter Inbox
🎧This Week in Podcasts
What an epic week in podcats. This week I listened to four absolute gems across the worlds of productivity, creator economies, and startup growth. It’s rare that I have four HIGHLY RECOMMENDED podcasts in a single week, but this week was an exception.
Superhuman CEO Rahul Vohra on Invest Like the Best [HIGHLY RECOMMEND]
This was the highest-signal podcast I’ve listened to this year. I’m fascinated by the email company Superhuman. Their CEO is rewriting the playbook of launching, growing, and scaling a B2C productivity app. If you’re into startups, this one is a must-listen.
2PM CEO Web Smith on the Pomp Podcast [HIGHLY RECOMMEND]
Web Smith is the Founder of 2PM, a community and newsletter that studies the intersection of media and commerce. In the post-COVID world, every company is both a commerce company and a media company. They have some dope deep dives into DTC brands, the creator economy, and the future of media companies. If you’re into these things, give this one a listen.
Steph Smith on My First Million [HIGHLY RECOMMEND]
Steph Smith is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers on the Internet. I love the way she thinks about content creation, writing, and remote-work productivity. In this episode, Steph, Shaan, and Sam chat a bunch of cool ideas. I particularly enjoyed the idea of company benefits in a remote-work world. Fitness subscriptions? Stipends to hire virtual assistants? So many opportunities there.
Blas Moros on What Got You There [HIGHLY RECOMMEND]
I’ve recently been churning through episodes of What Got You There, one of the more underrated podcasts out there. This was a fascinating interview with The Latticework founder Blas Moros. Blas and Sean chat favorite books, learning, discipline, and how to apply the ideas you learn.
😎 Cool Things Corner
This section explores any new gadgets, apps, study playlists, or anything I found cool this week.
With iOS14 allowing you to have custom icons, this custom icon pack is pretty cool. Even cooler is that this pack has done over $150,000 in sales in the last week after it went viral on Twitter. It just shows you the leverage of the internet. Two hours of work. 99.9% gross margins. $150,000 in revenue. Just absurd.
🧠 Idea Corner
This section explores one new idea I came across in the past week.
🥃 Sunday Chaser
If you haven’t watched the new South Park Pandemic Special - you are missing out. Truly one of the funnier things I’ve watched in a long time. Just so politically incorrect.
Thanks for reading!
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