Hi All,
The biggest things this week were the approval of Sprint+TMO merger and the Corona Virus putting a very serious damper on MWC.Â
Nilay Patel @ Verge wrote a scathing article about the decision made by Judge Marrero. Really worth a read. Puts into perspective how little the people who we depend on to make decisions for us actually know about what they are making decisions on
This weekâs fun on 7 types of LNKD requests from marketoonist
Someone forwarded me this series of a âWorld in a single chartâ PDF and each week for the next few weeks Iâll add one from this the newsletter. Lets start with Population - Crazy right?Â
Ok This weekâs reads:Â
Brands matter less but I think in most cases branding is still an important exercise if you want to charge a premium. The question is what products allow you to charge a premium versus what products does no one care about? All Your Favorite Brands, From BSTOEM to ZGGCD
a16zâs Li Jin describes an excellent monetization model for the âpassion economyâ where people can make a six-figure living from just 100 loyal subscribers. While I completely agree, I wonder how many people can actually do this 1,000 True Fans? Try 100.Â
Commencement Address, American University in Beirut from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I really enjoyed the honesty and the sentence that rang true for me was  âTreat the doorman with a bit more respect than the big bossâ
David Perellâs read on news was just amazing. You get what you pay for and all of us are totally happy to read junk rather than pay for good content: News in the Age of Abundance
Naval Ravikant, an angel investor who shares wise words on how to lead a healthy life, once said, âIf you diet, invest, and think according to what the ânewsâ advocates, you'll end up nutritionally, financially, and morally bankrupt.â
In the same vein, The Illusory Truth Effect: Why We Believe Fake News, Conspiracy Theories and Propaganda
One of the best solutions is to quit the news. This frees up time and energy to engage with timeless wisdom that will improve your life. Try it for a couple of weeks. And if you arenât convinced, read a few daysâ worth of newspapers from 1978. Youâll see how much the news doesnât really matter at all.
Maybe I am missing something but MSFT not paying to buy the corp.com domain this seems crazy right? : Dangerous Domain Corp.com Goes Up for Sale â Krebs on Security
Phone addiction : How to Overcome Your Phone Addiction With Mindfulness
Food @ Work : Inside Google's Efforts to Engineer Its Food for Healthiness
Some interesting trend analysis of the Bay Area Real Estate Market. Good read for anyone that lives here. Can this sustain? My personal opinion, and no flames please, is that it cant. Something has to give!Â
A good read on Bay Area Real Estate cycles : 30+ Years of Bay Area Real Estate Cycles - Compass - Compass
This NY Times interactive covers the past decade and several tech accomplishments, failures, and surprises : The Decade Tech Lost Its Way
Some good lessons from Transferwise on scaling Fintech Products
Twelve Lessons Learned by TransferWise on How to Globally Scale Fintech Products