The world doesn’t reward the people with the best ideas. It rewards the people who are best at communicating ideas. Want to publish a bestseller or launch a startup? Want to spread your ideas across the Internet like schmear on a New York bagel? Then become a better writer .

Last week, Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley discussed how Tech has grown from 5% to 15% of global GDP over the last 15 years, largely owing to faster growth rates.

As software companies get fitter and stack new S-curves of growth, later stage companies become highly effective capital allocators - which is why we’ve seen Tech outstrip the rest of the ec... See more

laughter

I’ve been doing improv comedy for the last twelve years. Over that time I’ve realized there are at least two types of laughter you hear from the audience. One is a response to something clever or smart, like ‘ha ha I see what you did there, very nice.’ It’s a shallow sort of laugh and one that comes mainly from the mind. 

The other - my favo... See more

So why quit? Three reasons. First, I’ve felt for a few years now that the startups I’m seeing don’t seem so much like progress as just shopkeeping. This isn’t a dig: there’s money to be made razoring a thin slice off a huge market, and there’s certainly less risk in that than there is building a market from scratch. But it’s just not that interesti... See more

When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular I’ll remember everything better; everything wi... See more

Cosmic optimism changes this by encouraging truly interdisciplinary approaches that blend hard sciences with philosophy, arts, and contemplative practices. It grows its deeply felt optimism about human potential and technological progress, but redefines the current understanding of what is ‘progress’. Rather than limiting progress to mean the accum... See more

What would Instagram look like if it started with “AI filters”? What if we could interact with AI chatbots in our messengers? We are already beginning to see this happen. This type of evolution is inevitable, and the obvious incrementalism will quickly make its way into incumbent applications. It is not enough to reinvent the consumer social landsc... See more