Brian Wiesner

The challenge, or opportunity, for companies like Substack is to figure out how to help creators reach new audiences and grow without having to compromise on ownership. The aggregators of the early internet unlocked great power for creators through building central gathering places. We are doing the same with the Substack app and features—like Reco... See more

The Cultural Tutor perfectly sums up why beauty matters: “what’s the danger of a world without beauty?” they ask. “If everything is simply functional, simply useful, then life becomes a mere conveyor belt. It turn humans into machines of consumption, labour, & reproduction. Aren’t we more than that?”

The famous hedge fund manager Ray Dalio, of Bridgewater Associates, has written about this. He identifies four stages in the “lifecycle of a typical empire.” Dalio writes: “Economic conditions affect human nature and human nature affects economic conditions. This typically happens dynamically in a sequence that leads countries to rise and fall for... See more

Making the internet work for creators

The second reason why Ben’s milestone is significant is that he, better than anyone else, has identified and articulated the force that has overwhelmingly shaped online media over the past decade: Aggregation Theory.

Ben’s theory describes how and why a few major platforms have come to dominate the flow of... See more

The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play . It seems to describe a life where it’s just fun to be reading, learning, writing, and collaborating on... See more

• “It’s well known that telling and retelling one’s past leads to changes, smoothings, enhancements, shifts away from the facts ( ‘reconsolidation’ ) ... isn’t just a charged psychological foible. It turns out to be an inevitable neurophysiological consequence of the process of laying down memories that every studied conscious recall of past events

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The fundamental message of marketing must change from "we want your money" to "we share your interests".

But if you think about your career from the perspective of which skills you have developed and where else they might be applicable, you’ll realize that opportunities are near-infinite . Journalists can become investors. Corporate executives can become authors. Even in the case of the most rigid disciplines such as law and medicine, nothing is... See more

I was not able to find any other Western country that has the combination of long summer breaks, no mandated paid vacation time, minimal subsidized options, and a dominant cultural belief that kids need constant supervision, especially in public places. Clearly articulating all of these factors really helps me understand how we find ourselves in... See more