Read, Heard, Observed 1: Friday 14th April 2023
#CapitalAtRisk
A new series
This Friday post is the beginning of a new series. Each Friday I’ll share three things:
Something I’ve read.
Something I’ve heard.
Something I’ve observed.
What’s this got to do with angel investing? Perhaps nothing directly or immediately but I’m in the business of understanding people — seeking their quiddity — and I look at everything I read, hear and observe as a chance to add to my knowledge and understanding of people.
Read
I finished reading The Tools in the hammock (above) last weekend. Here’s a bit from the blurb:
“Can you imagine what your life would be like if you could tap into a new source of power - one that has been inside you all along - to solve your own problems and become the master of your life?”
I ordered the book immediately after watching Stutz on Netflix and The Tools in the book are easy to understand and use. What was really helpful was that in the book the authors emphasise that The Tools are something that have to be used forever. Just because I’ve read the book, used The Tools and feel better it doesn’t mean life gets better permanently. Life only becomes better (acceptable, mostly good most of the time) if I keep using The Tools.
The good thing is that the last tool — Jeopardy — shows the reader a way to find the motivation to get up and get going when we don’t feel like it.
The Tools is the best book of this type that I’ve read — definitely ranks alongside The Courage to be Disliked.
Heard
This week Elon Musk gave an interview with James Clayton, a BBC journalist, in a Twitter Spaces event. You can listen to the whole recording of their conversation here.
I think Elon came across really well. Running Twitter is not an easy job and he gave straight answers and challenged the journalist back.
It seemed to me that James didn’t prepare very well — he said there was lots of hate speech but couldn’t point to any and he seemed more excited about getting a ‘gotcha’ than asking good questions. He gets incredibly defensive.
Towards the end others in the Twitter Space were invited to ask a question and one called out James and told him to be a more responsible journalist. I could hear James’s nervousness at this point and before — the conversation was a great leveller, not just between James and Elon, but between James and the audience. He can’t wait to get out of there.
It’s a fascinating and raw conversation to listen to but a missed opportunity from the BBC.
Observed
Substack have released their ‘Notes’ product. You can see my profile here.
Yes, it looks just like Twitter, while it’ll have been in development for a while, and comes off the back of Twitter restricting Substack links in tweets (see this report in TechCrunch for more).
I remember similar happening right around when Facebook bought Instagram. Twitter was in the running to buy Instagram, lost out, and so removed the preview of Instagram photos in tweets.
Substack are clearly on a run right now — they have an innovative and engaging product that they make good updates to regularly. They’ve also pioneered a new business model that means people essentially pay to receive emails.
Twitter has obviously wobbled since Elon bought it but the mass exit to Mastodon didn’t happen and (as explained in the above Twitter Spaces chat) the move to paid verification makes sense because with AI here to stay knowing that a verified human is behind social media posts is of value so will be chargeable. In Elon’s view social media companies without that will be essentially worthless.
It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out and if Substack will go the way of Instagram and gets acquired by a Twitter rival.
In other news
MdS time
In two week’s time I’ll be in the middle of the Sahara. On Friday 21st April I fly from Gatwick to Errachidia then the following week I’ll do (notice I don’t say ‘run’) six marathons in seven days. All being well I’ll fly back from Ouarzazate to Gatwick on Monday 1st May.
I’ll take some pictures and write about the MdS once I’m back. I keep saying to myself that I have a place on the start line and I hope I’ll get to the finish line. Thousands of people have done it before me, I’ve done more training than I did for The Wall last year and my mantra will be ‘just keep moving’.
Can’t wait.
Important: None of these posts are investment advice. If you are thinking about investing you should seek the advice of a suitably qualified independent advisor.
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