The Weekly Hagakure #1
Introducing a weekly dose of nourishing human nature and tech-related content.
"What books do you recommend?"
I have lost count how many times I have been asked this question. I love the question because it usually comes from a place of curiosity, a desire to learn. I know that feeling well, because I have felt it all my life, sometimes to a fault.
But let's pause here for a second.
These are extraordinary times we're living in, where a disease with a name like a Jira ticket turns everybody's world upside down. While the planet itself is breathing easier, too many human beings have sadly lost their lives to something no one was prepared for. We will be grappling with the consequences for a good while. It will be painful, but I'm optimistic about what's on the other side, however long it takes to get there.
This is, then, a time for resilience and adaptation, a wake-up call if we've ever seen one. Science fiction is suddenly not so much fiction anymore. We are forced to get better, to evolve. It'll take time to flush some of the bad stuff, but I'm confident that if this pandemic has shown us one thing it's that the ultimate consequence of a selfish world is that nobody wins.
From this point on, society will have to ask itself critical questions and hold a lot of debate about democracy, privacy, globalization, sustainability... you name it. But it seems inevitable to me that, in shaping our future, technology will be front and center. How it plays out is up to all of us. That's why building fundamentally better (real) companies, better teams, and especially better leaders is not optional. We have to.
So, with that in mind, back to the earlier point about learning.
This newsletter is a tiny contribution for that better world. It's not wishy washy, and it's not happy talk and it will be wide-ranging. It starts as a curated list of content that I find helpful on my own learning journey and that would enrich any technical leader. Each week, 3 articles, 2 podcasts, and 1 book. We will see how it evolves — and your feedback is most welcome.
I hope you enjoy it, and if you do, why not share it with a friend you appreciate?
3 Articles ✍️
The Metric We Need to Manage COVID-19
After leaving Instagram in September 2018, Kevin Systrom holed up learning everything he could about data science and machine learning. When COVID-19 hit, he put his newly acquired skills to (good) use and has been writing a number of blog posts around the available public data on this disease. His latest piece focuses on the evolution of the effective reproduction number for each US state, an indicator of how well mitigation measures are slowing down the spread of the disease. Meaning: a truly data-driven way of getting us safely out of shelter-in-place.How Tech Can Build
Silicon Valley’s oracle Marc Andreessen recently awoke from his long slumber proclaiming that It’s Time To Build. Stratechery’s Ben Thompson argues that for tech companies to truly innovate outside what’s historically been software-only (and physically mostly out of Silicon Valley), not only an acceleration of distributed work is needed, but also a wholly different investment paradigm. Can we evolve to a more conscious capitalism model in order to build a better world?Hello, World!
In the economic downturn brought on by COVID-19, the Tech VC party is over. Instead of doubling headcount every 6 months because cash is falling from the sky, companies will have to build real businesses, become leaner and actually leverage technology and automation to do a lot more with a lot less. With that in mind, Zerodha’s tech team first ever blog post is golden — and a blueprint of for what I believe a lot of tech teams will have to look like in the future.
2 Podcasts 🎧
Mark Cuban on What He Would Do As President
You may know him from Shark Tank, or maybe as the majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks, but billionaire entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban is crazy enough (in a good way) to seriously consider running for US President one day. In this podcast, he sheds light on what he calls America 2.0, after COVID-19, including how companies must start truly putting employees first and shareholders last.Adam Grant: How quarantine will transform the way we work
As it becomes clear that remote and distributed work is inevitable, we also need to grapple with its perils. In this conversation with Kara Swisher, organizational psychologist Adam Grant discusses issues such as burnout, loneliness, and how inexperienced managers can easily slip into dreaded micromanagement. One thing I like about Grant, him being a prolific scholar, is how data-informed he is in almost every point he makes. An excellent listen.
1 Book 📚
Did you know today is World Book Day? How about gifting a favourite to a friend? 🎁
Have you ever feared you’re not retaining enough from what you read? That books you read months ago are as good as gone from your mind? I hear you. The FOMO is real. If that’s your case, then How To Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens may just be the antidote. Easy to read, this book made me realize that I shouldn’t treat my notebooks (digital or otherwise) like an archive or encyclopedia, simply because not everything will be relevant to me in the future.
The key idea within Ahrens’ book is that extracting highlights is basically wasting time — that is, unless you actually capture the idea that the highlight triggered in your mind and subsequently link it to other existing and related notes. By connecting the dots, with notes linking to other notes — a chain of interrelated ideas — brand new insights emerge. Ahrens describes a method for doing this called “Zettelkasten”, originally created by Niklas Luhmann, a prolific 20th century German Sociologist who wrote 70 books and more than 400 articles.
While this is particularly useful as a framework for academic writing, it equally applies for writing original content online, or simply to enhance your learning and comprehension. If it sounds like a lot of work, well… who said learning was easy? 😉
Thank you for reading and until next week!
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