Insights

“If I’m not famous by 30, I might as well put a bullet in my head.” That’s an actual sentence I spoke to one of my closest friends. At the time, I was 28. Fortunately, unlike during my darkest period in college, I wasn’t serious about suicide. Nonetheless, the sentiment was real. I felt like I…
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As soon as this week’s podcast with Ryan Holiday went up people began contacting me to say how timely it was, if not outright eerie, given it was recorded a few months earlier. Only the day before it was released, we learned about the tragic helicopter crash that claimed the life of Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old…
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Every year, I produce a big presentation digging into macro and strategic trends in the tech industry. This year, ‘Standing on the shoulders of giants’ looks at what it means that 4bn people have a smartphone; we connected everyone, and now we wonder what the Next Big Thing is, but meanwhile, connecting everyone means we…
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I believe that the following principle about power is important in helping us reflect on the dynamics behind the conflicts that we are seeing today, including the geopolitical conflicts between countries, the political conflicts within countries, the conflicts between and within organizations, and the conflicts between people. I also believe that this principle is relevant…
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There are many brilliant people in the civil service and politics. Over the past five months the No10 political team has been lucky to work with some fantastic officials. But there are also some profound problems at the core of how the British state makes decisions. This was seen by pundit-world as a very eccentric…
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Looking back at the past decade brings us to simpler times, when the largest venture funding rounds in the world were only in the nine-digit territory. In 2010, Uber was in its infancy, the term “unicorn” had yet to be coined, and people were still doing business with BlackBerries. A few disclosures: this list includes…
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How Kepler Invented Science Fiction and Defended His Mother in a Witchcraft Trial While Revolutionizing Our Understanding of the Universe. Maria Popova (@brainpicker) is simply amazing. Her prose is worth reading for its beauty alone (keep in mind that English is not Maria’s native language!), and the stories in this essay highlight just how brilliant,…
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2019 was a huge year for me. I rediscovered nature, recommitted to writing, experimented widely, scuttled many things that have weighed on me for years, and greatly improved my overall investing. Most important, I deepened my relationships with my family, my girlfriend, her family, and my closest friends more than in any previous year. 2019 was…
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Success of any kind can distort the way we see things. And this is true of success that we experience personally, but also of success that we perceive in others. There’s research that shows, for instance, that as we become wealthier, our measurable levels of empathy and compassion tend to decrease. Those of lower economic means, in contrast, often show…
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Today’s graduates don’t feel ready for the new world of work. I share three things that successful professionals eventually figure out about their careers. Reid Hoffman, Entrepreneur. Investor. Strategist.