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#1 Goals vs. Systems: I have been fascinated with the idea of systems instead of goals since reading Scott Adams How To Fail At Anything and Still Win Big. It appears Patrick has also been influenced by this thinking. I enjoyed how he talks about how he thinks about growth vs. goals in his business and as a parent:
I think “accomplishments” are traps. Accomplishments, by their very definition, exist only in the past or future—which are not even real things. Pride is the worst of the seven sins and it is closely related to past and future accomplishments.
His alternative is to focus on how he spends his time on a daily basis. I would argue some of his daily intentions still feel like goals ("write 500 words"), but others seem closer to intentions/values: "read." The important distinction, however, is that they are inputs and not outcomes.
#2 Bitcoin: Fun read on the bitcoin bubble and future of blockchain technologies.
Bitcoin will crash because of course it will. Bubbles burst. The real estate and athletics management people go home, and the believers remain, meeting up, planning new markets. It could take years, it could take a decade, but the blockchain freaks have a world in their heads, and they won’t rest until it’s real. That the rest of us live here, too, is the least of their concerns. Some of the things they’ll do will be magical, community-building, economically thrilling. Others may keep us up at night.
#3 New Models Of Private Equity: Brent Beshore came up with a new model of Private Equity that does not sound so radical: " buy durable businesses for a fair price with no-to-low debt, treat people well, and hold indefinitely" - however, what stands out is that in the business world, most people just do what everyone else is doing. He embraces a model of a 27-year holding period and no management fees that would scare away even the most socially driven HBS grads from working there.
#4 Quit Your Job: After living in New York, it was fascinating how many people I met that make tons of money, have plenty of cash to live for years, yet feel stuck, miserable and trapped in a system that forces them to work every day and treats them like crap. I'm motivated to help people like this (I e-mailed the editor to offer free coaching) so if you ever meet anyone that is as stuck as this, let me know!
#5 Opioids: The most thorough long-form discussion of the opioid crisis from Andrew Sullivan, who also was on ground zero of the AIDs crisis - this gives him a perspective that few have.
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