flâneur

Kevin Zhu

2 followers · 5 following · 777 views

on the atlas — 9

highlights — 13

  • “Avoid Boring People.” Three words, two meanings. The trope is a reminder to (1) stay away from people who aren’t interesting and (2) to be interesting and avoid boring people when you’re speaking with them.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • When you connect other people, tons of value will eventually flow back to you. Introduce your friends to each other.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • When you ask for favors, follow these three guidelines: (1) be specific and precise, (2) tell the other person why you’re asking for their help, and (3) after they’ve helped you, follow up with them thank them or provide an update.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • Don’t “Pick Somebody’s Brain”: Help them instead. Whenever I want to meet somebody, I ask to interview them. Doing so makes the time much more productive for the other person.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • Networking events are over-rated: As a general rule, the people you want to meet don’t go to networking events. Instead, I recommend small invite-only gatherings, parties adjacent to prestigious conferences, and casual events like pick-up basketball.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • Skip the standard destinations and travel to obscure places instead.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • Build conversational momentum by asking questions, staying engaged, and talking about the other person’s interests.²
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • Call people on their birthday. When you think of a funny memory with a friend, text your friend about it. If you watch a video they’ll like, forward it to them.
    How to Maximize Serendipity - David Perell
  • Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought
    Career Advice: Best of the Best - David Perell
  • Smart companies try to commoditize their products’ complements.
    Strategy Letter V – Joel on Software
  • 4. Video games will become a core component of education. This sounds absurd, but consider that simulations are already used widely for learning: Kerbal Space Program is notorious for turning its players into experts on orbital mechanics Flight simulators and combat simulators are used to train pilots and army personnel The game “Factorio” teaches you about capitalism, production, and the economy Programming environments are simulations of the “universe” of that programming language, with fast feedback loops (write code -> debug)
    education - nabeelqu
  • “Facts are stupid things,” he would say, “until brought into connection with some general law.”
    Agassiz and the Fish
  • school kills the “will to understanding” in people. My countervailing advice to people trying to understand something is: go slow. Read slowly, think slowly, really spend time pondering the thing. Start by thinking about the question yourself before reading a bunch of stuff about it. A week or a month of continuous pondering about a question will get you surprisingly far. And you’ll have a semantic mental ‘framework’ in your brain on which to then hang all the great things you learn from your reading, which makes it more likely that you’ll retain that stuff as well. I read somewhere that Bill …
    Understanding