flâneur

Rishik Lad

7 followers · 10 following · 1145 views

on the atlas — 14

highlights — 43

  • My success is determined by my own character, my relationship with my wife, my relationship with my children, and my relationship with the people around me. Professional success, in fact, doesn't factor into my self-worth at all. Work doesn’t dictate who you are, its simply a place where you frequently demonstrate who you are. For better or worse.
    Performative Failure - by Kyle Harrison - Investing 101
  • They can work on a side hustle and limp it into an acqui-hire, maybe without ever quitting their job. They can make “angel investments” out of someone else’s “angel fund” without ever risking their own money. They can blog about other people’s failures, without ever making their own.
    Performative Failure - by Kyle Harrison - Investing 101
  • They know they would struggle to say “I failed” and, instead, would become obsessed with the idea that “I am a failure.”
    Performative Failure - by Kyle Harrison - Investing 101
  • Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is "I am bad." Guilt is "I did something bad."
    Performative Failure - by Kyle Harrison - Investing 101
  • What I mean by performative failure is summed up by the idea that "nothing ventured, nothing gained." Another word for ventured could be risked. And we have a plethora of people who are more interested in playing founder or investor or advisor or "thought leader" in a mostly aesthetic capacity than we do people who are actually putting things on the line.
    Performative Failure - by Kyle Harrison - Investing 101
  • They are only willing to tackle a level of complexity where they assume they must deliver the same narrowly- defined product with zero marginal cost sales from the very start. This short changes their customers and short changes how powerful their products can be over time.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • Instead of a customer facing engineer whose actual job is to reduce scope to shrink the customers ambition down into what a product does today, we own that every single reason the customer might lose is a shortcoming in what our product can do for them.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • This approach to product strategy requires an organizational structure that is hellbent on extending that perimeter as fast as humanly possible.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • When the things you need to build are de facto infinite, the only thing that matters over any reasonable duration of time is how quickly you can extend the perimeter of the product.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • A worthwhile product thesis for Palantir requires 1) identifying a problem that is impossible to solve, 2) with major societal implications, 3) where if you can make any progress you create intrinsic value for the world.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • In order to provide the best experience the delivery mechanism has to be a part of the product, it has to be opinionated, and it has to own that in this case the customer is going to get the best meal even if they don’t know how to ask for it.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • They capitulate on needing an FDE like role, but are still stuck in the prison of low-value, low-complexity, extractive software business models. This results in underwhelming roles for individuals and underwhelming cash flows for shareholders
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • They are redrawing boundaries around roles and responsibilities, internalizing costs previously outsourced to SI’s, or capturing product feedback in a different way.
    Sorry, that isn't an FDE - by Ted Mabrey - Ted’s Substack
  • Perhaps the most enduring lesson from Venmo is that the world is made by people just like me. Going in, none of us knew anything about payments, chargebacks, or ACH. I barely understood how a website worked. Yet we managed to build a service that saw over a billion dollars of transactions last month. It took time, energy, and a lot of great people, but there was no magic, and we held no special keys.
    What I learned at Venmo
  • I’ve since gained an appreciation for just how difficult building a product is, and that things take time. I also believe that such existential crises are normal, and the key is to not forget the few core truths that drive your vision.
    What I learned at Venmo
  • We were emboldened partly by naivete, and partly by a philosophy of focusing only on the most important things: the product and the users.
    What I learned at Venmo
  • Building a financial product is fraught with obstacles, and we lived “ask for forgiveness, not permission.”
    What I learned at Venmo
  • I sometimes daydream about how big you could grow a company (in revenues) without ever having more than ten people. What would happen if you outsourced everything except product development? If you tried this experiment, I think you'd be surprised at how far you could get. As Fred Brooks pointed out, small groups are intrinsically more productive, because the internal friction in a group grows as the square of its size.
    What the Bubble Got Right
  • Our startup, Viaweb, was built to be sold. We were open with investors about that from the start. And we were careful to create something that could slot easily into a larger company. That is the pattern for the future.
    What the Bubble Got Right
  • One thing most people did learn about for the first time during the Bubble was the startup created with the intention of selling it. Originally a startup meant a small company that hoped to grow into a big one. But increasingly startups are evolving into a vehicle for developing technology on spec.
    What the Bubble Got Right
  • Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience in the direction of the habits you aspire to gain. It is not in the moment of their forming, but in the moment of their producing motor effects, that resolves and aspirations communicate the new ‘set’ to the brain.
    The best general advice on earth « the jsomers.net blog
  • So don’t grab a meal with me. Take me to CVS with you. Let’s buy toothpaste together. Show me a cool leaf you found on Cross Campus. Wander around the cemetery with me. Ask my advice on your Amazon shopping cart. Ask me what I’m scared of, what my middle name is, ask me when was the last time I sang to myself. Bring me into your life.
    Let's Not Grab A Meal - by Amelia Dilworth
  • And we live in a culture where eating with someone doesn’t mean being human together, it means talking about summer plans and Spring classes.
    Let's Not Grab A Meal - by Amelia Dilworth
  • Over brunch a few weeks ago, one of my friends pointed out that we don’t become close by getting meals together—we become close because of the circumstances that keep bringing us to the same table. We’re casual and comfortable with each other because we work out together, or take classes together, or go to meetings together, and eating together is a time for us to savor shared experiences. You don’t “grab a meal” with your family.
    Let's Not Grab A Meal - by Amelia Dilworth
  • You can’t just share silence and process each other’s stories. It’s a way to stay relevant in someone’s life without really being invested.
    Let's Not Grab A Meal - by Amelia Dilworth
  • The only meaningful definition of a “generalist” is a specialist who can relate his own small area to the universe of knowledge. Peter Drucker
    The myth of the generalist by @ttunguz
  • The reason why money consumes so much of our attention is because we often believe that it has the power to push all these levers up at once. Since it acts as a force multiplier of whatever values you already espouse, it’s natural to conclude that if only you had more of it, you’d be able to open up the doors required for you to put all of those values into action.
    The Levers That Money Can’t Pull
  • The attainment of freedom may signify a capable human being, but is far from signifying a compassionate one. And while you may be eager to learn from competent individuals, the people that you will appreciate most are the ones that have the greatest capacity for love.
    The Levers That Money Can’t Pull
  • John’s mom felt an emotion that no parent should ever have to feel. But she felt it because she was viscerally aware of her financial limitations. If $10,000 was a mere rounding error, then that check wouldn’t have evoked the feeling that she sold her child. But since $10,000 was a consequential figure that would have an immediate impact on her financial situation, she felt terrible that this benefit accrued at the expense of her son.
    The Levers That Money Can’t Pull
  • In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking said, “The increase of disorder or entropy is what distinguishes the past from the future, giving a direction to time.” Entropy is observable in the breaking down of everything over time. Or perhaps more accurately, entropy is time.
    25% Loaded
  • The avoidance of resistance and conflict has led to our prevalent human condition of the 21st century: bemoaning one's current situation, feeling nostalgic about one's past, and dismissing others' successes as byproducts of luck or good fortune.
    25% Loaded
  • There is a philosophical conundrum at the root of all this: morality requires we maintain a safety net at the bottom that catches everyone—the alternative is simply inhumane—but we also need an aspirational target at the top, so as to inspire us to excellence, creativity and accomplishment. In other words, we need worth to come for free, and we also need it to be acquirable. And no philosopher—not Kant, not Aristotle, not Nietzsche, not I—has yet figured out how to construct a moral theory that allows us to say both of those things.
    Who Wants to Play the Status Game? | The Point Magazine
  • But purely optimizing for being liked is a bad idea for lots of reasons: it leads away from your real goals and values, it motivates you to be deceptive, it's kind of shallow and unsatisfying in the long run.
    "Cheat to Win": Engineering Positive Social Feedback - LessWrong
  • You’d have to think about everything you might spend your time doing in the context of its worth in blocks. Cooking dinner requires three blocks, while ordering in requires zero—is cooking dinner worth three blocks to you? Is 10 minutes of meditation a day important enough to dedicate a block to it? Reading 20 minutes a night allows you to read 15 additional books a year—is that worth two blocks? If your favorite recreation is playing video games, you’d have to consider the value you place on fun before deciding how many blocks it warrants. Getting a drink with a friend after work takes up abo…
    100 Blocks a Day — Wait But Why
  • It makes me want to skip the New Year’s Resolutions—they never work anyway—and focus on making New Week’s Resolutions every Sunday night.
    Your Life in Weeks — Wait But Why
  • We tend to feel locked into whatever life we’re living, but this pallet of empty boxes can be absolutely whatever we want it to be. Everyone you know, everyone you admire, every hero in history—they did it all with that same grid of empty boxes.
    Your Life in Weeks — Wait But Why
  • And when a long string of Neither Weeks happens, you become depressed, frustrated, hopeless, and a bunch of other upsetting adjectives. It’s inevitable to have Neither Weeks, and sometimes they’re important—it’s often a really bad Neither Week that leads you to a life-changing epiphany—but trying to minimize your Neither Weeks is a worthy goal.
    Your Life in Weeks — Wait But Why
  • But the worst possible way to use a diamond is by accomplishing neither #1 nor #2 above. Sometimes “neither” happens when you’re in either the wrong career or the wrong relationship, and it’s often a symptom of either a shortage of courage, self-discipline, or creativity. Sometimes “neither” happens because of a debilitating problem.
    Your Life in Weeks — Wait But Why
  • if a diamond is not making you happy, it should only be because you’re using it to make other diamonds go down better—either your own in the future or those of others. In the ideal situation, you’re well balanced between #1 and #2 and you’re often able to accomplish both simultaneously (like those times when you love your job).
    Your Life in Weeks — Wait But Why
  • Sometimes, a 4th option is being a VC. This is usually a mistake—the best way to become a VC is not to grind your way up the ladder from junior associate intern. Even if you want to be a VC, you’re much better off starting or joining a startup, and getting partner offers when you’re 28. Plus, good founders want to work with an investor that has operational experience.
    Advice for ambitious 19 year olds - Sam Altman
  • Think about risk the right way. Drew Houston gave a great commencement speech where he said you only have to be right once. That’s true. The risk is not getting on the path where you get to be right that one critical time.
    Advice for ambitious 19 year olds - Sam Altman
  • Working on something good will pull you along a path where good things keep happening to you. (In fact, this effect is so strong that there’s a danger of getting sucked into too many interesting things and getting distracted from what you really want to do.)
    Advice for ambitious 19 year olds - Sam Altman
  • No matter what you choose, build stuff and be around smart people. “Stuff” can be a lot of different things—open source projects outside of class, a startup, a new sales process at a company you work at—but, obviously, sitting around talking with your friends about how you guys really should build a website together does not count.
    Advice for ambitious 19 year olds - Sam Altman