The Anthology of Balajis
Eric Jorgenson
Summary
Insights from one of the smartest men on the planet
Rating: 4/5
Notes
Create a product - solve a product and build
The state is against you
Money is only a tool, what really matters is building something money can’t buy
Feel no hesitation in starting small and no shame in dreaming big
Technology theory of value is better than the labour theory of value
Software is where all the value creation is going to come from. It will be software creating value and everything else executing it
Systemic risk happens when you stop taking risks and get stuck in a system that no longer improves
Risk aversion is reward aversion
It’s really hard to make something easy
Every area the government touches sees prices inflate
Technology is the driving force of history
The 20th century was the centralized century
Everything technology is doing means more upside and more downside
Crypto is a technology for creating alignment
Crypto allows free markets without corporations
In the future, most value will be created online and executed by robotics
The overabundance of sugar is why people are so fat now
Cocaine in coke will be like high fructose syrup in food
Transhumanism - self-improvement with technology (thinks all of tech will focus on this)
Many things that are true are unpopular; many things that are popular are untrue
If it’s not independent reproducible, it’s not science
Early trust as scientific truth what can be independently verified
Technical truths are true even if no one believes them to be true
Politics at its root is about tribes, not truth
Costly speech means only the wealthy can speak freely
Unpopular truth is a reliable source of profit
You have a digital history; an unattainable history. EVeryone can know what happened when
How to change the world: discover true factors and acquire sufficient distribution
‘They call it the media because is mediates our interpretation of reality’
If you are what you eat, then you think what you see
The nature of legacy media: if it enrages, it engages
Ownership of media companies is inherited - the owners are pure nepotists
Media companies are corporations and their interests don’t align with you so act accordingly
You have to work order what you’re paying attention to
Media scripts humans just as computer code scripts machines
Own a media corporation or be owned by one
We need to create a peaceful media ecosystem full of inspirational content for technological progressives
To get lucky you must first take a chance
Everyone wants a piece of the reward, no one wants a piece of the risk
Bad leaders divide, great leaders create
We are entering the golden age for builders
Think big, start small. Prove then scale
To attract attention is to attract negative attention
Always hire people who are better than you
As scale increases, alignment decreases
Before candidates join your company, have them write out what they would consider as success, mediocrity and failure (bull, base and bear case)
It’s not the idea, it’s the execution
Haters just hate themselves - they are rooting for somebody else’s failure because they don’t have the courage to try themselves
Social media is about to become far more monetizable and lucrative than people think
***
Buy the book here
Free E-book download here
Make Something Wonderful
Steve Jobs
Summary
The life of Steve Jobs in his own words
Rating: 5/5
Notes
Make something wonderful and put it out there
‘You appear, have a chance to blaze in the sky, then you disappear’
When you’re a stranger in a place, you notice thing you don’t otherwise (Jobs after India trip)
Whenever you start with nothing, always shoot for the moon. You have nothing to lose.
You never achieve what you want without falling on your face a few times
Never be afraid to fail. You never achieve what you want without falling flat on your face a few times
We are never taught to listen to our intuitions, to develop and nurture them. But if you do pay attention to these subtle insights, you can make them come true
Creativity equals connecting previously unrelated experiences and insights others don’t see
Believe that some of what you follow with your heart will come back and make your life richer. And it will. And you will gain even firmer trust on your instincts and intuitions
Make your avocation your vocation. Make what you love your work.
The journey is the reward. The reward isn’t in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, it’s in crossing the rainbow
To find A+ talent, if experienced, look at their track record and results
The world we know is a human creation and we can push it forward
The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do (read whole ad ‘here’s to the crazy ones)
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit - Aristotle
Hire people better than you are
You can’t plan to meet the people who will change your life
It’s impossible to connect the dots looking forward, but they make sense looking backwards so you have to trust the dots will somehow connect in your future
Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you
***
Buy the book here
Free E-book download here
