Weekend Reading
Writing worth reading - 25th/26th March 2023
How to raise a genius by Henrik Karlsson
“As children, they were integrated with exceptional adults – and taken seriously by them. When the five-year-old Bertrand Russell refused to believe the Earth was round, his grandparents didn’t laugh; they called in the vicar of the parish to reason him out of his misconception. The guardians of these brilliant people had high expectations of their charges, assuming they had the capacity to understand complex topics and to grow competent rapidly. They therefore invited them into serious conversations and meaningful work ...”
Elon Musk fires a top Twitter engineer over his declining view count
by Zoë Schiffer and Casey Newton
“‘We haven’t seen much in the way of longer term, cogent strategy,’ one employee said. Most of our time is dedicated to three main areas: putting out fires (mostly caused by firing the wrong people and trying to recover from that), performing impossible tasks, and ‘improving efficiency’ without clear guidelines of what the expected end results are. We mostly move from dumpster fire to dumpster fire, from my perspective ...”
Exclusive Interview by Alex Konrad and Kenrick Cai
“Look, I think there are always parallels. And then there are always things that are a little bit idiosyncratic. And the mistake that most people make is to talk way too much about the similarities, and not about the very subtle nuances that make them different. And so it's super easy and understandable to talk about OpenAI as like, ‘Ah, yes, this is going to be just like the cloud computing battles. And there's going to be several of these platforms, and you'll just use one as an API.’ But there are a bunch of things about it that are also super different, and there are going to be very different feature choices that people make. The clouds are quite different in some ways, but you put something up, and it gets served. I think there will be much more of a spread between the various AI offerings …”
31 lessons from 31 years by Rob Henderson
“Buy multiples of common use items. Nail clippers, scissors, screwdrivers, lighters, tape, etc. Spending a little extra to put one in each room is better than searching every room, drawer, and cupboard when the need arises …”
‘Find Your 9others’
‘Find your 9others’, the book about the first 10 years of 9others is available for pre-order here.
From the blurb:
If you could sit down to dinner with some of the world's most ambitious startup entrepreneurs, what would you ask them?
Since 2011, 9others has hosted over 5,000 entrepreneurs at 500 events in over 45 cities around the world and asked one simple question: what's keeping you up at night? We’ve heard the challenges that entrepreneurs all around the world have faced; their thinking and the behavioural traits that helped them overcome those challenges.
In this book, 9others founders Katie Lewis and Matthew Stafford will help you discover the questions you should be asking yourself as you start and scale your own start up, and why you should go on your own journey to find your 9others.
Upcoming meals with 9others
Wednesday 29th March — London — details and signup here.
Tuesday 18th April — Manchester — details and signup here.
Wednesday 26th April — London — details and signup here.
Please book in & share with good people you know in the above cities.