April/May ‘23 Recap

April and May were busy months that blurred all together for me, so I’m merging them here in my recap as well:

Articles:

1. Barrels and Ammunition

   • A great, short read on the difference between a “barrel” and a “bullet” or “ammunition” in your company, as well as some tips for how to become a “barrel” — someone that can take an idea from conception to the end state and it’s almost perfect. For anyone leading a team, it’s a must read.

2. Rippling and the return of ambition | John Luttig

   • I’ve been thinking a lot about different HR tech solutions, and how there are so many “point” solutions today. Across all of software, there are a bunch of specialized solutions that work great for 1 specific thing in the value chain. Often times, a company will use 20+ of these softwares, and they don’t integrate as well as they should with 1 another.

   • The story of Rippling and the “compound startup” is ambitious and interesting. They start by owning all employee information starting from Day 1 of onboarding and use this to add on a bunch of products that touch IT and finance, all using the same infrastructure layer. This means that all of these apps work seamlessly together, pulling from the same data.

   • I’m not sure this works everywhere, but I believe the idea of re-bundling what has been segmented over the last 20 years is where we’re heading in a bunch of industries

3. How to think for yourself | Paul Graham

   • I’ve been reading a bunch of Paul Graham’s old essays on his blog. This one talks about the differences between independent-minded people and conventional-minded people, and how to become a more independent thinker by being curious, seeking out the truth, and a resistence to being told what or how to think.

4. A Review of Recent Findings on Meal Sequence: An Attractive Dietary Approach to Prevention and Management of Type 2 Diabetes | National Library of Medicine

   • This one is completely different than the other articles here, but I learned something completely new; the order of the food you eat affects how your body reacts to it. The takeaway: eat protein and greens before carbs and your glucose won’t spike as much. Glucose not spiking as much = really good.

Podcasts:

1. A few things im pretty sure about | Morgan Housel Podcast

   • He starts this podcast by saying that the most true things are pretty simple. I think this is true. He lists a bunch of stuff that he is certain of, reading off of this article he wrote.

Other thoughts:

I spent April and May in Buenos Aires, Bariloche (Argentina Patagonia) and back home in California. A couple things I’ve come to realize over time:

1. I love spending time in new places, but strongly dislike the actual “traveling” part. While traveling, I sleep bad, eat bad, and generally feel worse than normal. I’m setting a new rule for myself that for a trip to be worth it, I have to spend > 1 day in the location: 1 hour spent traveling to get there.

2. Every’where’ is a bubble, and I need to make sure I’m not in a bubble for too long. Every location, industry, or group in general is a bubble.

   • In Buenos Aires, it’s easy to forget the rest of the world exists (a pound of steak and a bottle of wine help).

   • In Bariloche, it’s impossible to imagine not living in nature.

   • In California, people think they eat tacos in Argentina.

3. Bubble’s are intoxicating. If I have 1 superpower, I think it’s being able to connect things. I love seeing how passionate each bubble is about their “thing,” and being able to stack up these experiences to come up with interesting insights.