July ‘23 Recap

Articles:

1. How to do great work | Paul Graham

   • A really long read (1hr+), but well worth it. There are too many quotes I like to include them all, but regardless of your interests or talents, you’ll be able to relate to this one.

1. 4 types of employees managers must manage | Leaders.com

   • Danny Meyer’s (Shake Shack founder) framework for thinking about team members. The TLDR: in this framework there are 4 types of people at your company: can & will people / can & won’t people / can’t & will people / can’t & won’t people. You manage each of these 4 differently, and just the exercise of bucketing them helps you manage your team.

   • It’s not a silver bullet by any means but it’s an interesting framework and simple way to zoom out and keep the pulse of your entire team.

2. 2023 mid-year letter — The long game | Fundrise

   • I use Fundrise because I think their team is super smart, and has the same general viewpoints on the markets as I do. This mid year letter is another really good macro analysis, with great graphs that tell this story:

“The effects of rising rates have yet to really start impacting things. It’s not that the economy is strong so much as it just takes a long time for these things to play out. The current period of seemingly little impact has created a false sense of confidence, and, like a dam that is structurally flawed, the pressure is building slowly, but most will not realize anything is wrong until that final tipping point when the pressure ultimately becomes too great, and the dam breaks.”

“this phenomenon of a long lag between interest rate hikes and the start of a recession has occurred in every recession going all the way back to 1954”

3. Emerging opportunities in global trade: goods, money and data | QED Investors

• Global trade is changing. It’s a $32 trillion industry globally, and, although complex, can be improved in 3 main ways (according to QED). The article talks in depth about the following 3 “wedges,” being businesses that move:

  • Goods (freight forwarding)

  • Money (including trade finance)

  • Data

4. VC’s face an existential threat: there are too many of them | Vice

• An overview of the reality in the VC space right now, and how the industry “has to shrink” from where it is today.

Podcasts:

1. Bill Gurley Interviews Tim Ferris — Reflecting on 20+ years of life and business experiments

   • This is a flipping of the script, where Tim Ferris is getting interviewed, rather than doing the interviewing. A bunch of gems and evergreen tips in this one.

2. Stock Options, People & Culture Mexico, Carlos Sanchez

   • A very basic and simple to understand beginners guide to all Stock Options (in spanish).

Other

Few things are as frustrating as getting a “hey” or “hola matt, como estas?” text. I came across this site this month and think I’m going to use it as my new bio on Whatsapp to hopefully get less of these messages… https://nohello.net/en/