Hi All!
Here is your weekly guide of things I’m enjoying, consuming, using and loving. Enjoy.
Book I’m Reading
Game Changers: What Leaders, Innovators, and Mavericks Do to Win at Life – Dave Asprey
Dave Asprey is famous for his Bulletproof Coffee and host of products that come along with that. He’s also a renowned bio-hacker a-la Gavin Belson of Silicon Valley, always looking for unique ways to optimize his brain, fitness, and routines. His newest book, Game Changers, is basically the same format as Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss. Asprey takes the best anecdotes from his 450 podcast guests and breaks it down into three sections. 1) Smarter, 2) Healthier, and 3) Happier. He asks his guests “What are your top three recommendations for people who want to perform better and being human?” I just started but some good stuff so far in the first 50 pages.
Documentary Everyone is Talking About
Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened
Scarred from the social blowback of not watching Game of Thrones, I gave in to my coworkers demands to watch this, since I had absolutely zero water cooler conversation to bring to the table on Monday morning.
If you haven’t seen the Fyre Festival documentaries on either Netflix or Hulu (yes, there are two) – you are living under a rock, or you’re clearly not woke. If you don’t know the story well or forgot about it altogether, it’s probably better to watch the Netflix one. I personally enjoyed that one much better but many people loved the Hulu doc as it not only features and interview with the infamous Billy MacFarland, but also gives more of an in-depth lens to the fraud and lies behind the investing side of things.
Great Podcast I’m Listening To
Freakonomics Radio: Should America be Run by… Trader Joe’s?
Let’s play Shark Tank for a minute:
“I’d like to open a new kind of grocery store. We’re not going to have any branded items. It’s all going to be private label. We’re going to have no television advertising and no social media whatsoever. We’re never going to have anything on sale. We’re not going to accept coupons. We’ll have no loyalty card. We won’t have a circular that appears in the Sunday newspaper. We’ll have no self-checkout. We won’t have wide aisles or big parking lots.
Would you invest in my company?”
I love Freakonomics Radio, and this was one of the better episodes of late from them. I try to buy almost all of my groceries from Trader Joe’s becasue the price difference is so insanely drastic. I can buy two weeks of food for like $45. It’s crazy. This podcast goes into the depths of why they have been so successful despite doing everything so differently than a typical grocery store. Worth a listen.
2020 Presidential Candidate I’m Paying Attention To
Andrew Yang Wants to Be President – and Give You $1,000 a Month
I had never heard of Andrew Yang until literally three days ago but he is a lawyer and tech entrepreneur from New York with some bold ideas for the United States come 2020. Although I’m not pledging any sort of allegiance to him, I think he has some interesting perspectives – particular on technology, AI, and automation. With the RAPID growth of all of this technology, typical political and economic structures are no longer going to cut it. The Founding Fathers had some good ideas that still hold water, but even Benjamin Franklin couldn’t predict drones, self-driving cars, and algorithms. We need not just a President, but a country that understands the impacts this emerging technology will have on our daily lives and our economic livelihood.
Here’s a great quote from Andrew Yang about automation that really hit me:
We’re leaving a total shambles of our country for our children. Most people think about that in terms of climate change, which is a very real issue and an existential threat. But we’re also leaving them an economy that is going to marginalize and minimize the labor and contributions of more and more Americans.
And it doesn’t matter if you are a really hard-working, conscientious truck driver, or a lazy, careless truck driver. The self-driving truck is going to replace both. So we have to start facing facts that it’s no longer an economy that rewards us based upon merit. It’s about to throw hundreds of thousands of us overboard with very little distinction between different people in different roles.
He was also featured on a recent Freakonomics podcast
Favorite Purchase of Late
The gym that I go to has these devices and they have been awesome at getting some of the tiny knots out of my back and upper neck. Just purchased one on Amazon.
Comic Relief of the Week
You will never look at a Peloton ad the same way again (i.e., without laughing)
This comedian on Twitter absolutely roasted the latest slieu of Peloton bike ads and I can’t stop laughing. He tears apart how wealthy the people riding Peloton bikes are an how much of a struggle it is to find a good part of the house to put them in.
Good Reads of Around the Internet
- The Inescapable Aura of Maggie Rogers – I saw Maggie Rogers open up for Mumford & Sons at Madison Square Garden last month without ever having heard of her. I was blown away by her talent. She has a really unique sound and I’m interested in listening to her a bit more now. Also the video of Pharrell hearing ‘Alaska’ for the first time is pretty cool
- Tony Romo Calls Plays Before They Actually Happen. How Often is He Actually Right? 68% of the time, according to the WSJ. Romo made 72 predictions this year and saw 49 of them come true. Unbelievable.
- Are Millennials the “Brokest” or “Richest” Generation – As much as I can’t stand to see the word tossed around headlines across the internet like a hot potato, we “millenials” spend more because we have to. Living costs are simply way more than they used to be. Among other things, we often live with our parents not out of entitlement, but mutual convenience. Millennials tend to have a lot of debt, but in the information-based economy and the way we were raised, much of that debt is investing in our future. Baby boomers – if you are going to slam the whole generation, read this article first at least.
Stay warm today folks
-KB