Fire & Motion 35
Fleeting Quote
Grab a bag of raw almonds or walnuts at a kiosk and commit to consuming no starch for the remainder of your travel time.
/
Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it.
/
One of the most important parts of developing an identity that can thrive, persist, and endure change is to diversify your sense of self. You can think of identity like a house. You want the house to have multiple rooms. Perhaps there is a "parent" room; an "athlete" room; an "employee," "entrepreneur," or "executive" room; a "community member" room, and so on. It's okay to spend a lot of time in just one room, but you've got to ensure you keep the others in good enough shape. This way, when you experience a massive change or disorder event in one area of your life, in one room of your identity, you can step into other areas to gain your footing and stability. Like a diversified portfolio in investing, diversifying your sense of self makes you more rugged and flexible in the face of change.
Out-of-League
🏅This demo tests your understanding of light | Barber pole, part 1
🏅The origin of light, scattering, and polarization | Barber pole, part 2
🏅The Republic of Plato, Book I, pp.1-34
Reading
現實的真相並不是出於他們的一己之見，更不是出於一己之私，而確實是他們所要逃離的那個世界的本質。他們心裡念茲在茲的是，自己別無選擇，只能一直逃下去，他們之所以逃避，是要將這個世界的真相暴露出來。也正是用這種方式，從迫害中，逃避主義真正的力量乃噴湧而出，而隨著迫害與危險的增加，逃離者的力量也跟著增長。
理性「照亮」存在；理性為「各種包覆的模式」 (modes of encompassing) 一方面是我們的心靈「包覆」著一切發生於我們的世事，另一方面是這個世界，「包覆」著我們這個「我之所以為我的存在」，「藉由理性帶來光明」；最後則是以理性自身的「廣度與亮度」來確認它與真理的密切關係。只要迎著光明而立，而不是消解於光明底下的煙霧之中，也就擁有了一份人文精神；以這種態度面對人類，為自己的思想負責，也就是活在明亮之處，讓自己以及自己的所思所想接受檢驗。
永不順從，永不逃避。換一種說法，就是建立在他的大勇之上。他始終是一個陌生人，不論何時來到，都彷彿是來自無何有之鄉。但是，斯人之逝也，他的朋友都悲如家人之棄他們先去。他成就了我們必須效法的：以世界為自己的家，因而使自己得在這個地球上如同回家。
第二次讀仍沒有把這本書讀懂，但漢娜鄂蘭對群像的描繪我是喜歡的。關於，透過逃避將世界的真相暴露出來；又關於，用理性包含一切世事，並將自己攤在光明下接受檢驗；當然關於，以世界為家而無所從來的大勇。
In a great market — a market with lots of real potential customers — the market pulls product out of the startup. The market needs to be fulfilled and the market will be fulfilled, by the first viable product that comes along.
Don’t create a new group or organization within your company whose job is “innovation”. First, you send the terrible message to the rest of the organization that they’re not supposed to innovate. Second, you send the terrible message to the rest of the organization that you think they’re the B team. Instead, focus on boosting the innovation culture of the entire company.
I believe you should look at your career as a portfolio of jobs / roles / opportunities. Each job that you take, each role that you choose to fill, each opportunity you pursue, will have a certain potential return — the benefits you can get from taking it, whether those benefits come in the form of income, skill development, experience, geographic location, or something else. Each job will also have a certain risk profile — the things that could go wrong, from getting fired for not being able to handle the job’s demands, to having to move somewhere you don’t want to, to the company going bankrupt, to the opportunity cost of not pursuing some other attractive opportunity.
Many people do not realize they are getting a lucky break in life when they get it. If a big publisher (or a big art dealer or a movie executive or a hotshot banker or a big thinker) suggests an appointment, cancel anything you have planned: you may not see such a window open up again.
If you’re going to enter an old industry, make sure to do it on the side of the forces of radical change that threaten to up-end the existing order — and make sure that those forces of change have a reasonable chance at succeeding.
High-growth companies virtually always hit speed bumps, or even huge potholes. Stuff goes wrong. Going through the experience of gutting through the hard parts and coming out the other end will be a key part of your real-world education and will serve you very well down the road, especially if you ever start your own company.
Think strategically: how would I start a firm like this today? Or, if I were starting a company in this industry today, how would it be different than this firm? Why is this firm and other firms in this industry doing what they do? What are the assumptions underneath their behaviour? Should those assumptions be changing? How might this industry work differently? Which customers are being underserved? What new technologies might change things completely? How were things working 10 years ago, versus today, versus 10 years from now? And my favourite: if the creators of this industry were starting out today, what would they be doing now?
Entrepreneurial judgment is the ability to tell the difference between a situation that’s not working but persistence and iteration will ultimately prove it out, versus a situation that’s not working and additional effort is a destructive waste of time and radical change is necessary.
Within single careers, the count of major works per age period will be a positive function of total works generated each period, yielding a quality ratio that exhibits no systematic developmental trends. And across careers, those individual creators who are the most productive will also tend, on the average, to be the most creative: Individual variation in quantity is positively associated with variation in quality.
Precocity, longevity, and output rate are linked. “Those who are precocious also tend to display longevity, and both precocity and longevity are positively associated with high output rates per age unit.” High producers produce highly, systematically, over time.
The odds of a hit versus a miss do not increase over time. The periods of one’s career with the most hits will also have the most misses. So, maximizing quantity — taking more swings at the bat — is much higher payoff than trying to improve one’s batting average. [...] In a highly uncertain world, a bias to action is key to catalysing success, and luck, and is often to be preferred to thinking things through more thoroughly.
On market yields more importance that product. Instead of creating a specific position for "innovation" or "growth", make them as the company culture. Viewing career as a portfolio and evaluating the risk of something goes wrong. Cherish every opportunity, of which may not seem like a bit at the very first sight. Having experiences that serve you well down the road, whether it's coming out of the other end of speed bumps or forcing radical changes in an old industry.
Questioning the assumptions. Questioning the defaults. Tell the difference whether something is a waste of time. Success always accompanied by failure. Maximizing quantity and being bias to action.
But we all grew up with cars. We have a pretty good idea of how roads work, and what gearboxes are, even if we’ve never seen one, and if someone proposed that cars should not come with seats or headlights because that’s unfair competition for third-party suppliers, we could all see the problem. When policymakers ask for secure encryption with a back door, we do not always see that this would like be telling Ford and GM to stop their cars from crashing, and to make them run on gasoline that doesn’t burn. Well yes, that would be nice, but how? They say ‘no’? Easy - just threaten them with a fine of 25% of global revenue and they’ll build it!
Watching
📹On leadership | Jensen Huang and Joel Hellermark
Our ability to extrapolate and see down the road is really vital because technology is changing fast. But it still takes us several years to build a great solution.
You start from first principles. What is this machine that we're trying to create? What is this output? What is this input? What are the conditions that it's in? What is the industry like? And what are you trying to build?
[How did your leadership style change over time? How did that evolve as you learned?] Well, I don't really have a style. It's just me.
Because the whole concept of market share says that there are a whole bunch of other people who are doing the same thing. And if they're doing the same thing, why are we doing it? Why am I squandering the lives of these incredibly talented people to go do something that's already been done? [...] The other way to demonstrate that, is to walk away from businesses that has been commoditized. [...] And so the combination of choosing the right work and walking away from the wrong work, that is the best way to create the conditions.
Podcastism
我忘了，我是一個製片人(Producer)，但是我從來沒有去produce我的生活。錢和工作事業，只是一方面的東西。我應該把生活安排成什麼樣的？住的空間我喜不喜歡？今天能不能吃到我愛吃的東西？這些東西不但是可被打造出來的，我們也必須要去做這件事 (not only its producible, but you also have to do it)
Shuffle
🎶80s Pop Club Mix at a School Prom | Tinzo
🎶The Ballad of Darren (Deluxe) - Blur