Quick notes to help you grow your business in less time with less effort. . . starting next week.
In this issue:
- Thoughts on Friends
- Being Human
- Random Stuff
Thoughts on Friends
- A movie with friends that includes a debrief at the local watering hole is a joy.
- Talking with a friend while walking. Another joy.
- Joining friends at an event they are fans of, even if you aren't, makes everyone a better person.
- Making the effort to be there for friends during big life events spreads joy. ("Big life events" as they define them, not you.)
Being Human - Everyone knows it's broken
“The conventional wisdom is often wrong.”
– Steven D. Levitt, "Freakonomics"
This article jumped out at me: "This A.I. Company Wants to Take Your Job: Mechanize, a San Francisco start-up, is building artificial intelligence tools to automate white-collar jobs 'as fast as possible.'" Probably because I just listened to a podcast with the authors of "'The AI Con'". Then I read my friend Dean Robinson's weekly note, "A Glitch in the System."
All good food for thought. Jobs, technology, and work being done.
When I read about companies like Mechanize, or how LLMs are going to revolutionize education, or how big companies are the best at nurturing talent, or any number of big claims from big thinkers, I wonder, "do the people talking have any experience with what day-to-day life is like in that realm? Can the people managing those jobs describe and commit to the outcomes they want?" Complex things are, well, complex.
My prediction: each white-collar job Mechanize approaches will be infinitely more labyrinthine than they expected. As a rule, most white-collar jobs have shifting expectations. Daily shifts are not uncommon. I can almost see the Mechanize tombstone: "It wasn't as easy as it looked," it says.
Things often look broken from the outside. Then you get inside and think, "I don't know whether to compliment you or criticize you." That's an actual quote from a super-smart McKinsey consultant working on a business I was part of. The company was doing $300MM and making fat, fat margins. The consultants couldn't figure out if the business should be 10x the size or if it were a miracle that it ever got past $1MM in sales.
We don't know what we don't know, and that makes things look easy from the outside. Conversely, when we're inside the thing, we assume everyone knows as much as we do, and that they understand us. Researchers have a name for these cognitive biases. The Dunning-Kruger effect. It happens to all of us. A glitch in our systems, as my friend Dean might say.
I guess it helps to be aware of it, even if we can't stop ourselves from doing it. At the very least, as you read these stories, consider that you are probably witnessing D-K at work.
Random Stuff
“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” – Harper Lee
One-sentence book reports for you. Some of these titles sat around for a while before I picked them up. One had a 9-year pause before finishing! I didn't include the recent ones I bailed on because I may finish them someday.
"A Sense of Where You Are," John McPhee: Everybody's All-American when he was everybody's All-American.
"Weapons of Math Destruction," Cathy O'Neil: Effective argument to regulate the algorithms.
"Draft No. 4," John McPhee: A writing class in a book.
"The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum," Margalit Fox: The U.S.'s original Marmfather rises then runs to Canada.
"The Logic of Sports Betting," Miller/Davidrow: The math the pros use, or used before online sports betting, and why you won't win.
"Switch," The Heath Brothers: Overthinking the way to making change.
'The Pine Barrens," John McPhee: I had no idea that each time I went to the northeast USA I was so close to a foreign world.
"The Narrow Road to the Deep North," Basho: An old travel journal in a world where an abandoned three-year-old stays abandoned.
"Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher," Timothy Egan: Obsession gives us some great art, but takes a lot out of the artist.
"The Immortal Irishman," Timothy Egan: Closed the book and should have pondered an amazing man's life, but just got mad at the British Empire. Again.
"Taste," Stanley Tucci: Written. . .and read. . .in the voice of the man who was once a frontrunner to be Pope.
"A Pilgrimmage to Eternity," Timothy Egan: A modern pilgrimage offering further proof that it's the journey, not the destination.
"The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story," Various: Pick it up, put it down each time you can no longer see the page through your tears.
"A Death in Door County," Annelise Ryan: Scooby dooby doo.
"Other Minds," Peter Godfrey Smith: We need another word, or more words, to describe intelligence.
"On Tyranny," Timothy Snyder: Freedom isn't a given.
"Infinite Jest," David Foster Wallace: Picked it up in 2015, finished it in 2025, and can confirm it's an impressive work of art.
"The Demon of Unrest," Erik Larson: The start of the U.S. Civil War told in a way that leaves your head sore from the slaps.
"Path to Power," Robert Caro: Masterful storyteller telling a believe-it-or-not true tale of one man's ambition.
"Four Lost Cities," Annalee Newitz: Every time I work in the garden I think about the poor future archeologist trying to figure out why I buried those landscaping stones right there.
"Amoralman," Derek DelGaudio: A magician's tale of a con man and conned men.
"A Place of My Own," Michael Pollan: I want to build my writing shed with my bare hands.
"The Serviceberry Tree," Robin Wall Kimmerer: Be a giver, and a thankful taker.
"Be Ready When the Luck Happens," Ina Garten: After putting this one down, Ina isn't the only one infatuated with Jeffrey.
"Fantasyland," Kurt Anderson: Omaha's own puts forth a grand unified theory for why 25% of us are how we are.
"All About Me," Mel Brooks: Not just a funny face.
"Being Mortal," Dr. Atul Gawande: Pick your ending.
"James," Percival Everett: Huck Finn's travel partner comes to life reminding me to read more fiction.
Good stuff, but way too much non-fiction. I'm going to change that. . .once I get through the other dozen non-fiction titles sitting on my desk. Maybe.
