Weekend Reads and Listens - Last Weekend in Phoenix for the Summer
Hello, and happy Saturday to you all! As we near the end of May here in Arizona, it's been surprisingly mild outside, with temperatures staying under 100 degrees. Of course, we all know the heat is just around the corner, and my family and I are preparing to head to our summer home in Carlsbad, California. The video above shows us watching the kids act a fool on a relatively cool Friday night.
This week, I tried something new: I set aside a "reading and reflection" day, with no meetings on my schedule. It gave me the chance to tackle the content I'd been meaning to read and clean up my overflowing email inbox. I'm still deciding whether to make this a permanent part of my routine, but overall it was a wonderful experience.
Listens 🎙
I'm ecstatic! The creative mind behind my favorite video games of all time is speaking about his craft. It's a thrilling experience as I get to delve deeper into the creation of the world's greatest games and satisfy my inner nerd.
Although I had never watched MrBeast videos before, I recently came across an insightful discussion about this 24-year-old YouTube sensation. It was fascinating to learn how he has amassed an incredible viewership through his commitment to creating the best video content. An unconventional approach, but a highly successful one!
Reads 🤓
- did a great piece called Eat What You Kill in which they discuss VC firm dynamics as it pertains to incentives, trust, and meritocracy.
a16z calls to entrepreneurs in an article called Hey, Tech It’s Time To Build. In Healthcare about the huge opportunity to build solutions within healthcare despite the numerous difficulties.
a16z main themes is “American Dynamism” in which they are leaning into exceptionalism in the United States. Building the American Workforce talks about the opportunity around the American workforce.
Digging deeper into a16z’s great content library I found another article about Deep Job Platforms which encompass how products evolved in the HR tech stack.
Along this theme
writes about deep job platforms by verticalizing payroll.- writes about the case for regulating AI. I believe he is positioning himself to be a key influencer in the creation of these policies. Smart.
Tom Tunguz writes about what type of LLM you should pick for building your product.
Despite the giant healthcare worker shortage there are freezes in the HB3 Visa process. This is explained well in Hurry Up and Wait. This is going to be a huge bottle neck.
Tom Tunguz talks about the declining cloud growth is being offset but the AI growth. Lower margin but great velocity.
Books 📖
I am currently reading Jim Kwik’s Limitless- Unlock Your Brain. Learn Anything Faster. And Unlock Your Exceptional Life. A great mindset book that packages in how deep work and speed reading frameworks.