Letting Your Inbox Rest

Wisdom

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The Observer Effect: Tobi Lütke by Sriram Krishnan

Takeaways

Tobi is the CEO & co-founder of Shopify.

“I find myself more interested in the inputs of an idea than the actual decision. I say this because when I have my own ideas, the first thing I tend to do is just try to falsify them, to figure out why what I’m thinking about is probably incorrect. This is actually something that I have to explain to people that I work with. If I like someone’s idea, I tend to do the same thing: I try to poke holes in it.” — Tobi Lütke

“Effectively, I’m trying to figure out if an idea is built on solid fundamentals. I find that shaky fundamentals tend to be where things often go wrong.” — Tobi Lütke

“The valuable thing about any of these personality-type constructs is that they do a really good job of teaching people that other people are very different. That realization is probably one of the biggest growth moments for people in general. It tells you that different people play different roles.” — Tobi Lütke

“Every field has fundamental wisdom that you discover when you’re learning and talking to the people who have mastered it. I find that going wide and learning the best lessons from the people who have dedicated their entire lives to a certain pursuit gets you really, really close to mastery.” — Tobi Lütke

“I believe that the job we all have in life is to acquire knowledge and wisdom and then share it.” — Tobi Lütke

“I really love failing. I feel so good when I do something, and it just doesn’t work; especially if I get the feedback about why it didn’t work. That gives me a project to work at to improve. And so maybe that’s sort of interesting regarding losses.” — Tobi Lütke

“I think a lot of success in life is how good you are at making long term choices.” — Tobi Lütke

” A coach is probably one of the highest returns on investment anyone can do with their attention. An hour spent with a coach has a 10x, 50x, 100x potential return on time spent. I was really lucky and met a great coach who actually joined Shopify full time just to do coaching and lead our talent acceleration team.” — Tobi Lütke

“Personal growth has no real speed limit. It’s more dependent on how often a student is ready, and that often depends on the environment and the norms of a culture around the student.” — Tobi Lütke

My two cents: If there’s one CEO I fanboy over more than any other CEO it would probably be Tobi. Elon Musk comes as a close second, but on a personal level, Tobi is a bit more discrete and lesser known, which I like. Elon is the G.O.A.T, though.

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Wealth

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Building the Middle Class of the Creator Economy by Li Jin

Takeaways

“Launching a new platform, he said, was like starting a new country: Getting users to move from an established network that had an ossified economy and social classes to a new network requires the possibility of success—the lure of the American Dream. Furthermore, the new social network had to create upward mobility for all users, to ‘make sure there’s a middle class coming up.'” — Alex Zhu, co-CEO of Musical.ly, later VP of product at Bytedance

“On most content platforms today, the ethos of the American Dream is alive and well—a recent study of kids ages eight to 12 found that nearly 30% aspire to become YouTubers.” — Li Jin

“The current creator landscape more closely resembles an economy in which wealth is concentrated at the top.” — Li Jin

“So, is inequality inevitable among creators? Perhaps to an extent. Not everyone can become a celebrity, but there are examples of middle-class creators: those that aren’t household names but have a solid base of customers who provide the foundation for a decent income.” — Li Jin

“Some inequality is inherent in the nature of the passion economy: supply is heterogeneous and non-substitutable, and the trust and affinity that creators build with their audiences should be celebrated. But platforms—from established to brand new—can do more to strengthen the creator middle class and broaden the path to success.” — Li Jin

Li shares some high-level (expert status) strategies that would help foster the creator middles class:

Product: Focus on content types with lower replay value and serve heterogeneity in user preference and empower niche
Distribution: Recommend content algorithmically with an element of randomness. Facilitate collabs and community.
Funding: Provide capital investments to up-and-coming creators
Monetization: Decouple creator payouts from audience demographics. Allow creators to capitalize on superfans. Create passive income opportunities for creators. Offer a form of Universal Creative Income (UCI).
Learning & Support: Provide creator education and training.

“Societies and platforms flourish when there is a path for everyone to have upward mobility, achieve financial security, and learn and grow. The beautiful thing is, in the real world as well as in the digital world, it’s up to us to build this path.” — Li Jin

My two cents: On a scale of 1-10, my expertise around the creator economy + economies in general is (maybe) a 2 or 3. Li’s is a 12. It’s pretty fascinating to see how deep her knowledge goes in the passion/creator space. Be sure to subscribe to her blog and follow her on Twitter if you’re curious about this space.

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Health

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The Fruits of Friendship by David Perell

Takeaways

“Friendship gives flavor to life. Rather than treating friendship as a nice-to-have luxury, reserved for people who have their lives in perfect order, we should cultivate friendship intentionally and treat it as the necessity it is. We need to be intentional in our pursuit of it, especially as we age.” — David Perell

“Like a marriage, the best friendships require investment, compromise, and sacrifice. By creating shared alignment, trust, and companionship, strong friendships nourish the soul and sharpen the mind.” — David Perell

“The geographic circle of life has expanded, so friendship strategies that depend on constant proximity are no longer effective. In the modern world, you cannot cultivate a strong, multi-decade circle of friends unless you are intentional about it.” — David Perell

“Friendship is vital to your whole spirit — your being, your character, your mind, and your health. And yet, all too often, humans don’t realize what’s essential until they are in trouble, so they dismiss the power of friendship when things are going well.” — David Perell

“Choose your friends carefully. You will rise and fall to the level of the company you keep. As a general rule, you should spend time with people who energize you, inspire you, and make you proud to call them a friend.” — David Perell

“Most friends can’t really help each other. Since they don’t communicate with depth, honesty, or frequency, they gloss over their true challenges, many of which are taboo to discuss. But the shine on top will never fix the cracks beneath the surface.” — David Perell

“If you care about having an interesting life, you have to care about winning over other people – so that you can access that information. If you really want to be smart, you’re going to have to tap into people’s perspectives, insights, questions and so on. You can’t learn it all from books and essays – because there’s a lot of “living knowledge” that never makes it into those things.” — Visakan Veerasamy

My two cents: There’s a reason “friends and family” often get paired together in sentences. Oftentimes they can feel one in the same. The pandemic has made it challenging to experience friendship at the same synonymous “family” level that we were used to experiencing. I miss that level.

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