Hello, hello!!
Happy, happy, happy New Year. I look forward to learning and exploring the wonderful world of ideas with you in 2019.
Quick note: I’ll be in Toronto next week (January 6 - January 9). If you’d like to meet up in Toronto, let me know by responding to this email.
Also… If you have recommendations for the North Star Podcast or if you can make an introduction to a Toronto-based guest, let me know. The best guests have two things in common: (1) they learn passionately, and (2) speak with clarity and enthusiasm.
Fresh Ideas: 2018 Edition
Article: How to Maximize Serendipity
This was the most popular article on website in 2018.
Some background: I spend tons of time trying to engineer serendipity — that’s a paradox, I know. But I believe that serendipity is a skill, which means it can be learned.
Maximizing your surface area of serendipity will increase your chance of success in any domain, and these are my favorite strategies.
You can read the article here.
North Star Podcast: Daniel Gross
This was the most popular podcast of 2018.
Daniel Gross is a partner at Y Combinator, the world’s top startup accelerator. Themes of the episode:
The power of seeing life like a video game
Lessons from John D. Rockefeller on business and decision making
Why is Israel such an innovative country?
You can listen to the podcast here.
Coolest Things I Learned This Week
How Big is Africa?
Africa’s land mass is greater than the USA, Europe, and China combined.
Within this huge space there are 54 unique markets, few of which provide scale or adequate distribution infrastructure.
There are over 2,000 languages spoken and very diverse cultural dynamics from one market to the next.
YouTube is the Leviathan in Plain Sight
Some reasons why:
YouTube is raising the next generation. Kids below the age of three are already glued to YouTube on iPad Pros, instead of television.
YouTube is like an electronic babysitter, and unlike TV, you can program is with educational content via playlists.
“My son is learning through the internet, not through books. He’s an expert on European history, even though he has never taken a course on European history. The spines of the history books I've given him remain uncracked.” — Jerry Neuman
And this quote from Streampunks YouTube and the Rebels Remaking Media:
"Human as Media”
I’ve been enjoying an obscure book called “Human as Media.” It’s written by a Russian Media ecologist, who studies the effects of media on what it means to be human.
My favorite quotes below:
The tools that we believe make our lives easier simultaneously enslave us.
The internet isn’t an individual pursuit, it’s something we do with each other. The internet is where people are.
Content is now filtered not before publication, but at distribution.
It is now not the reader who wants the message, but the message that wants the reader. In the future, content will be paid for not by those who wish to consume it, but by those who wish to distribute it.
Thanks to the Internet, coincidences involving people and ideas that were previously thought to be impossible now occur all the time. (The internet is a serendipity machine)
Walt Disney’s Original Business Model
Radicals and Conservatives
From The Lessons of History:
"The conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it - perhaps as much more valuable as roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race.”
Jorge Luis Borges on Reading
“...if a book is tedious to you, don’t read it; that book was not written for you.... look for personal happiness, personal enjoyment. It is the only way to read.”
Incredible Aerial Photo of New York City
Photo of the Week
As I reflect on 2018, I’ve realized that four activities account for the vast majority of my happiness:
Learning through books, podcasts, and YouTube videos
Sharing ideas with the world through writing and podcasts
Traveling to new places
Long conversations with A+ people
In 2019, I want to double down on these four activities. When possible, I’d like to combine them. This photo, where a friend and I are editing music on an iPad, is the perfect example.
A couple weeks ago, I spent an evening with my friend Neil Collins, a talented artist, designer, and musician. We met at 9pm, and agreed that by the end of the evening, we’d produce a song together. I have no musical talents, so we followed Neil’s lead with the guitar and vocals. My contributions were marginal at best. But by 3am, the song was finished!
Making music with friends is exactly what I want to spend more time doing next year. Memories were made, skills were built, and relationships were strengthened. Lesson learned.
Happy New Year,
David Perell