This week’s highlights: The end of tech’s beginning, good ideas, and old tractors
Photo by Matt Antonioli on Unsplash
Issue 360
by David Wells – Nashville TN
Spring temps continue here in Nashville – with a mid-70s high expected tomorrow. Hopefully it is as pleasant where ever you are!
Original content this week: Just as an FYI, I write/blog during the week on davidcwellsjr.com and on LinkedIn. Here are this week’s pieces:
- How Fast Must a Family’s Assets Grow? Those who wish to compound their money across generations face an unbelievably steep return hurdle.
- It’s Never About Just the Money, But It’s Never Not About the Money The primary variable that families can control in affecting their investment returns is their spending rate. Yet, too often discussions about the real-life, brass tacks implications of wealth are either never held (most common) or are perceived/received as ‘spend shaming,’ rather than helping families members think strategically about their wealth and engage with how it can be a positive force in their own lives and communities.
All the best,
David
Food for Thought
Stratechery – The End of the Beginning
Cars were the foundation of society’s transformation, but not necessarily car companies. Is the same true of technology?
Estimated Read Time: 7 min
Adventure.ES – Table Stakes – Unblock Your Business
DW Note – this I think has real implications for all sorts of organizations.
“If a business is small, there are two dominant causes. Either the business model or the leadership team, or both, are holding it back. Typically there is something or some things a business owner is doing, or more likely not doing, that are blocking the business from growth. These things are non-obvious, which is why they’re not being done.”
Estimated Read Time: ~7min
New Statesman- How to sell good ideas
Malcolm Gladwell’s cool, playful intelligence has made him one of our leading public thinkers, and he has a host of imitators. But, in a time of antagonistic debate and polarised opinion, does he still have something to say?
Estimated Read Time: 10 min
Quanta – Machines Beat Humans on a Reading Test. But Do They Understand?
The first versions of AI failed miserably at simple tests of reading comprehension. But recent developments have made significant improvements (just look at the auto complete suggestions for sentences in gmail)
Estimated Read Time: 5 min
Business
- HBR – What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation
- NYT – I’ll Share My Salary Information if You Share Yours Forget talking about our sex lives. The modern woman is talking about money.
- StarTribune – For tech-weary Midwest farmers, 40-year-old tractors now a hot commodity
- Wired – Meet the Mad Scientist Who Wrote the Book on How to Hunt Hackers Thirty years ago, Cliff Stoll published The Cuckoo’s Egg, a book about his cat-and-mouse game with a KGB-sponsored hacker. Today, the internet is a far darker place—and Stoll has become a cybersecurity icon.
Culture/Tech/Science:
- WPLN – Teaching Students To ‘Stop And Breathe’ Is Transforming One East Nashville Elementary School
- NYT – A.I. Comes to the Operating Room
- NYT – Older People Need Geriatricians. Where Will They Come From?
- Hodinkee – Hands-On The Richard Mille RM 17-01 Tourbillon Carbon TPT Ok – I know this won’t appeal to everyone, but this is a $500,000 carbon fiber watch. You’ve got to respect the sheer audacity of making something like that.
What I’m Reading Now:
Personal History – Katherine Graham
“In this bestselling and widely acclaimed memoir, Katharine Graham, the woman who piloted the Washington Post through the scandals of the Pentagon Papers and Watergate, tells her story—one that is extraordinary both for the events it encompasses and for the courage, candor, and dignity of its telling.”