Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

Speaking of the city, I just published an essay about what it's like to live here.
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It's one of the most polarizing things I've ever published. A bunch of people reached out in praise of it. Others think it's totally off-base.

Here's what else I want to share this week:

1. ​Podcast Interview: I was interviewed by Auren Hoffman, the CEO of Safe Graph. We spoke about René Girard and how to build a Personal Monopoly by writing online.
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2. My Interview with Logic: In honor of the rapper's new album, Vinyl Days, I want to re-share my interview with him. My favorite part came when he took out his notebooks to show us how ideas grow from a sketch to a lyric. Here's a clip. Or you can watch the full thing here.
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3. Hiring at Write of Passage: We're going full-steam ahead on three writing-centric products: Liftoff (for high-school students), Flagship (for adults), and Business Writing (for companies). We plan to hire 8-10 full-time people by the end of the year. Here are the jobs we're currently hiring for.
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   If you feel like you're a good fit for Write of Passage, but don't think any of the job openings are right for you, reach out anyways. This is the best place to do that.

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Today's Finds

​The American Experience: When I was a kid, my grandparents used to stay up late to watch PBS specials. Now, I understood why they loved them so much. In particular, I'm a fan of the American Experience YouTube channel. It focuses on the people and stories that defined America. I recommend this series about William Randolph Hearst (once the most influential figure in American publishing). You'll see that it's organized into little clips because you have to purchase the individual episodes.

Walt Disney: Walt Disney was simultaneously an artist, entrepreneur, and entertainer. I recommend this documentary about him from The American Experience. When he started his career, animation was just becoming a thing. In the year he died, almost seven million people visited Disneyland and 240 million people watched one of his movies. He funded the creation of Disneyland with a contract from ABC that included a weekly TV show that Walt used to promote his new project (it also included $4.5 million in loans in exchange for one-third ownership of Disneyland). Walt wanted Disneyland to feel like a permanent world's fair. In early descriptions of the park, he said: "We hope it will be unlike any other place on this earth: a fair, an amusement park, an exhibition, a city from Arabian nights, a metropolis from the future."

​Lewis Mumford and The Magnificent Bribe: So much of what we know about how technology shapes society originates with Mumford. He argued that people mistakenly assume that what’s good for the technological system is good for individuals, which isn’t always true. Thus, people need to be bribed with a shiny object that looks appealing in the short term, even if the long-term consequences are harmful.

Thinking Basketball: I love discovering people who dive into a topic and reveal all the complexity you've been missing. This book and YouTube channel do that for basketball. I recommend this video about why Stephen Curry and Draymond Green are one of the best duos in NBA history and this one about why the Golden State Warriors are such an unstoppable team. Gotta admit though. I watched a few videos and now I'm explaining the pick-and-roll to friends like I'm Phil Jackson. If you're serious about learning basketball, I recommend the Thinking Basketball book as well.

​The Artist and the Machine: A history of the relationship between art, technology, and human thought. Beginning with 19th-century realism, Michael Nielsen explores the history of art and perception. He shows how technological advancement helps us discover new forms of beauty. New tools extend human thought. Sometimes, they even transcend reality. For example, Impressionist artists believed that seeing came not just from the eye, but also the heart. Ultimately, this piece is a quick tour through the history of art.