Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

As you may have heard, we’re hard at work building Write of Passage Liftoff. Our goal? Help high schoolers share their ideas, find friends on the same wavelength, and 2x their potential through writing online.
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We’ve built an initial version of the program, and now we’re looking for focus group testers to help us try out two 90 minute live writing workshops and share feedback. If you’re between 14-18 (or know someone who is), and interested in writing online, click here to express your interest, and we’ll send you further details. Participants will receive a small stipend for their time.

Here's what I want to share this week:

1. The Microwave Economy: America has become a Microwave Economy. We've overwhelmingly used our wealth to make the world cheaper instead of more beautiful, and more functional instead of more meaningful. Things today aren't built to galvanize the human spirit. Why do cities in one of the world's wealthiest countries have such soul-crushing architecture? Read my essay here.​
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2. ​How to Build an Online Audience: Earlier this year, I flew to London to record this video with Ali Abdaal, who runs one of the largest productivity-focused YouTube accounts in the world. Together we created this guide to building an online audience. We debated the benefits of video vs. writing and outlined the roadmaps we used to build our followings.

Friday Finds

David Foster Wallace Interviews: I devoured David Foster Wallace's interviews, trying to understand why he's the voice for a generation. His writing is exceptional, but also sad, depressing, and at times, mopey. History will remember him as one of the most iconic authors of the late 20th century. Start with this unedited interview, which is as revealing as it is awkward. Then, watch his interview with Charlie Rose. As you do, pay attention to his awareness of the moment and his obsession with what other people think of him.

The Great CEO Within: This is the best resource I've found for CEO's of fast-growing companies. The author, Matt Mochary, built a successful startup, retired for a bit, and then came back to Silicon Valley to coach top CEOs. This book came out of that project. I like how he prioritizes focus: "Schedule two hours each day to work on your Top Goal only. And do this every single workday. During this Top Goal time, do not respond to emails, texts, calls, and messages. Only work on your top priority during these two hours." Mochary's philosophy includes a bunch of other lessons, such as don't create a 50/50 partnership, don't scale beyond six people until you've reached Product-Market-Fit, and make sure that your company doesn't have a central point of failure by writing down all processes and cross-training a second person for each role. For a quick start, I recommend his Google Doc (which has videos worth watching too). If you're serious about diving deep and supporting his work, get the book.

​Why Should You Read the Odyssey?: In Saving the Liberal Arts, I argued that college students are too young to study the Liberal Arts. Even Plato said that people aren’t prepared to study Liberal Arts until the age of 30. Book VII of The Republic, writes: “Let us take every possible care that young persons do not study philosophy too early.” In this interview, Daniel Mendelsohn explains why ancient stories like The Odyssey still have practical benefit. He says: “When your father dies, your accounting degree is not going to help you at all to process that experience. Homer will help you.” I also resonated with this comment: “The crude preoccupation with moneymaking as the only goal of a college education is giving us a citizenry that is extremely degraded, as far as I’m concerned. I think it’s only the crudest and least interesting practicality that has no time for the humanities.”

​10,000 Hours with Reid Hoffman: Ben Casnocha spent years as the Chief of Staff to LinkedIn's co-founder and Executive Chairman. This gargantuan essay captures everything he learned. My favorite lesson is the idea of "Shadow Power." Every successful person has people around them who they trust — advisors, assistants, and especially spouses. The more powerful they are, the bigger their circle. Outsiders tend to underestimate the influence of these "shadow powers." Often, they're rude to them. A few more things stand out. When you're as powerful as somebody like Reid, everybody kisses your ass. Do the opposite. If you offer constructive feedback, powerful people like Reid will need to have you around. Because without you, they'll be living in a false reality. I have one friend who made a career of exactly this. He's extremely insightful and unimpressed by people in power, so a billionaire basically hired him as a thinking partner.

​The Unbearable Lightness of Being: Damn, what a magnificent book. The story isn't very good, but only because it's a canvas to explore the philosophy of love and the tensions of a life well-lived. This quote is a wonderful summary of what makes the book so magical: "The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But … the heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes a man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant." Earlier this year, one of my favorite painters told me he‘ll never live a luxurious life because it’ll distance him from the human experience. Pain can be challenging, he said. But it can also magnify the experience of being alive.