Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

Running Write of Passage has me doing more private writing than ever before. I want to publish this writing whenever possible.

Up first is my memo on Frank Slootman's Amp It Up philosophy. He used it to build three billion-dollar companies, including Snowflake which was the most valuable software IPO of all-time. His mantra is simple: increase the tempo, raise the standards, and narrow the focus.

​This essay is about how we Amp It Up it at Write of Passage.

Today's Finds

​Every Angel is Terrifying: A 20-minute documentary critiquing the modern world. The creator, Riva Tez, is skeptical of how much progress we've made. Despite what many metrics are saying, people are more drugged up than ever and rates of teen depression have increased by 40% since 2012. People are increasingly weak, anxious, and squishy. The human spirit should be celebrated. Instead of cultivating it, we lock our children in windowless schools and medicate them until they become disobedient. The alternative is a society that prioritizes vitality. One that values greatness, individuality, and transcendence. Here's a three-minute trailer. Watch the whole video here.

​Century of the Self: If you're looking for a similar documentary, I recommend this 2013 documentary about how people in power have used Sigmund Freud’s theories to control and manipulate crowds. It discusses the relationship between Freud and Edward Bernays, who was Freud’s nephew and the founder of the public relations industry. If you’re interested in advertising, narrative control, and crowd psychology, you will like this documentary. Here's a full transcript.

Constellation Software: One of the most successful private equity firms in the world. The founder, Mark Leonard, is notoriously interview-shy, which makes it hard to learn about the company. He turned a $25 million investment in 1995 into a portfolio of more than 750 software businesses, with a combined market cap of $37 billion (USD). This summary from Speedwell Research and this one from Colin Keeley are good places to begin. It explores their decentralized structure and why they've chosen to buy vertical market software companies. Leonard has also written many short annual letters. If you prefer audio, David Senra broke down his career on the Founders Podcast.

​The Boz Blog: Andrew "Boz" Bosworth is the Chief Technology Officer at Facebook. His site is filled with a bunch of short posts about management, technology, and general life advice. I particularly like this piece about focus. He insists that anything that departs from your core mission is a distraction. Even the most well-intended projects have hidden costs. During early Q&As at Facebook, employees would ask Zuckerberg if the company could support nonprofits directly. He always said no. Supporting them wasn’t their comparative advantage. And besides, the nonprofits would all use Facebook once it became successful, which would help them in the long run. His management advice is good too: escalate early and often, shorten cycle times, and take longer vacations.

​The Condition of the Working Class in England: I’m perpetually interested in how the Industrial Revolution changed society and consciousness. This account from Friedrich Engels was written in 1845 and had a major influence on Karl Marx. It describes the horrid working conditions in industrial cities like Manchester and Liverpool, where people were divorced from nature, suffered through horrid working conditions, and disproportionately died from diseases like measles and smallpox. Though the whole book is available for free, the introduction and Wikipedia page provide good introductions. If you want more, you’ll enjoy this lecture.