Dear friends,

Every week, I’m sharing an essay that relates to what we are building and learning at Alan. Those essays are fed by the article I’m lucky enough to read and capitalise on.

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This week, as I share our Q1 2024 shareholder letter (I invite you to read it and share your feedback), the topic I wish to address is the importance of transparency both internally and externally. 

Sometimes, the lack of transparency in tech is puzzling. I believe that fostering transparency within our ecosystem creates goodwill and does not harm the company.

It is true that in the past, some (lazy) competitors have tried to use our figures against us in attempts to sway deals, but it was always easy to counter by pointing to the actual data and how we manage the company, reassuring everyone. Even if attacked on other fronts, being transparent provided us with better defenses.

I believe that transparency builds trust within the ecosystem, helping us to hire, and grow. It also forces you to think like a listed company, to meet public scrutiny standards. 

If I could convey a message, it would be the value of transparency and how we, as an ecosystem, can exemplify it, whether things are going well or not.

One of the challenges is navigating an ecosystem that sometimes lacks subtlety, where the media and some players always focus on problems because it generates clicks, creating a vicious cycle where fear of transparency emphasizes bad news disproportionately.

Creating a healthier environment of transparency, finesse, and nuance in how topics are approached would benefit the entire ecosystem and all its participants.

Some good articles I have read this week

👉 Stanford organizational psychologist Bob Sutton on fixing friction (The Friction Project)

• Meetings & trainings & a lot of things with good intentions can kill companies

  • “I remember talking to a middle manager at an insurance company who told me that he tries to do his job but he’s constantly pulled into trainings about design thinking, digital transformation, and other knowledge work “flavors of the month,” and, as a result, can’t get to his actual work.”

• “the right way to do something creative is the hard way”

• ➡️ It is our competitive advantage to fight this inertia. 

👉 Virta Health on business wire (business wire)

• Virta Health members see no regain in body weight following 12-months post de-prescription of GLP-1s

👉 How Dust’s Table Queries are Changing the Game for Quantitative Analysis with LLMs (Dust)

👉 Balaji on X on US Treasuries (X)

• A bet against US Treasuries 

👉 UX Bites #15 – Instagram, Arc & more… (UX Bites)

• Loved the UI on when you want to get a notification 

👉 Jason Helmes on X: Bad Therapy by @AbigailShrier  (X)

• Very interesting contrarian view and I tend to agree with many things! As always, everything should be nuanced (a lot!)

• How good intentions can have bad impact:

  • “A constant attention on how kids are "feeling" or "thinking" is causing negative outcomes.”

  • “Constantly ruminating on your emotions and how you feel negatively impacts your mental health. If all you do is focus on your emotions, you are destined to be anxious or depressed.”

• “You develop confidence and strong mental health by doing things.”

  • “You gain confidence and eliminate anxiety by doing gradually more difficult tasks, excelling at them, and realizing you are a competent, capable person. “

• I think it also applies to the workplace 

👉 Max Brodeur-Urbas on X on building tools to track subbreddits (X)

• Interesting automation to analyze top posts on subreddit

👉 Tim Urban on X: AI therapist (X)

• Could AI therapists have a major positive effect on the future? Imagine if everyone on Earth had free, 24/7 access to an endlessly knowledgeable psychologist who had worked with millions of patients and had a superhuman understanding of human psychological patterns.

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