A year ago, I had just returned from a trip to New York. It was a great trip, stacked with board meetings and breakfasts and lunches and drinks and dinners. Normally, too many meetings exhaust my brain quickly, but each of these were invigorating. Not one, but two deals actually came from this trip. And as I landed back in San Francisco, I remember thinking that was a great use of travel.

That was also the last time I traveled. A few weeks later, our office shut down and it has been work from home ever since.¹

It’s wild both how fast and how slow this past year has gone. If you pause just for a moment and think about the reality: that we’ve been in a state of lockdown for a year now, it’s surreal.² I mean that: it does not seem real. My brain has collapsed the past year into a mere moment in time.

But we’re also still in that moment and I find myself getting more impatient with each passing day. Oddly, good news about cases going down and vaccines going up only seems to exacerbate such feelings. “Let’s get to the finish line already!” That kind of thing. So I’m somewhat sympathetic when I see news suggesting air travel is quickly ramping back. That seems like good news, but I’m terrified that it’s a bunch of people even more impatient than myself who are just prolonging the return to normalcy for all of us.

It’s incredibly frustrating.

I want to travel again too — believe me — but I also don’t want that travel to lead directly or indirectly to people getting sick, or worse. And I don’t want it to delay the world where we can all feel invigorated again.

Aside

After some reflection, I think I’m just about ready to start this here newsletter up again at a regular cadence. Here’s the current modus operandi I’m thinking about (subject to change, as always):

• A short-ish bit of personal writing at the top.

• A handful (5-ish) of links below to external things which I believe are worth the click.

• A handful (5-ish) of links to my more blog-ish quick posts for that week.

• A handful (5-ish) of links to my 500-ish word essays.

• A tweet of note.

Essentially, this will be an easy, in-your-inbox way to keep up with my various readings and writings throughout a given week. Pretty short. Very digestible.

Links

• What killed Volkswagen’s electric car? Well, a lot of things. But mainly hubris. 🔋

• Susan Orlean has some good tips for how to improve as a writer. The major one: as vain as it sounds, read your own work. ✍️

• Lest we get caught up in all the negative news about COVID-19 — let’s take a moment to celebrate how quickly we’ve turned around the vaccine roll-out disaster. 💉

• Amazon is apparently planning a wall-mounted Echo/Alexa device, which means we’re just one step away from a full-on Amazon TV, ahead of the mythical Apple Television. Though it makes perfect sense for Amazon’s model and strategy. 📺

• The NYT obit of Hank Aaron is just fantastic in that it’s so data and story rich. What a career. What a life. ⚾️

• Basically all of Ezra Klein’s column on the insanely conservative realities in progressive California is worthy of an excerpt. So instead I’ll just share the whole thing. 🌞

• For all the (warranted) hype Clubhouse is getting right now, I found myself also agreeing with a lot of the points Mark Sternberg lays out here. As a pretty intense introvert, I struggle with a lot of these issues. 🗣

Posts

• “People yawn…”

• H. Moser’s Dunk on Apple Watch

• Amazon’s Tricky Mustache Branding

• “You’re only two years older than me, darling.”

• College Football 2022, The Game

• Tim Cook: Execution Machine

Essays

🌅 At Dawn

A shift back to boring. Hopefully.

🎙 Apple’s Bundle Grows…

Apple Podcasts+ doesn’t make sense, until it does

👁 The Eyes Have It

Apple’s Rumored Tesla-Like Approach to VR/AR Hardware…

🐦 Twitter’s Revue of Monetization

Changing models and content types on the fly…

🦘 My Once and Future Travel Buddy

Some thoughts on GV’s investment in Gowalla…

🤫 A Quiet Sunday

Using the power of Twitter ‘Mute’ and ‘Lists’…

🚗 Hyundai/Kia : Apple Car :: Cingular/AT&T : iPhone

Forget smoke, the rumors are a ball of fire at this point

📺 WandaVision’s Missing Link

Son of a bitch. They did it.

🐣 ‘Twitter Prime’

It’s finally time for a premium Twitter

⌚️ An Overnight Success, Six Years in the Making

The Apple Watch on 100 million wrists…

#GoBlue

Kendall Baker @TheKendallBaker

Tom Brady’s first video game appearance vs now

February 3rd 2021

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