Hello, and Happy Sunday!
This week we have some great pieces on web3 (answering crypto critics, and exploring new ideas for DAOs), web2 (creator platforms), and a nice little throwback to a workplace productivity classic: flow. Let's dive in!
Cultivating Flow
Flow State / Superorganizers
Flow holds a semi-mythical status within the productivity community. This state of “deep work” allows you to not only experience intense focus toward the task at hand, but also to feel happier and more fulfilled.
This week on Superorganizers, we have a guest essay from the creators of flowstate.fm to take us back to the basics of understanding flow, using Csikszentmihalyi’s book to help us debunk falsehoods, and find flow in our own work lives.
The Two Biggest Critiques of Web3, analyzed
Nathan Baschez / Divinations
Web3 has a lot of haters, and sometimes, those haters make some interesting points. Two of the most common arguments are 1) Pretty much anything that can be done on a blockchain can be done in web2 and 2) If web3 is so great, shouldn’t it have been further along by now with real use cases?
Nathan analyzes these two common critiques using a classic business strategy framework from Clay Christensen and helps us understand what they might be missing.
Yield DAOs: Leveraging Web3 for Better Offline Living
Nat Eliason / Almanack
Nat has somehow figured out a way to fit the words “endaoment” and “Moooney” (cow powered tokens) into a piece and if that isn’t worth a click then we don’t know what is.
Using examples like a Cow-Purchasing DAO, a Coffee DAO, and an education institution DAO, Nat explores what kinds of new opportunities DeFi can unlock. By his estimation, a smart asset manager utilizing yield farming can generate 10-15% a year. This yield, along with the membership components of DAOs, has the potential to create new, weird, and compelling types of organizations.
Top 12 Creator Platforms—Ranked
Evan Armstrong / Napkin Math
In a follow-up to his Creator Power Scale piece, Evan examines 12 different platforms to determine which ones are creator friendly, and which ones are not. The conclusion is unexpected and will make you reevaluate what matters (and what doesn’t) in the great game of online creatorship.
More Reading Recs
A few things around the internet that we've been enjoying this week!
This Popular Remote Work Advice Is Wrong (And You’re Probably Following It)
Marissa Goldberg / Remotely Interesting
"Set up a specific, separate place to do your work at home." This is typically the first piece of advice newcomers receive when they start to work remotely, yet it's all wrong. You do not need to work from one desk to have an effective remote work experience. In fact, following this advice may make your work worse.
Marissa Goldberg's newsletter, Remotely Interesting, helps you reflect on your current way of life and create actionable steps for a more intentional future. 9-5, Monday-Friday, in-person office work are all relics of the past. This newsletter helps you revolutionize how you live by changing how you work.
Pixar and the Myth of the Cornered Resource
David Phelps / Three Quarks
In this piece, David takes a look at Hamilton Helmer’s strategy classic 7 Powers. In the book Helmer argues that Pixar's durable success is due in large part to their ability to corner a valuable: talent. But David thinks that this is a myth. He unpacks the real source of Pixar's power, and explains when and how talent might actually serve as a source of power.
