Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

I’ve just published my 9,000-word Annual Review. It’s a deep dive into my entire professional life, from the state of my writing practice to the growth of Write of Passage.

Here’s what I want to share this week:

1. 21 Ideas from 2021: My Twitter thread with the best ideas I discovered last year. You can read it on Twitter or this website.
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2. ​Against 3x Speed: When I started learning on my own, I became obsessed with binge learning. I tried to speed read books and listen to podcasts at 3x speed. But I later realized that this strategy was counter-productive. In this video, I present a better way to learn.

Coolest Things I Learned This Week​
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Coolest Things I Learned Last Year

I mentioned the Twitter thread I published above and want to share my favorites here:

1. Make One Person Responsible: If you want to get something done, it’s tempting to put a huge number of people in charge. But often, when too many people are in charge, nobody accepts responsibility. This saying is illustrative: “A dog with two owners dies of hunger.”
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2. The Knife Theory of Hiring: When you first start a company, you need Swiss Army Knife people who can do a little bit of everything. Once your company gets big, you need a bunch of kitchen knife people who do one thing very, very well.
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3. Akrasia: In theory, we know how to behave. But in practice, we don’t always do it. The Ancient Greeks called this phenomenon “akrasia,” which translates to “weakness of will.” It describes our tragic proclivity to act against our best interests, even when we know what to do.

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Studying the Canon

People are too hesitant to study the greats who came before them. They value originality too much. But innovation begins with imitation. Remember, Einstein's invention of General Relativity was enabled by decades of studying classical physicists, whose ideas he later built upon.

This is another example of my motto: Imitate, then Innovate.​

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Consilience

E.O. Wilson passed away last week. As a biologist, he was famous for the idea of consilience, where instead of specializing, you look for the unity of knowledge — and specifically, the synthesis of the science and the humanities.

This graph of the sciences shows the fragmentation of academia, as measured by co-citations. A kingdom of epiphanies is waiting for people in the middle who can find new ways to connect the dots.

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In Praise of Conspiracy Theories

It’s easy to hate on conspiracy theories, but what are the best arguments for taking them seriously?

Here's one: At a recent dinner, we started talking about John F. Kennedy assassination theories. One guy remarked that historical conspiracy theories are worth studying because they illuminate so much about the culture of the time.

Studying the JFK conspiracy theories is a fun way to learn about the tension between Cuba and America, America’s rivalry with the KGB, the won’t-stop-at-anything political motivations of Lyndon B. Johnson, the mafia’s influence, and the power of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.

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The Lesson of Robinhood

Many years ago, I attended Robinhood’s launch party in Palo Alto. They’d just raised their seed round (I think), and they hosted a party at their office to celebrate. For whatever reason, I remember being unimpressed by the spread of free food. It all felt too casual. It felt like a Bar Mitzvah, not the launch of a major company!

In retrospect, I was naive because my expectations were too high. Things rarely feel impressive in the early days.

Today, Robinhood has 3,400 employees and is worth more than $16 billion. I think about that night whenever I feel like Write of Passage isn’t grown up enough.

As a reminder, I also collect early photos of now-successful startups to remind myself how crude the early years can be. They’re impressive because of how unimpressive they are.

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The Early Years of Amazon and Stripe

Photo of the Week

Perhaps, the best part of writing the Annual Review is looking back at all your photos from the previous year.

This one from my time living in Oaxaca stands out. Towards the end of the trip, I started drawing on my iPad every night. My roommate (a talented artist named Marianna Phillips) snapped the shot.