Friday Finds (Mr. Beast, America, Bezos, Oil)

Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

If you’re tired of corporate life and want to cannonball into the creator economy, I’m hiring a Production Operations Lead. Think of it like an apprenticeship for running a business and becoming an online creator. This person will be the right-hand for all my creative projects — from this newsletter, to my YouTube channel, to Write of Passage.

The application deadline is Wednesday, March 16th. Here is the job description and the job application.

Here’s what I want to share this week:

1. Imitate, then Innovate: Too many writers try to go at it alone. They reject inspiration out of a fear it’ll tarnish their creative intuition and destroy their originality. But the problem comes from pursuing originality too desperately — when we should pursue quality instead. Read my essay here.​
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2. My Podcast with Noah Kagan: I was interviewed about the philosophy of René Girard, why the Cain & Abel myth is my favorite story in the Bible, and when I realized it was time to start Write of Passage. Listen to the episode here.

Today’s Finds

​Mr. Beast’s Story: This is the story of one of the most popular YouTubers in the world. Mr. Beast struggled in school and couldn’t stand sitting in class and listening to boring lectures. To his mother’s chagrin, he became obsessed with YouTube during his teenage years, and along with a group of friends, obsessed over the mechanics of viral YouTube videos — from choosing topics, to editing, to thumbnails, to video coloring to the pacing of videos. Today, he has more than 100 million subscribers across all his channels.

​Why American Architecture Looks the Same: Drive around America and you’ll see the same blend of chain hotels, restaurants, and apartment complexes. This video outlines how incentives come together to make different parts of America look so similar. The video explores the same tradeoff I posed in The Microwave Economy: scale is beneficial because it lowers costs and makes the world more efficient but comes at the cost of personality and local diversity.

Why Jeff Bezos Dropped Physics: No matter how talented you are, your lack of genius in a particular area is often obvious. Jeff Bezos wanted to be a theoretical physicist. But one night, while studying quantum mechanics, he realized his brain wasn’t wired to process highly abstract concepts. Upon learning that he wasn’t smart enough to be a physicist, he switched to computer science. He tells the story in this short and hilarious YouTube video.

Louis C.K. on Progress: If you want to understand the human condition, don’t just listen to poets and philosophers. Listen to comedians. These two Louis C.K. clips are as dense with insight as a good book. First, in a clip called “Everything is amazing & nobody is happy,” he talks about how fast even the most magical technologies can go from magnificent to mundane. In the second one, he explores the perils of smartphones and specifically how they distract us from our emotions. When you impulsively pick up your smartphone, you’re often running away from an emotion you don’t want to feel.

​The Geopolitics of Oil: Word-for-word, this is the best introduction to the oil industry I’ve found. Though the article is about oil, I particularly enjoyed learning about copper production, which is concentrated in only four countries: Chile, Peru, China, and the United States. Collectively, they produce more than half of the world’s copper. Relative to oil, it can be easily stockpiled. And every year, the United States consumes 1.8 million tons of it, one-third of which is imported.