Sometimes you just have to not die. I keep coming back to this maxim time and time again ever since I read an essay by Paul Graham on what he considered the single greatest predictor of success in YC cohorts. Over time, I began to see the wide applicability of it. For example, while running, whenever I feel like I am about to flag and give up, I just quietly tell myself to just not die (which in this instance means to not stop running). This is also the maxim that keeps me going whenever I feel like the newsletter is too much of an effort to keep going. So here’s to not dying this week.
Links of the Week
Startups - Paul Graham’s essay on survival being the most important thing in the early stages of a startup. (Link)
Covid - This is a great deep dive into the question - should naturally immune people get the vaccine? The answer is yes and Covishield seems to be the best bet! (Link)
Climate Change - Might geo-engineering hold the answers to all of our climate related problems? Eli Dourado delivers yet again. (Link)
Profile - Any book that talks about Peter Thiel and his work is important enough to be read. And the next best thing to reading the book is to read this review of Thiel’s latest biography. (Link)
Economics - One of the great joys of reading online is when you stumble onto a brilliant new blog. Here’s a sample from my latest discovery, a blog called Slime Mold Time Mold. This post covers an interesting premise: did the 1970 Controlled Substances Act lead to the subsequent decline in economic productivity that has so befuddled everyone? Speculative and wild. (Link)
Geopolitics - China’s treatment of Uyghurs is a tale so shocking, so difficult to square with our moral intuitions that the world has simply pretended not to notice. The Atlantic tries its best to make us look. (Link)
Sociology - No other mammalian species has fathers play as much of a prominent role during a child’s early years as humans do. Why is that the case? (Link)
Happy reading!