Month: August 2018

Elon Musk in his New York Times interview-confession:

…he choked up multiple times, noting that he nearly missed his brother’s wedding this summer and spent his birthday holed up in Tesla’s offices as the company raced to meet elusive production targets on a crucial new model.

Asked if the exhaustion was taking a toll on his physical health, Mr. Musk answered: “It’s not been great, actually. I’ve had friends come by who are really concerned.”

“It is often a choice of no sleep or Ambien,” he said

Jason Fried’s and David Heinemeier Hansson’s new book “It Doesn’t Have To Be Crazy At Work”, releasing in October 2018:

Long hours, an excessive workload, and a lack of sleep have become a badge of honor for modern professionals. But it should be a mark of stupidity, the authors argue. Sadly, this isn’t just a problem for large organizations—individuals, contractors, and solopreneurs are burning themselves out the same way.

…You can have a calm company too.

This book points out the diseases plaguing modern workplace and work methods. It calls out false cures, and pushes back against ritualistic time-sucks that have infected the way people work these days. We have a prescription to make it better.

For the past few months I’ve been listening to Laura Shin’s podcast Unchained. In her own description,

host Laura Shin talks with industry pioneers across tech, financial services, health care, government and other sectors about how the blockchain and cryptocurrency will open up new opportunities for incumbents, startups and everyday people to interact more efficiently, directly and globally.

It’s not crypto news, it’s not deep tech, it’s not about deals and dealmakers. Just a take-a-step-back look at broad trends in the blockchain-token space.

For starters, listen to the skeptics episode about the Shitcoin Waterfall and the one with security token infra builders Harbor and Trustoken.

Today I spent a few minutes thinking about what it is about artefacts – Harappan, Roman, Mesopotamian – that has such an impact on me, personally.

I think it’s because I often think in terms of generations.

You know your parents, your grandparents. If you’re lucky you have some memory of your great-grandparents, or have been told about life with them. That’s 3 generations including you. A generation is about 30 years, so that’s about 90-100 years back, give or take.

The Industrial Revolution matured about 200 years ago, so your great-grandparents’ great-grandparents would have been alive around then to experience it.

Shivaji was born about 390 years ago – 13 generations. That’s the gap between you and your great-grandparents four times over.

The founding of Islam, about 1400 years ago is 45 generations ago and Christianity 66. Now it’s just numbers.

But the Harappan dancing girl (National Museum Delhi) and the Priest in Sindhi Ajruk (National Museum Karachi) are 4,500 years old. That’s 150 generations ago – well over ten times in the past as Shivaji is.

That’s when the scale really hit me.