Things read - Week 08
Kevin Kelly's advice related to travel
I read anything that Kevin writes. I was introduced to him from his phenomenal "1000 true fans" article. Recently, he wrote a mini-book: "Excellent advice for living" and now this mega post about his advice related to travel. Some advice that resonated with me (paraphrased):
- If you have a choice between more time or more money to travel, choose more time. It's a better way to experience and immerse in the place and might leave you with a core memory.
- If you hire a taxi or driver, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother or wife. No amount of local immersion curated trip can give you a glimpse of how local life looks like.
- The most significant travel criteria to use when selecting a travel companion is to see if they complain. Not that complaints are prohibited, but they should be reserved at the end of the trip when we debrief. No complaining during the trip (or the activity).
- To stay safe, smile. Be humble and minimize your ego.
Link
$56,000 Mattress
A product recommendation from Wirecutter. They aren't known to review these kinds of niche products but I'm glad they did. And it's a very well written too. I like how they wrote that they can't say it's "worth it" but simply "this was the best thing they ever slept on but they'll never sleep on one again." Reminds me of my initial days' conundrum about Leica and Fujifilm. Leica is the best camera I've ever tried but Fujifilm gets 80% there at less than 1/4 of the price. Link
Addiction economy
Articles's premise: Most valuable companies turn dopamine into consumption. The next compounders are going to be the companies that turn dopamine into attention. Apparently, over the last 100 years, half the top 30 companies have made big billions by doing the same. Companies like Altria, Coca-Cola, Weyth and Kroger sell both substances and treatments and have generated unfathomable revenue.
At the moment, 8 of the worlds' 10 most valuable businesses turn dopamine into attention or make something for those companies that are turning dopamine into attention.
| Company | Market Cap (USD, trillion) | How Their Output Turns Dopa into Attention |
|---|---|---|
| Apple | 3.419 | Acting as a base for these dopa merchants |
| NVIDIA | 3.271 | Hardware for accelerating growth of addictive & sophisticated algos |
| Microsoft | 3.064 | Software for accelerating growth of addictive algos |
| Amazon | 2.470 | Triggers dopamine with personalized shopping and instant gratification. |
| Alphabet (Google) | 2.282 | Captures attention with search, YouTube, and personalized content delivery. Also, Android i.e., base for dopa merchants |
| Meta Platforms (Facebook) | 1.817 | Encourages repetitive engagement through likes, notifications, and social connections. |
| Saudi Aramco | 1.787 | |
| Tesla | 1.128 | |
| Broadcom | 1.101 | Hardware for accelerating growth of addictive & sophisticated algos |
| TSMC | 1.078 | Hardware for accelerating growth of addictive & sophisticated algos |
A word of caution: It took us 20 years to wake up to the dangers of opiates and same could be true for the smartphone – the medium that these companies primarily use to turn dopa into attention. According to studies, users can become addicted to TikTok within 35 minutes?! And we have just begun. Link