Adjacent Possible Issue No. 3 | Butterfly effect, dark mode, time, software, meaning

Hello,

Welcome to Adjacent Possible.

Adjacent Possible is a newsletter about ideas beyond the line of sight. It is based on the belief that ideas are not created in isolation and the 'Eureka' moment is essentially a culmination & combination of knowledge, skills and ideas that you already have, cobbled together over many years.

Unlike the social media algorithms that only show you 'more' of what you are already seeing (to keep you on the platform), Adjacent Possible is chaotic by design so that you can soak stories from myriad fields every week and in the process create new incredible ideas of your own.

I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy putting it together.

As always, today's header image has icons that reflect the stories covered in this issue. Keep this in mind and have fun matching the stories with icons.

with you in ideas

Rohit

Billie Elish is a phenomenally gifted artist and the single 'Bad Guy' for which she won the Grammy award was a musical masterpiece. But what if I tell you that the wheels for this song's creation were set in motion before Billie was even born. In fact much before.... in 1886. If one Mr William Eden had not married Ms Sybil Frances Grey in 1886, in all likelihood the song would not have happened! Here's an amazing infographic depicting the chain of actions and reactions from an inconspicuous wedding in 1886 leading to Billie Eilish winning the Grammy. PS: If you are a fan of the Butterfly Effect, you will truly enjoy this infographic. Open in desktop browser to read it easily.

Shifting gears to 2021 now. In this short but insightful article, former Venture Capitalist and technology evangelist Benedict Evans ponders upon the real meaning of 'Software is eating the world' as promulgated many years ago by tech investor Marc Andreessen. Ben argues that while tech is changing all sectors around us such as retail (Amazon, Walmart, etc.), entertainment (Netflix), etc. but the real strategic questions in these industries are still deeply linked to fundamentals of retail industry and entertainment industry. Once the tech brings about a shift, it's a mere enabler and not the driver of an industry. The real meaning of software is eating the world is thus very different from what we think it is.

To read 3 more stories click here.

Till next Saturday.

Rohit