I hope you’ve recovered from the Diwali holiday hangover! I’m still getting there…
Which is why it’s taken one massive cup of coffee and a delayed flight (4.5 hrs, thanks SpiceJet) to get me to write and ensure that this 4th edition gets sent out to you!
FOMO has been around forever, but I feel it’s exploding now more than ever, especially with Gen Z. Having interacted with many 20-something year olds, there is no doubt this generation possesses maturity far beyond their age- But with maturity comes great impatience - and their impatience to grow fast to achieve “success” is climbing to never seen before levels. Can you really blame them though, especially when you have two 19-year olds who go on to build a ~$900M firm in India (starts with a Z).
To each of you, I know not comparing yourself vs others is hard - but there’s a few ways to reduce this, which I’ll shortly cover below:
Here are my top content picks for the week - have fun, and do share your fatigue recovery methods on this thread- I NEED THEM ALL. And definitely do provide your feedback by replying to this email/DM/thread directly!
[Mega-commerce] - Yes, I’d label the SEA group as “mega-commerce”. Mario, from The Generalist breaks them down so well in this article, do give it a read [The Generalist]
- The company lost $177 billion of its peak market cap in 2022, Losses swelled from $24.1 million to $506.3 million on an adjusted EBITDA basis
- Just as Amazon uses AWS’s free cash flow to fund e-commerce growth, Sea relies on gaming division Garena to fuel Shopee’s expansion
- Much of Sea’s available cash comes from Free Fire, a battle royale game, which was also super famous in India. However, Free Fire’s user base and bookings have started to fall
- Having worked in SEA, I was quite surprised with the commissions they’d charge vendors. It’s no surprise that Sea’s e-commerce arm continues to lose money. However, losses per order have improved from $0.41 to $0.33
- The fintech division SeaMoney could prove influential over time. Sea could potentially build the region’s version of Ant Financial
[Funny | Informative] - How Rick Roll became the Rick Roll meme - [Vice, Youtube]
- Nearly everyone has been Rick Roll’d, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about - CLICK HERE
- This video explores the origin, the development, Rick Astley’s career - the entire thing is very wholesome
[Introspective | Mindset] - Speaking about the comparison problem, esp with Gen Z - here’s a good way to at least start to tackle it, via the “4 burners theory” [James Clear]
- One way to think about work-life balance and other aspects of social capital, is via the following: Imagine that your life is represented by a stove with four burners on it. Each burner symbolizes one major quadrant of your life: The first burner represents your family, second burner is your friends, third burner is your health, fourth burner is your work
- In order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two
- The way I viewed this - when you’re comparing yourself with someone, look at the whole picture and really ask yourself if you’re willing to let go of a bunch of other things (from the above). Based on this, evaluate each “comparison” on these various aspects and be happy that you’re probably better on various aspects and DON’T want to lose out on those
- I used to suffer this at one point as well, and will be writing a different post on how I coped with it- look out for that one!
[Burntech??] - Looks like the valley is funding a whole new range of startups solving forest fires - [Quartz]
- Eight of the largest 20 fires in California history have taken place since 2017
- California’s 2018 wildfires likely cost the state $148.5 billion
- To tackle this problem - Convective Capital, a new investment fund backed by a group of successful entrepreneurs has raised $35 million to invest in businesses they call “firetech”
[Business Apps] - How shifting between multiple apps to get stuff done drains workers’ time, efficiency and engagement [Bloomberg]
- Companies?deployed?89 different apps on average last year, up from 58 in 2015 - as per Okta
- A recent?study of 20 teams across three big employers found that workers toggled between different?apps and websites 1,200 times each day
- App overload, or toggling tax - is hurting most workplaces at an alarming rate
[Funny] - Extremely funny parody on Gary Vee, by the talented Trevor Wallace [Youtube Shorts]
- This is a hilarious short on the famous Gary Vee, Trevor even gets the accent dead-on!
[Podcast] - Lex Fridman interviews Kanye West, in what was a very very eye-opening podcast [Youtube]
- Kanye has been all over the internet lately, for all the wrong reasons
- Lex really gave it to Kanye for his comments - in a very polite and humble way
- I do believe Kanye was wrong in what he said, but here’s what Sam Harris had to brutally say - “Kanye is simply an insufferable jackass”
[Sports] - Loads of crazy sporting events took place over the last week - covering a few amazing highlights below - [Youtube]
- Hikaru, a famous Chess player and streamer just become the Fischer Chess World Champion, here’s Gotham’s breakdown - [Gotham Chess] | Fischer Chess is an alternate form of chess invented by the renowned Bobby Fischer
- In a historic move - the Indian Women’s cricket team is now set to earn equal pay as the Men’s cricket team! Test matches at Rs 15 lakhs, ODI matches at Rs 6 lakhs and T20I at Rs 3 lakh, this is just the first step in gender equality - [Indian Express]
- Jake Paul, the famous Youtuber just upset an all-time legend, Anderson Silva at boxing - [YT Shorts]
- Kevin De Bruyne, the insane footballer for Manchester City scored a stunning free kick against Leicester City - [Youtube]
[General] - Why Gen Z hate full stops [Business Standard]
- Notice why I use few full stops? Who knew texting/emailing could piss people off, without putting any effort. Full stop’s just brought a whole new level to being misconstrued
- Apparently - “Full stops show a sign of aggression”
I’d love to improve this curation as well, please do give your feedback to [email protected] or reply to this email thread.
