Q1 2022 - Life Feedback - Books, Articles, and Podcasts

In Jan 2022, I shared all the books I have been reading in the past year and with one takeaway from them.

A lot of you reached out to me asking me to share more of my readings, I have been extremely busy last month but have tried to put together what I have been reading this month and some cool stuff in the first quarter of this year– Articles, Books, and Podcasts.

Hence, the catchy Headline - Q1 2022 - Life. I prioritize life over my career and certainly over the job. ?My direction or vision is what I am focused on and that is driven by what I want out of my life. The career enables me to work towards the vision and the job enables my career.

Quote from the Books I am reading:

Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Page 174: What he collected was large, perhaps not enough to make him wealthy, but enough to make the point – to others but also, I suspect to himself -that he talked the talk and was truly above not below wealth. This kind of sum I have called in my vernacular “fuck you money” – a large sum enough to get most, if not all, of the advantages of wealth (the most important one being the independence and the ability to only occupy your mind with matters that interest you) but not it’s side effects such as having to attend a black tie charity event and being forced to listen to a polite exposition of the details of a marble-rich house renovation.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Page 76: The Build-Measure-Learn feedback loop is at the core of the lean startup model. The two most important assumptions are the value hypothesis and the growth hypothesis. Our planning works in the reverse order: we figure out what we need to learn, use innovative accounting to figure out what we need to measure to know if we gaining validated learning and then figure out what product (MVP) do we need to build to run the experiment and get that measurement.

The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham

Page 35: Why do you suppose the brokers on the floor of NYSE always cheer at the sound of the closing bell-no matter what the?market did that day? Because whenever you trade, they make?money-whether you did or not. By speculating instead of Investing, you lower your own odds of building wealth and raise someone else’s.?

Here are some of the articles I have been reading -

https://hbr.org/2022/04/onboarding-can-make-or-break-a-new-hires-experience?ab=hero-main-text

First impression matters. In this remote/hybrid world, as a company/HR you need to prioritize how you onboard the new hires. I try and empathize with the employee/colleague to talk about what they do outside of the work. Remember, connecting is one of our prime important human needs.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-die-without-sleep-20220322/

I have been prioritizing sleep this year. I use the app Sleep Cycle on my iPhone and track my heartbeat on my apple watch during my 8-hour sleep. In Q2 I will be sleeping 7 hours to track my energy levels and if it differs from Q1. Data, if you look at it, has all the answers.

https://www.wired.com/story/twitter-crypto-strategy/

Yeah, I am down in this crypto rabbit hole and have also been checking the NFT space seriously to try and commercialize the creator economy in Africa. Watching bigger corporations such as Airbnb and Twitter planning to accept Bitcoin is one good step in the right direction.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/28/1048355/quantum-computing-has-a-hype-problem/

I have been researching Quantum Computing for the last three years and I also sit on the steering committee of One Quantum South Africa. I have been following the rise of Rigetti, IonQ (and many other startups) and not to mention the usual Supremacy debate between Google, IBM, and Microsoft.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00969-9?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=074d4eca14-briefing-dy-20220406&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-074d4eca14-42578843

I can’t imagine that we are living in this era where some of our fellow humans are fascists and some of them are being forced to live in the fear of these fascists and their ideologies. On the other side, Sustainability is something that we all will have to consider more seriously than ever before.

These Podcasts made my mornings better –

1.?????The immaculate conception: Bitcoin vs Fiat Standard | Dr Saifedean Ammous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXvQcuIb5rU&t=609s

2.?????Bitcoin: The Future of Money | Bitcoiner Book Club

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVym9wtopqs&t=109s

3.?????Tim Ferris: Mark Zuckerberg on long term strategy

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/582-mark-zuckerberg-on-long-term-strategy-business/id863897795?i=1000555124800

4.?????How NFTs are building the Internet of the future

https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/ted-talks-technology/id470624027?i=1000544483585

Hope you enjoy it. Write to me at [email protected] for discussions on these.

Cheers!