Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?
My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”
Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:
- Sovereign Engineering. “A friend recently spent six weeks in Madiera building apps and services for a self-sovereign future. It’s easy to dismiss ‘self-sovereignty‘ as mad-hatter libertarianism. But it’s actually about finding ways to communicate, share, pay, and interact in zero-trust environments. Cryptocurrency is the most famous example of this, but far from the only one. For example, there’s Nostr (‘Notes and Other Stuff Transmitted by Relays’) which is a decentralized alternative to social media platforms. There are plenty of good reasons to not trust institutions these days, and this friend shared a link to a conversation between two heavyweights in the field, which I found absolutely fascinating. Really worth listening to carefully.” (Alistair for Hugh).
- AI Fakers Exposed In Tech Dev Recruitment: Postmortem – Gergely Orosz – The Pragmatic Engineer. “‘A full-remote security startup nearly hired a backend engineer who doesn’t exist.’ File under We’re Not Ready And You Can’t Trust Anyone. The attempt to trick the employer happened twice – and the second time, they recorded it. Juicy post with lots of hard data.” (Alistair for Mitch).
- Navigating The Twin Crises Of The 2020s – George Friedman – Hidden Forces. “Fascinating interview with strategic forecaster, George Friedman, that provides an coherent explanation for all the unexplainable geopolitical chaos in the world, roughly speaking: the true end of the Cold War is happening right now (as Russia has shown itself too weak to take over Ukraine); and Covid undermined trust in the technocrat liberal management class. Domestically, Trump is ripping up the old political and ruling order in the US, and a new system will emerge; simultaneously the global structures and systems we built up after WW2 (United Nations, trade agreements, NATO) will be discarded, and we’re not sure what’s coming next. According to Friedman, this isn’t about Trump, but Trump is the vehicle for this change.” (Hugh for Alistair).
- Failure Or Success In The Time Of Trump – Jim Balsillie – The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast. “Jim Balsillie (BlackBerry founder) explains to Jordan Peterson what has gone wrong with the Canadian economy/economic strategy in the past 25 years, and why – with Trump – we are at a momentously important moment for our country. Just to remind everyone: Canada now ranks last in OECD in economic growth, in GDP/capita, and expected growth in the next 40 years. This means a) we are getting poorer, which means b) we will be less able to finance what we want (health, education), and c) we become irrelevant in the world. Why are we doing so badly? In Balsillie’s telling, Canada’s economic strategy is based on free trade ideology rooted in a manufacturing and resource reality from 30 years ago. While the US trade strategy – even in the time of Trump – and the strategies of other countries revolves almost entirely around digital control and IP. Canada does not even have a coherent IP strategy for trade. Balsillie compares this with, for instance, the Nordic countries who have all both deeply understood this shift and managed to benefit at the same time from a powerful resource sector. The stakes are very high right now, and I sure hope the next Prime Minister gets this right.” (Hugh for Mitch).
- How To Stay Open And Curious In Hard Conversations – Monica Guzman – Greater Good Magazine. “When you’re intellectually curious and learning a lot, it’s often hard to have difficult conversations (especially with people who only read soundbytes/drink from the firehose of their own echo chamber). I’ve experienced this much more lately. Whether it’s politics or religion or… philosophy, it seems like everyone has a strong opinion about really contentious issues. I’ve seen families separate and friendships ruined over discussions gone awry. This was a great read… maybe not a lot of new information if you’re already engaged in these conversations, but a great reminder. I find this be especially true for someone like me, when people debate one side by trying diminish the opposing side (while also not realizing that I might – in fact – not like either option). Stay curious!” (Mitch for Alistair).
- ‘More Are Published Than Could Ever Succeed’: Are There Too Many Books? – Richard Godwin – The Guardian. “This article poses such a great question (and one worthy of a real debate): Are there too many books? Are too many people publishing books? Is AI only going to increase the amount of books published (quality be damned)? We used to lament book publishers and literary agents who acted as gatekeepers/curators and now – because of digital books, self-publishing, hybrid publishing and many other models – anyone can be an author! That’s a good thing… that’s a bad thing. I guess we can also say the same thing about music these days (thanks, Spotify!)? Whatever side you’re willing to debate, it’s clear that more is not better and when there is more of anything, it makes it harder for the cream to rise to the top… which, ultimately, can make the entire industry suffer. Lots to think about here.” (Mitch for Hugh).
Feel free to share these links and add your picks on X, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.
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