Plus a new way to think about systems and a funny story to lighten life up — I’m coming off a week of vacation in the typically sunny San Diego. Being from Indiana, it seems my family and I brought the rain (sorry locals). While here, I’ve been dwelling on the best way to navigate an increasingly murky future. This week we’ve seen yet more layoffs, the…

Plus how to Amp Up your business and more haunting historical fiction — 1. Buying Experiences Probably Doesn’t Make You Happier than Buying Possessions — If I lean one way in the material versus experience camp, I’ve always lean materials. I love a well chosen item and I’ve always felt guilty for it. If I’d thought of any of the well chosen points…

Plus a call to mend the fast disappearing unique bits of the world — The theme of this week is incentives. We start with a cash volcano of a virtual health care startup getting on the wrong side of the FTC. We dig into the hidden winners in the Culture War and how all may not be as it seems. …

Plus how to handle the intersection between business and personal life and underrated career advice — This week’s core articles are about AI. I try to stay away from the hype train and my hope is that these articles offer perspectives we might not see in the day to day news. This week we explore the culture of Google (and their odds in the AI war)…

A dispatch from my effort to conquer my college foe: data structures and algorithms — The Origin Story When it came to array algorithms, I lived in the stone ages of the basic for loop. I struggled to imagine any other way to approach an array. The trusty for loop came so naturally and is (almost) always the correct choice anyway. Why change? Change did not come voluntarily…

Plus how our online privacy fell apart, a blast from Kendrick Lamar’s past and a touching new book — The Trials of Kendrick Lamar from Rolling Stone — As you know, I love old looks at new things. Coming on the back of his most recent album, this 2015 piece on Lamar is a fascinating look back in time. …

Plus an admission of the fallibility of remote life and advice for youngsters getting their start — This week’s stack of articles brings us many great blogs that merit further digging. Please peruse these author’s sites — I’ve left out so much good stuff that’s worth reading. Beware of tight feedback loops by Brian Lui — Brian Lui is full of what Scott Galloway calls, “Blue Flame…

Plus shameless foomerism, Zillow’s iBuying flop and why there are so many stupid apps. — Shameless -Foomerism and S-Curves — I love articles that lay out tools you can use everywhere. Here we find potent tools for debunking arguments that assume infinite growth. See Growth by Vaclov Smil for the expanded version of this argument. we’ll see, growth without goals, energy privilege — I’m a…