360: Andy Jassy, TSMC + USA, Big Tech Comp, A16Z, AWS Innovations, NatGas, Copper, and Barry

"motivation/intensity mismatch between the groups"

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

—Marie Curie

👩🏻‍🚀👨🏻‍🔧 Being really good in one field doesn’t mean a person is also good in other, unrelated fields.

But some skills do transfer, some innate talents apply to many things, and some things are just generally beneficial, f.ex. common sense, good judgment, decision-making under uncertainty, ability to learn quickly, ability to perform under pressure, work with others, good communication skills, introspection, etc.

I wonder which job’s very top people would be the most versatile at *also* being very good in many other unrelated fields?

Special ops? Astronauts? Test pilots? Professional athletes? Coders? Yoga instructors? Salespeople? Mechanics? Physicists? Teachers? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

There’s probably something obvious that I’m just not thinking of. Please let me know what would be your pick in the comments.

😊😊😊😊😡😊😊😊😊😊 Here’s an interesting dynamic to keep in mind:

Sometimes, it can look like almost everybody disagrees with you on XYZ when in fact most people agree with you.

How does that happen?

Because of motivation/intensity mismatch between the groups who agree and disagree.

If those that disagree really care and those that agree don’t care much, the former can end up looking like a majority of people despite smaller numbers because they make the majority of the noise.

The side that doesn’t care just never reaches the activation threshold that would make them bother to speak up.

Social media is the perfect playground for this. Extremists of all kinds make so much noise that if you don’t calibrate for this effect, it can look like extreme beliefs are more common than they actually are.

The nuts and conspiracy theorists may be 5-10% on each end of the spectrum, but they make it seem like they’re 40% on each side and only 20% remains in the saner center.

I think whether you realize that this is taking place or not can give you a very different view of the world.

☑📊🤔 Because a large part of the value of metrics-tracking comes from the tracking itself — in other words, just the fact of being observed changes behavior, hopefully for the better — I kind of want to do an experiment where I do binary tracking for certain things.

Did I follow my eating guidelines today? Did I exercise enough today? Did I go to bed at a reasonable time last night? That kind of stuff.

I think that’d nudge me to make better decisions with very little effort.

There’s a tally app that I use which could be perfect for this. just check the box at the end of the day, then see how many days in a row you can go, keep streaks going, etc.

👣 Congrats to friend-of-the-show and OG supporter Nick E. (💚 🥃 🎩) on launching his new project!

Check it out:

• Nick’s Vital Few - November 2022

I think everyone should have a creative outlet — it doesn’t have to be writing, it can be music or pottery or Dungeon & Dragons or carpentry or photography — something where at the end of it, you can stand back and say: “I made this”.

The longest journey begins with but a single step. Getting from 0 to 1 is the most significant step, after that, you just need to keep going and do your best to learn and improve!

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🏦 💰 Liberty Capital 💳 💴

🛒 🚚📦📦📦📦📦 Andy Jassy Interview at NYT’s Dealbook