405: Amazon Sidewalk, CableCos, Meta Quest Pro VR, David Senra + Acquired, Tinder, US Grid, Predicting Tokens, and Wes Anderson

"Matt gives a damn. Be like Matt."

Confidence grows with action and shrinks with idleness.

You don’t need to feel confident to start.

You need to start to feel confident.

—Stoic Emperor

⛵️ ⚓️ When it comes to knowledge and learning: the farther you get from shore, the deeper the water gets.

When first discovering a field, you may think you know how deep it goes. You learn a few things and become confident that you know a lot. But the more you learn, the more you realize the vast expanse of uncharted territory just over the horizon.

‘The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder,’ as Ralph W. Sockman said.

Which has the corollary: The more you learn, the more it expands the surface area of your ignorance.

Learning increases your absolute level of knowledge, but every new thing you learn also tends to expose multiple unanswered questions, causing them to multiply faster than you can find answers to them.

If you want to look for people who know what they're talking about, look for people who seem unsure. It's a paradox, a cousin of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Genuine expertise often comes hand-in-hand with an awareness of one's own limitations.

This is an improved version of something I wrote a few years ago. If you’re an OG steamboat crewmate and it feels familiar, that’s probably why. 🚢

👦🏻🧒🏼🔑 I’m trying to tell my kids more frequently: “I trust you.”

For example, I shared with my oldest boy what the birthday gift of his younger brother would be, and I told him that I trusted him to keep the secret.

We also found out he was eating chocolate from a cupboard when we weren’t looking, so instead of moving the chocolate to a harder-to-reach spot or locking it up, we put it in plain view for a while and explained to him why he couldn’t eat it without permission, and we said we trusted him so we weren’t going to try to hide it from him.

I think it’s important for kids to feel a sense of trust. As they mature and demonstrate the ability to handle responsibility, bring them into the inner circle of how things work in the family.

On the flip side, don’t set your kids up for failure!

If you know they can’t do X, begin with something that you know they can do. When they succeed, they build the confidence to do harder things over time.

🛀💭⛷️🤕 A random shower thought: I wonder how common it is for athletes or performers to get a big migraine right before a big event. I rarely have them, but I know they can be debilitating…

Just imagine: you’re about to perform and showcase skills you’ve been training for years at the Olympics or some big televised Vegas boxing match, or maybe you’re a musician about to go out in front of a gigantic stadium of people who paid a lot to see you, and then you feel it coming on, your head feels like it will split in two and you have trouble seeing straight…

I wonder how often it happens 🤔

🗓️😮‍💨🌲🌲🚶🏻‍♂️🌲🐿️🌲👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 There won’t be an Edition on Monday. Enjoy the break!

Two reasons:

1. For the past month, I’ve been working really hard on lots of projects (some of which I’ll soon be able to tell you about!). I need to slow down a bit to recharge my batteries. I often write and talk about how humans are meant to have ebbs and flows and cycles in productivity/creativity, unlike what the industrial era has tried to push on us (ie. do the same thing for the same amount of time every day). It would show a lack of self-awareness if I didn’t follow my own advice!

2. Every time I start to feel bad about skipping an Edition, I remember that you probably have plenty of things to read and may in fact still be catching up on old Editions, so you probably welcome the break.

See you soon!

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🏦 💰 Liberty Capital 💳 💴

🛒 Amazon opens up Sidewalk IoT Networks in the U.S. 📶