Weekend Reading #151
This is the hundred-and-fiftieth-first weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 15th January 2022.
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What we're reading.
The Contrarian tells the story (unsurprisingly given its title) of one of tech’s most controversial figures, Peter Thiel. He’s someone who is always in the tech and finance news, you might’ve read his book and, so, like me, perhaps you thought you had a relative measure on his impact on the world, but having read Max Chafkin’s excellent account of who Thiel really is, it turns out I knew absolutely nothing about him. This is the first major biography of Thiel and it traces the trajectory of one of the 21st Century’s greatest innovators and his singular life and worldview, from his upbringing as the child of immigrant parents and years at Stanford as a burgeoning conservative to his founding of PayPal and Palantir, early investment in Facebook and SpaceX, and relationships with fellow tech titans Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt. His story, to an extent, mirrors that of the stratospheric rise of Silicon Valley and, like all good non-fiction, Chafkin’s writing runs like a thriller, and this is a book that should be read as a modern work of social history as much as it is a fascinating work of pop-psychological insight into Thiel’s unique and often bizarre, i.e. contrarian, approach to the world.
A shorter book I also finished off was Expert by Roger Kneebone, which explains how one can go along the path to expertise — from apprentice, via journeyman, to master. Of course, this journey, for anyone, regardless of your starting ability, is a long one involving countless hours of hard work, frustration and dedication. Former surgeon, Kneebone, focuses on what it takes to navigate this path and comments on the dangerous emergence of “instant experts”, who seem to believe in the possibility of overnight success. Analysing a wide range of experts and careers, from tailors to stonemasons, doctors to pianists, Kneebone draws on examples of the hard graft of real experts and there’s much to be learned by anyone who is looking to get better at their craft, whatever it may be. EJP
Harald Malmgren is a geopolitical strategist, negotiator and former aide to US Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford. I this week read this piece he wrote about Russian president, Vlaidimir Putin. It called “What the West gets wrong about Putin” and it is really excellent. In it, Malmgren tells the story of his first encounter with Putin many years before he came to power.
We spoke on several occasions between meetings, and he arranged to sit next to me at a dinner, accompanied by his interpreter. At that dinner, he asked me: “What is the single most important obstacle between your Western businessmen and my fellow Russians in starting up business connections?”
Off the top of my head, I responded: “The absence of legally defined property rights — without those there is no basis for resolving disputes.”
“Ah yes,” he said, “in your system a dispute between businesses is resolved by attorneys paid by the hour representing each side, sometimes taking the dispute to the courts which normally takes months and accumulation of hourly attorney fees.”
“In Russia,” he continued, “disputes are usually resolved by common sense. If a dispute is about very significant money or property, then the two sides would typically send representatives to a dinner. Everyone attending arriving would be armed. Facing the possibility of a bloody, fatal outcome both sides always find a mutually agreeable solution. Fear provides the catalyst for common sense.”
In the context of the current Russia/Ukraine situation it pays to remember that Putin is a genius tactician. To think of the outcome with Western eyes is only one side of the story.
Through the world of crypto twitter I stumbled on this blogpost from a chap called Jordi Alexander in which is talks about game theory and crypto “ponzinomics”. It is a deeply thought out roadmap of one way to think about various projects and the ultimate outcomes. I don’t know much about Mr Alexander but this is a great post. He promises a part 2 which I look forward to reading too. DC
This snippet probably doesn’t belong under any of the usual categories, but given it’s “read”, this seems the best place for it. This is the story of an enterprising young Indonesian called Ghozali who, in the footsteps of Beeple’s Everydays piece (or perhaps even pre-dating the announcement, since it started 5 years ago!), turned out to have taken a selfie of himself every day for 5 years (though it seems that only 933 items, so about half of the days over 5 years are accounted for by photos on Opensea. No matter, that’s not the point). These selfies were minted as NFTs and sold on Opensea at 0.001 ETH which based on the OpenSea collection would have netted the enterprising Ghozali a nifty sum of 0.933 ETH. Nothing to turn one’s nose up at, but certainly not putting Ghozali into “whale” territory, not even if he had sold double the number of NFTs.
While Crypto Twitter was having a chuckle, very much in admiration for the young man’s hustle and enterprising spirit, a different twitter account came into play. This tweet by mewny sums up the reaction of the Crypto Twitter community:
You read it right – the Indonesian Tax Office promptly drops Ghozali a tweet asking him to register to pay income tax. Render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, it’s said.
Turns out in this case, Caesar is watching. EL
What we're watching.
The eagerly awaited final season of the “After Life” has been released where Ricky Gervais returns for his popular comedy-drama about a man whose life changes following the death of his wife. His clever, dry, witty sense of humour does not disappoint. Is it as good as the other seasons? The verdict is out. I thought it was a lot of fun.
Then it was time for one for the family. “Luca” is a 2021 American computer-animated coming-of-age fantasy film. Set on the Italian Riviera, the film centres on Luca Paguro, a young sea monster boy with the ability to assume human form while on land, who explores the town of Porto Rosso with his new best friend, Alberto Scorfano, experiencing a life-changing summer adventure. The sea monsters, a "metaphor for feeling different", were loosely based on old Italian regional myths and folklore. This is in my top 5 Kids animations- yes, it’s that good. DK
What we're listening to.
In Expert by Roger Kneebone (see above), one strand he picks at is the topic of improvisation. As Kneebone describes, improvisation is not, as many assume, simply the ability to make something up on the spot. Rather, improvisation is a skill that only true experts hold, and it’s forged in the countless hours of practise they committed to their chosen craft. Playing within the rules of the game, using these skills and techniques, adapting to the, potentially, less than perfect conditions, only the expert can improvise in order to create something ordered and great whereas a novice or journeyman would only be able to create something entirely random and, most likely, wrong. To make the point, Kneebone tells a story about Keith Jarrett, the jazz pianist. Jarrett was on a European tour in 1975 and a last-minute concert was arranged in Cologne. 1,400 tickets were sold, but when turning up on the evening to play, Jarrett, understandably particular about the instrument he played, found the piano to be sub-standard, too small for him and with soft keys. He was also tired from relentless touring and his back, having been on the road for months was in great pain. It would have been easy to cancel, but Jarrett, not wanting to let down his audience or his art, walked on stage and from the first note to last, delivered an hour and six minutes of incredible, improvised jazz piano. By adapting to his surroundings, by working the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of the piano that he was forced to play on to his advantage, by drawing on years of training, by pushing the rules to the limits, Jarrett's Koln Concert has gone down as one of the greatest pieces of musical improvisation in history, and its recording one of the great jazz records, selling over 3 million copies. Jarrett’s place in musical legend was also confirmed and the term ‘expert’ given deeper meaning, with Jarrett showing how true greatness can (and should) be displayed in and improved by any circumstances. That’s what experts do – they adapt and push the limits. And the results are thrilling. Listen to the recording here. EJP
This week I managed to find some time for a lovely podcast which tickled me to say the least. It was the 4th edition of “Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell”. These two are some of Britian's best comedians. Give it a listen. DK
After last week’s feature of a podcast with Helium’s COO Frank Mong (apologies again for missing out the link – for anyone who’d like to hear it, the link is here), another podcast in the collection that was missed a couple of months back came onto the list. This episode of the Hotspot talks about how Helium is shaping up to be an omni-protocol network, not prioritising any specific protocol (even if it started with LoRaWAN) and instead remaining open to moving ahead even if new technologies risk cannibalising the old. Additionally, in some discussions about their work with FreedomFi to deliver 5G hotspots starting in the US, the omni-protocol nature of Helium becomes clear, with the FreedomFi gateways being able to transmit and carry up to 5 different protocols on a single device. For now, CBRS 5G is the only one being used, with traction growing with smaller US mobile operators. Those four other slots – who knows what the Helium network decides to carry next.
While we’re on the topic of Helium: Hotspot count now sits at 483,813 globally as of time of writing, vs around 24k when we wrote our first note about it last year. EL