Happy Friday.
(Hello from beautiful Victoria, BC where I’m keynoting Tectoria later this morning and keeping my fingers crossed for a whale sighting before heading back to DC on Sunday. My free email course on public speaking starts on Tuesday — you’ve got till Monday night to signup. I hope you’ll join me.)
1. “America was supposed to be better than this.” [Link] [Tweet]
The first sentence just about sums this up: “The simple facts are enraging.” Look at the photo of him in cuffs and tell me that doesn’t make you sad for what we’ve become.
2. “I love being the father of a little girl. There’s not a minute of it that hasn’t been awesome.” [Link] [Tweet]
When you study celebrities — TV, sports, whatever — it’s easy to forget that they’re normal people too. This piece on Anthony Bourdain is fantastic and it’s easy to see why people love him so much: he’s raw, real and authentic.
My favorite quote: “I’ve said a million times that I’d rather miss the shot than disturb the mojo,” Bourdain says. “If you’re stopping people to move a light, it fucks up the dynamic and the spontaneity. You end up with a show that looks like everybody else’s.”
3. Public Speaking for Founders & Entrepreneurs is a free 5-week email course w/ less than a week left to join. [Link] [Tweet]
Nearly 1,000 smart people have signed up for my course and it’s starting this Tuesday. My goal is to make you a more confident communicator — on-stage and in-person — over the course of 5 weeks. I hope you’ll join and share the signup page with at least one other person in your network. I’ll be closing signups at 11:59p ET this Monday and it’s completely free so you’ve got no excuse to not sign up (unless, of course, you don’t want to improve yourself).
4. “Facebook now runs three of the most popular apps on the internet.” [Link] [Tweet]
Technology companies will never create the majority of jobs but what happens in the tech sector will disproportionately affect everyone else. In this case, just look at the engineer-to-user ratio and the overall number of people that use Facebook:
- WhatsApp employs 50 engineers for it’s 900 million users.
- Facebook is used by 1.5 billion people and Facebook Messenger is used by 700 million.
On a personal note, Facebook’s Safety Check feature came in handy after the earthquake in Chile earlier this week. It’s strange to think that we didn’t have things like this sooner.
5. “In an attempt to escape my self-imposed fate, I manifested an interest in technology.” [Link] [Tweet]
Sad, but true: “You would be amazed how often you can get away with this if you talk confidently and authoritatively and intertwine fragmented topics into a complex narrative.”
The world needs more critical thinkers and more people that aren’t afraid to provide direct, constructive feedback.
6. “As the saying goes, pics or it didn’t happen.” [Link] [Tweet]
I can’t say that I’ve been in any near-death emergency so I haven’t seen this “I’m about to die” selfie thing happen. How is this a thing?
7. “I feel like I’ve spent a huge amount of my career analyzing and very little actually doing something.” [Link] [Tweet]
Unsexy businesses FTW. (Have I ever told you that story about how I helped my family buy a gas station one time? Great cash flow, shitty business and awful hours. It was a weird year.)
Reminder: you can build an interesting business without starting it yourself and without ever raising a penny from VCs. The world doesn’t need more founders but we do need more entrepreneurs.
8. “today it’s about how fast you can iterate and how much traffic you can drive.” [Link] [Tweet]
Share this with your friend that keeps coming up with ideas but never actually does anything.
9. “ambitious ideas have similar success probabilities to their less ambitious counterparts, if not higher success rates.” [Link] [Tweet]
Consider this a reminder that you should be swinging for the fences, always. It’s the best way to make a difference, do interesting things and build the life you want.
10. “Nobody is going to give you more money until you can prove a lot of people love what you do.” [Link] [Tweet]
This is brutally honest. (Does this stuff really happen in the UK tech scene?)
I’m coming for you
I’m on the road again: Victoria, BC, Vancouver, BC, Lincoln, NE, Madrid, SP, Halifax, NS, Detroit, MI, Lagos, NG, Chattanooga, TN (coupon code: PaulSingh) and a bunch of other interesting places.
If there’s cool stuff happening in your neck of the woods, let me know ASAP — let’s get it on the calendar, I want to see how startups are growing in your neck of the woods.
Firehose
You can get the full stream of the things I read, it’s all on Twitter — follow me: @paulsingh. Sometimes I write stuff too. You can always find me on Slack, apply to join.
Have a great weekend!
-P
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