Recommended Reading on Reading More, Adderall, and Billionaires
Recommended Reading on Reading More, Adderall, and Billionaires
Do you read as much as you used to? Some considerations of why not (hint: the Internet is a likely culprit).
A few years ago, when I was a bright-eyed, first-time founder, in my first two weeks at the Founder Institute startup accelerator (in person! in Palo Alto!), a guest speaker - mentor - told me to make sure that I remembered to read fiction in addition to all the nonfiction business development, leadership development, finance, and technical books I was reading. I honestly can’t remember who told me this! Is this advice that I have always followed? I can’t say that I have. But it’s advice that I have remembered.
Speaking of Founders → Startups → Investors → Whatever? Here is a short story for you - do you think, the truth is stranger than fiction? How do you think this measures up? A BILLIONAIRE BENDER TO SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD An excerpt from THE AUDACITY by Ryan Chapman, recommended by Kevin Nguyen (March 2024) I was very entertained by this excerpt and the whole novel is available here.
I don’t read as much as I used to. Do you? In this piece, Why can’t we read anymore? by Hugh Mcguire, from 2015, he writes:
It turns out that digital devices and software are finely tuned to train us to pay attention to them, no matter what else we should be doing …
So, every new email you get gives you a little flood of dopamine. Every little flood of dopamine reinforces your brain’s memory that checking email gives a flood of dopamine. And our brains are programmed to seek out things that will give us little floods of dopamine. Further, these patterns of behaviour start creating neural pathways, so that they become unconscious habits: Work on something important, brain itch, check email, dopamine, refresh, dopamine, check Twitter, dopamine, back to work. Over and over, and each time the habit becomes more ingrained in the actual structures of our brains. How can books compete?
In March, I read this collection of essays published by Pioneer Works, Club Med: Dispatches from the Adderall Epidemic. These nine writers made me both shake my head, cry, and laugh out loud with their insights and writing styles. A couple of excerpts:
And this is the point: first came Adderall, then came the Internet. We didn’t get on Adderall because the Internet was too good. The Internet was good in the particular way that it was good because we were on Adderall.
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The trouble with taking Adderall for your Instagram addiction is that, neurochemically, amphetamines hook you deeper into the endless scroll. You can’t fix the Internet attention economy crisis with Adderall, because the Internet was made by people on Adderall, for people on Adderall. The more Adderall you take, the better the whole thing gets (by “better” I mean “worse”). This is the upshot: the very medical fix currently touted as the cure for the attention crisis is, in fact, exacerbating it.
On this topic, check out this lovely newsletter by Nikki Espartinez #77: How to read more books for people with demanding personal lives With references to Atomic Habits, 'slow thinking' and lots more.
Contrast the fiction excerpt from the beginning of this newsletter with this piece from Scott Galloway, entitled Quitting Time (Jan 2024) Absolutely worth reading about being a startup founder, success, perseverance, grit, failure, and when to walk away. Seriously. Read this.
Also note: I am trying to send out this newsletter more frequently, since I know that the amount of articles/links is unwieldy! So - it’s only been 2 weeks since the last one. Here you go! I hope you read something interesting, here!
IN PRINT: The Golden Pot by E.T.A. Hoffman, Translated from German by Peter Wortsman How many times have you read “The Uncanny” essay by Freud? In literature, social sciences, psychology, whatever courses? Hoffman wrote the short story, “The Sandman” on which Freud muses…I recommend reading the rest of his work. It’s lovely.
The Solace is Not the Lullaby by Jill Osier A book of poetry in which she writes, “The hollow more than shape is certain” … and other lines that will sit with you quietly.
LISTEN: San Fermin was the last live concert that I attended in December 2019, in the before times. They recently released a new album, and got to see them live last week - and they were as amazing as ever. I cannot recommend this newest album (and all their music!) enough! LISTEN!
RECOMMENDED READING - Top of Mind
Quitting Time Scott Galloway (Jan 2024)
A BILLIONAIRE BENDER TO SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD An excerpt from THE AUDACITY by Ryan Chapman, recommended by Kevin Nguyen (March 2024) I am totally obsessed with this short story. Read it!
Club Med: Dispatches from the Adderall Epidemic. A collection of nine essays (March 2024)
Reading an early depiction of the Internet, in William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1980), what’s remarkable about the depiction of “cyberspace” is how immersive people expected it to be. It was a place you could go, distinct from “meatspace.” If only. The reality is that now, you are always half on your phone. This means that you can only ever half think, a fact that felt more obscene when you could remember, more clearly, how the other way felt.
Why can’t we read anymore? Or, can books save us from what digital does to our brains Hugh McGuire (April 2015)
It turns out that digital devices and software are finely tuned to train us to pay attention to them, no matter what else we should be doing. The mechanism, borne out by recent neuroscience studies, is something like this:
New information creates a rush of dopamine to the brain, a neurotransmitter that makes you feel good.
The promise of new information compels your brain to seek out that dopamine rush.
With fMRIs, you can see the brain’s pleasure centres light up with activity when new emails arrive.
So, every new email you get gives you a little flood of dopamine. Every little flood of dopamine reinforces your brain’s memory that checking email gives a flood of dopamine. And our brains are programmed to seek out things that will give us little floods of dopamine. Further, these patterns of behaviour start creating neural pathways, so that they become unconscious habits: Work on something important, brain itch, check email, dopamine, refresh, dopamine, check Twitter, dopamine, back to work. Over and over, and each time the habit becomes more ingrained in the actual structures of our brains.
How can books compete?
#77: How to read more books for people with demanding personal lives With references to Atomic Habits, 'slow thinking' and lots more Nikki Espartinez (March 2024)
Judith Butler Thinks You’re Overreacting How did gender become a scary word? The theorist who got us talking about the subject has answers. Jessica Bennett (March 2024)
The age of average (encore) Alex Murrell (March 2024)
“Whilst lazy reporters put this trend down to the TikTok generation’s faltering attention spans, the truth is far more prosaic. Shorter tracks make more money.
Streaming platforms pay artists each time a track gets listened to. And a “listen” is classified as 30 seconds or more of playback. To maximise their pay, savvy artists are releasing albums featuring a high number of short tracks. In purely commercial terms, an album with 20 two minute tracks will generate double the revenue, per play, than an album with 10 four minute tracks.”
We need more women founders on offense A response to Glossy from Glossier’s former comms lead Ashley Mayer (Nov 2023)
And while Glossy isn’t another female founder “takedown,” it also isn’t a book that would be written about a male CEO. The dominant critiques of Emily focus on her privilege and ambition, two traits I can’t imagine being used to undermine the successes of her male peers. Marisa is a savvy Glossier historian, but her writing gets weirdly personal when it comes to the company’s founder.
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This matters far beyond Glossier. When even the most successful women leaders are picked apart, there’s a widespread silencing effect. Making the decision to keep a low profile isn’t an irrational response, at least on an individual level. But in the aggregate, in an ecosystem where women-only founding teams get just 2% of venture capital funding, it’s devastating. I’ve had conversations with founders who are in the earliest stages of company building and already feel like they have a target on their backs. For women of color, the pressure is even more intense: the smaller the group you belong to, the more you are held up as the representative of that identity. Of course, awareness is not a meaningful growth lever for every business, and not every founder needs to be a public figure. But for startups where it’s an advantage, and for leaders who have the aptitude, the opportunity cost of keeping your head down can be the difference between failure and survival.
The girlboss lost. Here’s why these under-the-radar female founders won In a startup culture rife with misogyny, developing a cult of personality as a female founder was good for business—until it wasn’t. Did these other founders fare better because they weren’t as public? Elizabeth Segran (Oct 2023)
Most male founders of the same era didn’t feel the need to build public-facing personas. The founders of Warby Parker, Allbirds, WeWork, and Everlane, for instance, generally don’t have a substantial social media presence. We don’t know what their spouses or children look like. They are unlikely to share their skincare regimen or mention their personal insecurities or troubles on social media. “I think consumers want authenticity and like to see the face behind the brand,” says Christeson. “But we demand so much more from women: we feel entitled to see them as moms, we want to see their outfits. It says something that men don’t feel that they need to put themselves out there for their brand to succeed.”
NEWS / LONG-FORM JOURNALISM
A Deepfake Nude Generator Reveals a Chilling Look at Its Victims WIRED reporting uncovered a site that “nudifies” photos for a fee—and posts a feed appearing to show user uploads. They included photos of young girls and images seemingly taken of strangers. Caroline Haskins (March 2024)
Zone Out on the Loneliest Road in America Nevada’s Route 50 was once considered a dangerous passage with “no points of interest” until a group of cyclists rebranded it as a life-altering grand tour. Allie Conti (Jan 2024)
Did an Abortion Ban Cost a Young Texas Woman Her Life? As many conservatives hail the fall of Roe for saving unborn lives, high-risk pregnancy becomes even more perilous. Stephania Taladrid (Jan 2024)
Teens, with mixed feelings about their own phones, say their parents need to log off Almost half of teens surveyed by the Pew Research Center said parents get distracted by their smartphones during conversations. Angela Yang (March 2024)
DNA Tests are Uncovering the True Prevalence of Incest People are discovering the truth about their biological parents with DNA—and learning that incest is far more common than many think. Sarah Zhang (March 2024)
I knew the facts about millennials but I wasn’t ready to admit the life my parents had would never be mine It took working on a podcast about what’s happening to young people for me to let go of the idealism about my future and face the sobering reality. Miles Herbert (March 2024)
BUSINESS / STARTUPS / INVESTING
2023 Him For Her And Crunchbase Study Of Gender Diversity On Private Company Boards Ann Shepherd (March 2024)
Our fifth annual study, which characterizes the boards of the most heavily funded private companies in the U.S., reveals significant improvement in board diversity over the past five years.
It also points to independent board seats as the critical lever for change when it comes to increasing cognitive diversity in the boardroom, expanding networks, and, as suggested by our latest data, even boosting funding.
Within this study, we look at gender diversity, which is reasonably measurable, as a proxy for diversity of perspectives, life experience, areas of expertise, and other demographics. In a world in which boards composed exclusively of men have been the rule rather than the exception, the presence of women in the boardroom — particularly in an independent director role — may be an indication of those boards’ intention to add diversity and of their efforts to seek talent outside their immediate networks.
Our 2023 study indicates that women now hold 17% of board seats — up from 7% in our inaugural 2019 study. Over the same period, the number of boards without any women fell significantly, from 60% to 32%. Women of color now hold 5% of board seats, up from 3% in 2020, the first year for which this metric was available.
I Quit My Venture Capital Job. Here’s What I Learned. Interview with Moksha by Aram Attar at The VC Factory (March 2024)
The irresistible pull of Ruzwana Bashir A successful founder herself, Bashir has become tech's quiet connecting force, touching everyone from Elon Musk to Marissa Mayer. Melia Russell (Nov 2023)
Tips/Tricks for Running GTM Experiments Jen Abel (March 2024)
A guide to the wedge marketing strategy How to find your initial niche, and later expand to more audiences & use cases MKT1 (March 2024)
How To Leverage An Advisory Board To Accelerate Business Growth Kip Knight (March 2024)
Doing Diligence Well In Venture Investing: Going Back To The Future Nicolas Sauvage (April 2024)
This report reveals where teens are starting to spend their time online, and it's not Snapchat or Instagram Kevin Webb (May 2019)
AI / WEB 3 / CRYPTO
OpenAI Sora given to filmmakers for first time — here’s 7 of the best videos they created Ryan Morrison published (March 2024)
AI Will Transform the Global Economy. Let’s Make Sure It Benefits Humanity. AI will affect almost 40 percent of jobs around the world, replacing some and complementing others. We need a careful balance of policies to tap its potential Kristalina Georgieva (Jan 2024)
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud Financial Times (March 2024)
FTX Saga Takes Turn with Sam Bankman-Fried ‘Bad Ideas’ Document Leak New court documents reveal Sam Bankman-Fried's image rehab plans post-FTX crash, including media and political strategies. Maxwell Mutuma (March 2024)
BRAIN / MIND / HEALTH
What does the Cerebellum Do Anyway? Hint: It's Not Just Balance Sarah Constantin (Dec 2023)
The consciousness wars: can scientists ever agree on how the mind works? There are dozens of theories of how the brain produces conscious experience, and a new type of study is testing some of them head-to-head. Mariana Lenharo
Whatever You Do, Don’t Do the Silent Treatment It can ruin your relationships. Arthur C. Brooks (March 2024)
ART / LITERATURE
15 Small Press Books You Should Be Reading This Winter Wendy J. Fox list for Electric Literature (Jan 2024) (late to share, but you should still be reading these - I just purchased a couple!)
Susan Sontag: Androgyny Is the Future True sexual liberation, the great writer argued, is about liberation from sex. (1972; online May 2023)
FICTION / POETRY
YOUR BODY IS A SYSTEM OF CAVES: Three poems from THE BLUE MIMES by Sara Daniele Rivera (March 2024) [Note: I immediately went and bought Sara’s book after reading these poems. Just saying.]
MONEY CAN’T TAKE THE SHAME OUT OF LIVING “The Inheritance” by Rachel Ephraim, recommended by Halimah Marcus for Electric Literature (March 2024)
King of All Hogs by J G Lynas, recommended by Wynter K Miller for Electric Literature (March 2024)
In the Heart of the Village by Emma Binder, recommended by Alyssa Songsiridej for Electric Literature (Feb 2024)
FILM / SCIENCE / OTHER / PERSONAL INTEREST / RANDOM
A Brief History of the United States’ Accents and Dialects Migration patterns, cultural ties, geographic regions and class differences all shape speaking patterns Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton (Jan 2024)
Storm provides a rare glimpse of a 112-year-old shipwreck Marnie Hunter (Jan 2024)
The Case for Marrying an Older Man A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help. Grazie Sophia Christie (March 2024) [In case you need some light, vomit-inducing entertainment…!]
To be old in Britain is to be reduced and derided. Bravo, then, to the grey-haired stars of ‘NanTok’ My gran died last year and I miss her a lot. But now I’m finding solace in the TikTok accounts of other older people Max Wallis (March 2024)
7 signs someone just isn't a good friend, no matter your history Julia Pugachevsky (March 2024)