Weekday Readings: 30 Dec 2021 - Week 3
A compilation of few interesting, multi-disciplinary links from the digital space
“We curate our lives around this perceived sense of perfection because we get rewarded in these short-term signals: Hearts, likes, thumbs up. We conflate that with value, and we conflate it with truth, and instead, what it really is is fake, brittle popularity that's short term and leaves you even more vacant and empty before you did it.”
- Chamath Palihapitiya
This will be the last Weekday readings newsletter of 2021. I really hope that you’ve grown personally and professionally this year. May the new year bring you hope, peace and prosperity. A very happy new year in advance!
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Section 1 - Investing
[This section covers the investing-related articles - Be it equity, businesses, start-ups, or blockchain.]
The Business of Hero Moto Corp:
Will the “bubble” finally pop in 2022? : Finshot
Your behaviour and expectations are under your control, and so is the amount of risk you wish to take and the time you have in hand. Stock prices and future returns aren’t under your control and thus you must leave them at what they do best, that is, fluctuate.
- Vishal Khandelwal
Salary Negotiation: Make More Money, Be More Valued: By Kalzumeus
The company is going to spend a lot of time and effort on getting you to the point of agreement-in-principle. Pretend you’ve gone through six rounds of interviews. Do some quick mental math on what that actually cost the company, with reference to “one man-month of an engineer’s time costs $20k” like we discussed earlier. You’ll quickly reach the conclusion that the company has spent thousands of dollars just talking to you, and that doesn’t even count the thousands they spent deciding to talk to you instead of whoever isn’t in the room right now. Walking away from the negotiation means that they lose all that investment. They really want to reach an agreement with you.
The inner serf worrying “If I even attempt to negotiate this, the deal will fall through” is worrying for nothing. They’ve got thousands invested in this discussion by this point. They want you. The absolute worst outcome of negotiating an offer in good faith is that you will get exactly the contents of that offer. Let me say that again for emphasis: negotiating never makes (worthwhile) offers worse. This means you need what political scientists call a commitment strategy: you always, as a matter of policy, negotiate all offers.
To the Moon? Venture Capital Trends: Ola Kulynych
As more companies and VCs embrace remote or hybrid work, being near Silicon Valley has become less critical for success. Regions like NY, Miami, Austin, and other cities outside the Bay Area have benefitted from this trend, with more companies being started and funded in these regions.
Crypto meets Consumer Finance: By Tanay Jaipuria
Section 2 - Art
[This section covers everything from art, literature, Poetry, Cinema, or anything closely related to the abstract or literary world]
Best of 2021 soundtracks: Santhosh Narayanan, Anirudh Ravichander and Sachin-Jigar shine By Devarsi Ghosh
नुरुल हक़ की कविताएँ :: बांग्ला से अनुवाद और प्रस्तुति : अजीत दाश
Section 3 - Technology
[This section covers the technology-in-general, common trends in technology and languages]
Sovereign Writers and Substack: Stratechery
Corner Stores Are the New Darlings of the Global Tech Industry: The Atlantic
Tech companies are so interested in corner stores precisely because of how common they are. Instead of attempting to replicate the infrastructure and community knowledge that these shops have, why not piggyback off of them? Their proximity to people’s homes already makes them well positioned to help remedy the logistical challenges that tech companies face, such as figuring out how to quickly get packages from a warehouse all the way to a customer’s doorstep.
Spotify System Architecture: By Jin & Spotify UX Analysis and Redesign By Rinee Lin
Section 4 - Society
[This section covers the political and social commentaries, opinions, or editorial]
What’s wrong with the media By Slow Boring
The Biryani Culture of South India By Mohit Balachandran: All about South India's Biryani evolution
How India's Workers And Employment Policy Fared In 2021 By Shreehari Paliath: Rules based on India's new labour welfare codes are yet to be finalised and implemented, the rural jobs programme remains underfunded despite high demand, and heading into 2022, India is yet to frame a comprehensive National Employment Policy
THE DARK PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL NETWORKS By Jonathan Haidt and Tobias Rose-Stockwell : Why it feels like everything is going haywire
The problem may not be connectivity itself but rather the way social media turns so much communication into a public performance.
A few right-wing social-media platforms have enabled the most reviled ideology of the 20th century to draw in young men hungry for a sense of meaning and belonging and willing to give Nazism a second chance. Left-leaning young adults, in contrast, seem to be embracing socialism and even, in some cases, communism with an enthusiasm that at times seems detached from the history of the 20th century. And polling suggests that young people across the political spectrum are losing faith in democracy.
Section 5 - Personal
[This section covers the things I discovered that can be applied to my personal life and persona.]
My Quantified Self Setup By Julian Digital: A guide to track all the media consumption. It’s really a good way to track everything you do and observe and most of them are automated so it doesn’t feel like work at the end of the day.
I Did 2-Minute Plank Every Day for 42 Days — Here’s What Happened By Darshan Rana
Now listening:
Infographics of the week:
Updates:
Change the name of the newsletter from “Weekend Readings" to “Weekday Readings" as it is been released on the weekday i.e. Thursday.
Added quick insights after the article/link.
That’s it from my side. I hope you’ll like the series and the recommendations.
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