Emily Badger: “There is a thing that happens in cities — that we think happens in cities — when people with lots of different ideas bump into each other on the sidewalk, or at the bar or the grocery store or the gym. Together, they think up things that would never come out of a conference room or the kind of coffee meeting that has a calendar invite. Weird new ideas take root. Innovation follows. The urbanist icon Jane Jacobs identified these collisions as central to what makes cities dynamic. Her followers think of them as the product of serendipity. Economists have their own name for the almost-magical benefit these connections create: knowledge spillovers. “The chance encounters facilitated by cities,” the economist Edward Glaeser has written, “are the stuff of human progress.” Remote work has, well, blurred this picture. Can you have serendipity two days a week? Where do people bump into one another when the downtown coffee shops are closed? How do workers spill their knowledge when they’ve moved to Montana, or the exurbs? Does that even matter anymore?”
David Brooks: “I am a grower. I do have the ability to look at my shortcomings, and then try to prod myself into becoming a more fully developed person. I have learned something profound along the way. Being openhearted is a prerequisite for being a full, kind and wise human being. But it is not enough. People need social skills. The real process of, say, building a friendship or creating a community involves performing a series of small, concrete actions well: being curious about other people; disagreeing without poisoning relationships; revealing vulnerability at an appropriate pace; being a good listener; knowing how to ask for and offer forgiveness; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view. People want to connect. Above almost any other need, human beings long to have another person look into their faces with love and acceptance. The issue is that we lack practical knowledge about how to give one another the attention we crave. Some days it seems like we have intentionally built a society that gives people little guidance on how to perform the most important activities of life.”
Donald Boudreaux: “If we exclude misanthropes, most people today can – without excessive simplification – be divided into two distinct camps: the Awestruck and the Awws. The Awestruck are unceasingly amazed at the modern world. They are enormously grateful for the countless amenities and benefits of life in the modern global economy. They are aware that nearly all of our ancestors not only did without the comfort and convenience of the likes of air-conditioning, automobiles, air travel, aspirin, automatic dishwashers, telephony, recorded music, and laptop computers and smartphones connected 24/7/365 by wi-fi to the Web, the Awestruck also realize that most of our ancestors did without access to antibiotics, artificial lighting, indoor plumbing, the ability to bathe daily, and even regular supplies of food. The Awws, in contrast, are either ignorant of how most of our ancestors lived, or they believe that our ancestors’ experiences are irrelevant for assessing the state of the world today. Unlike the Awestruck, the Awws do not compare the state of the world today to that of the actual past. Instead, the Awws compare the state of the world today to fictions conjured by their imaginations. They compare today’s reality to what they imagine to be a Perfect World. The Awws then notice an undeniable reality: As marvelous as today’s world is, it’s not perfect. It could be marvelouser. Imperfections abound. Upon noticing these imperfections the Awws, in their dismay, moan “Awww.””
FT: “[Venture Capital] is returning to its origins as an artisanal cottage industry after failing to become an institutional asset class. That suits some VC firms just fine. “Our job is to find entrepreneurs who were placed on the planet to build industries,” says Danny Rimer, partner at Index Ventures, describing VC as a “passion industry”. He adds: “We think it is a great time to invest. We love to be contrarian.”…The VC industry has been stuck on one very specific formula of funding enterprise software companies and will have to find more innovative ways of backing climate tech and industrial hardware companies, suggests Judith Dada, a partner at La Famiglia. “The venture ecosystem will evolve. Tomorrow’s successes are not going to look like yesterday’s,” she says. Just as at the top of any bull market it is dangerous to believe “this time is different”, so at the bottom of any bear market, too. But, above all, VC investors are praying for interest rates to come down, the market cycle to turn and animal spirits to revive.”
