Kurt Gray: “Bearing in mind that our species is by nature more prey than predator is a good rule of thumb when interacting with people — and it could help soothe today’s intense political animosity by increasing our sympathy for the other side. Just as you vote to protect yourself and your family, so do those who vote differently. The next time you feel angry at your political opponents, pause to think about how they might feel threatened…Unless they see you as naïve, your political opponents probably view you as a predator. To help them understand your true motivation, consider explaining how your beliefs relate to your fears and your desire to protect yourself, your family, your community. You might start a political conversation by asking, “What worries you most about the future?” or “What makes you feel threatened?””
Gautam Mehra: “The gold standard [in data]: deterministic observed data. This is the data of real actions—what people actually do, not what they claim to do or what we approximate they might do. Whether it’s purchase patterns, digital interactions or footfall data, deterministic observed data provides a concrete and unbiased view of reality…the gold standard: deterministic observed data. This is the data of real actions—what people actually do, not what they claim to do or what we approximate they might do. Whether it’s purchase patterns, digital interactions or footfall data, deterministic observed data provides a concrete and unbiased view of reality.”
Raghuram Rajan: “What is important is [India’s] economy itself is not creating enough jobs. Manufacturing, for example, is becoming much more capital intensive over time. Where we are creating jobs is in construction and agriculture. Construction, of course, because of the boom in infrastructure spending, etc, is understandable. Agriculture is worrisome. Why are people going back to agriculture when, in fact, in every developing country, they should be coming out into the services and manufacturing. Services was creating jobs, but through the pandemic, it has not. I think the big question for the government has to be: How do we create more jobs and higher quality jobs?”
The Generalist: ““Startups need to force a choice, not a comparison.” That’s something that Mike Maples told me recently. If a startup forces a comparison, it will inevitably lose because the incumbent can just RFP you to death with incremental features. You can’t come in and say, “Hey I’m building a CRM with a more elegant workflow.” You have to deliver a value prop to your users that is orthogonal in some way – something that is so different from the current offering: like a CRM that doesn’t require data entry, Uber versus taxis, or Gong versus Salesforce. It should be something that’s essentially impossible for the incumbent to react to because you’re changing the conversation, and what was once their strength becomes a kind of weakness. Mike gave the example of Airbnb versus traditional hotels. The Four Seasons has a standardized, cookie-cutter style that lets you know when you’re stepping into one, wherever you are. What Airbnb had was uniqueness – being at an Airbnb in Paris is not the same as being in one in San Francisco or Los Angeles. It forced a choice: Do you want a consistent hotel stay or to experience the city? People will pick different things, which is fine, but you need to appeal deeply to some narrow subset, not try to build the slightly better Four Seasons.”
NYTimes on Mel Robbin’s new book “The Let Them Theory”: “If you stop trying to manage other people’s opinions, actions and moods, then your well-being and relationships will improve. Friends hanging out without you? Let them! Relatives griping about you? Let them! Your date ghosts you? Let them! Don’t stress about what you cannot control; focus on what you can…The first half of the “let them” idea is about freeing yourself from the burden of trying to manage other people. As for the second half, Robbins turns to another concept: “let me.” It goes like this: after releasing what you cannot control, you say “let me” and take responsibility for your next steps. Without that idea, you run the risk of simply shutting down and isolating yourself, the book warns.
