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takeaways from my bookshelf
 Currently reading... |  > Thomas Jefferson: On matters of style, swim with the current. On matters of principles, stand like a rock > Argue like you are right, and listen like you are wrong > First movers advantage is a tactic not a goal. It only exists when its a patented technology, or there are strong network effects at play |  > I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions, but it must be utility in the larger sense, grounded on the permanent interest of man as a progressive being > For those with limited options, the free market isn't exactly free, almost to the extent of coercion for some eg. homeless > Justice is not only about the right way to distribute things, but also the right way to value things |
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 > For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away |
in 2020
 >On Marissa Mayer's decision to join Google - she rather bench on the varsity team, than start for junior varsity. >3 reasons why Marissa excelled: [1] Incredible ability to recall smallest detail (she could quote statistics why a shade of blue was better than another) [2] World class preparer (No one could outhustle her before big meetings) [3] Proud & passionate to her core |  > The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice > I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take the feet off our necks > Unfair to distinguish based on an unalterable identifying trait over which the individual has no control of |  > People are less willing to help when there are more people around, the responsibility to act is diffused > 4 minutes was the optimal attention span of kids. Thus, sesame street episodes were initially made to fit into 4 minute dialogues |
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 > Best predictor of quality and customer satisfaction is the lead time from raw materials to finished goods > Greatness is not achieved by leaders making all the right decisions. They create conditions for the team to discover greatness in their daily work |  > Catching up on sleep on the weekends do not work > Sleeping 4-6 hours the week before your flu shot reduces your antibodies by 50% > Sleep deprivation affects creativity, ethics and mood |  >Early education streamings are grading maturity instead of ability >How family background determined kids success at school, or how the rice fields made Asians better at math >Success is about opportunities. Its up to those who have the strength and presence of mind to seize them |
 > Cities occupy 1% of our land, but house 55% of our human population > The more sources of entertainment we have, the lesser humans have sex > US parents spend $230k to raise a child till they are 17 |  > Habits are the compound interest of self improvement > The more immediate pleasure you get from an action, the more you should question its validity to your long term goals > If you can't win by being better, you can win by being different |  > If Henry Ford asked customers what they wanted, people would have asked for faster horses |
 > Meet people with standard set of questions > Secure early wins that are aligned with your managers > Plan your milestones and deliverables for the first 6 months |  > You don't get rich by gambling, you get really rich by being the house > The 3 phases of bitcoin: academic, anonymity and transaction > The rise of gold was contributed by its natural occurring properties (eg. non-gaseous state, moderate reactivity, availability, and melting point) |  > Instead of working back from a goal, work forward from promising situations. Choose from the most promising options you have now, instead of making arbitrary plans for the future > Kind environments are replicable, while wicked environments have no patterns or predictability > Achieving market arbitration: applying knowledge from an industry to another |
 >How the Bill Clinton scandal and their mistake of sending out porn DVDs gave them free publicity >Not all metrics are obvious. Initially thought that same day delivery would impact retention, instead turned out to affect sign-ups. >Recommendation model optimised for user selection and Netflix's inventory |  > A fine line between leaking and whistle blowing, with the former having self or organizational interest, to influence or gain something |  |
 > 2/3 of wage growth happens in your first 10 years of your career > Confidence do not come from the inside out, it comes from the outside in. People become more confident on the inside, when they can point to things they have done well from the outside > The discovery of a second growth spurt in our 20s, where neurons grow exponentially, and connections that are not utilized are pruned away |  >Once users booked Uber for >2.7 times, they would become a lifelong customer >Early Uber employee, Ryan Graves, was hired from a tweet by Travis >Ghosting and grey balling traffic officials to avoid getting fined |  >3 things to build a company: people, process & technology |
 >Getting the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people at the right seat, then figuring out how to drive it >Using acquisitions as an accelerator of flywheel momentum, not a creator of momentum |  > Kombucha is one of few fermentation processes which undergoes both aerobic & anaerobic fermentation at different times of a brewing cycle > Black, Oolong, green, white and Pu'er tea all comes from the same plant. The difference is when they are plucked and how they are processed |  > 5 mindsets needed: curiosity, bias for action, reframing, awareness, radical collaboration > Achieving coherence between who you are, what you believe, and what you are doing > Follow your passion. It is discovered after trying things out, not before |
 >Hallmark of a good business plan, is the ability to explain it to your grandmother >Monetisation: how would you get paid, how much would you get paid, how many times can you get paid |
in 2019 & 2018
 > The cowards never started, the weak died along the way > You measure yourself by the people who measure themselves by you |  > Centralized ledgers like Visa process 3.2k transactions per second, while a 1MB bitcoin block only allows 4 transaction per second > Impossible trinity: that no governments can achieve fixed foreign exchange rate, free capital flow and independent monetary policy all at the same time > In Oct 2009: 5050 bitcoins were sold for $5.02 to register the first purchase of bitcoin for money. Price was calculated based on the amount of electricity needed to produce the bitcoins > |  > An internet search is a snapshot in time, while blockchain adds a time dimension > Pay to script hash (P2SH), an advanced type of crypto transaction, allowing parties to decide on the number of keys required to complete a transaction > Mining follows a poisson distribution, ranging between a minute to an hour, with an average of 10 minutes > In 2013, 937 people owned half of all bitcoins |
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 > Similar to a book, each page represents a block, and the sequence of pages forms the blockchain. The page numbers are the special numbering system of the blockchain, while the words on the pages represent the contents of each block > 2 ways to describe ownership - Inventory data (like a bank statement showing your bank balance) and transactional data (like a credit card transaction history) |  |  >Those who try to be clever at the expense of the government should not complain if (my) replies are as sharp as their criticisms >Singapore filled the void between San Francisco & Zurich time zones, that for the first time enabled global 24 hours banking services |
 > You may live in the world as it is, but you can still work to create the world as it should be > The apparatus of privilege and connection, what seemed like a network of half hidden ladders and guide ropes that lay suspended overhead, ready to connect some but not all os us to the sky |  >Inequality is in fact the logical outcome of meritocracy. When we think that a system rewards individual hard work, when in reality, rewards economic & cultural capital passed from parents to children. >Poor people don't make poor choices, they just have poor options |  > You can't beat the market, its randomness that some people beat the market > Being ahead of your time is almost indistinguishable from being wrong > Stick to what you know, and avoid what you don't know |
 > Gold is used as money not because it was valuable, it became valuable because it was used as money > Bitcoin facilitates transactions that are so small, that it doesn't make sense for regular banks, as the transaction fees would outweigh the transaction amount |  >Objective beliefs (eg. gravity is present whether you believe or not) >Subjective beliefs (eg. I feel my headache, even though all my medical results shows either wise. >Intersubjective beliefs (beliefs uphold by people eg. Bank notes) |  >If you give customers what they are asking for, you are not being innovative, you are just being responsive >At Google, users are the users of the product, while customers are the companies paying for ads. There's rarely a conflict, but when there is, the bias is towards the users >Good judgement comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgement |
 > 3 ingredients for successful AI: technical expertise, strong entrepreneurs, and data > Lawyers, doctors and teachers flood major cities for better lifestyles and salaries. As a result, people in lower tier cities are deprived, and AI can level the standards. |  > Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. Ethics and creativity can't be counted > Its better to make meaning than make money > Your position is how the world sees you. Your place is how you see yourself in the world |  > Skate to where the puck is heading, not to where it was > Build for missionaries, not mercenaries > Be stubborn on the vision, but flexible on the details |
 >Differentiating between left brain & right brain motivators >Ownership & possession: When users feel a sense of ownership and attachment, they have a higher than market valuation >Unpredictability & curiosity: Skinner Box experiment |  >Small, daily, seemingly insignificant improvements when done consistently over time yields staggering results >Done is better than perfect >Things that get scheduled get done |  > Its easier to invent the future than to predict it > Risk is the function of perception not reality > Great companies fail not because they want to avoid disruptive change, but because they are reluctant to embrace promising new markets that might undermine their traditional businesses and do not satisfy short term growth |
 > Anchoring: Where the first price or first impression sets your expectations for future encounters > Our propensity to overvalue what we own is a basic human bias |  |  > Trying to cross the chasm without taking a niche market approach is like trying to light a fire without without kindling. > When choosing the optimal target segment, find something that is big enough to matter and small enough to lead |
 |  > Does the introduction of markets dilute or taint the true value of a good |  > Talent is how quickly your skills improve when you invest effort. Achievement is what happens when you take your acquired skills and use them |
 |  > Most people will not suffer from exploitation, but from something far worst, irrelevance > Human happiness depends less on objective conditions and more on our own expectations. Expectations, however, tend to adapt to conditions. |  |
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 > We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events. Overconfidence is fed by the illusory certainty of hindsight |  |
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