Is there one link, story or idea that stopped you this week… and made you think, “someone else needs to see this”?

My friends: Alistair Croll (Just Evil Enough, Solve for Interesting, Tilt the Windmill, Interesting Bits, HBS, chair of Strata, Startupfest, FWD50, and Scaletechconf; author of Lean Analytics and some other books), Hugh McGuire (Rebus Foundation, PressBooks, LibriVox) and I made a simple pact years ago. Once a week, each of us would share one link with the others… something we genuinely believed the other two had to see. No trend-hunting… no performance. Just six ideas exchanged with intent. What started as a small ritual between curious friends became Six Links That Make You Think.

These are the six links we passed to one another this week… take your time with them…

• Turning Music Into A Chore Is How I Became A Musician – The Scapegoat Dev. “‘Do what you love’ is common parental advice. So is ‘If you do what you love for work, you’ll stop loving it.’ Malcolm Gladwell claimed in Outliers that all it took was 10,000 hours; David Epstein contradicted this in The Sports Gene. But maybe it’s about having a system, which we only develop when we’re in it for the long haul? Manuel Odendahl said that his musical unlock was ‘turning music making from a hit or miss hobby into a repeatable, boring, ‘professional’ routine.’ I’m finding the same thing when it comes to building things with AI: Once the routines and systems are in place, pumping something out (like this silly conference organizer casual game) is pretty easy.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• I Built A Hermes Agent That Makes $10K/Mo With Clipping Pages While I Sleep (Full-Guide) – Vadim Strizheus – X. “Let me be very clear: I am not suggesting you follow the instructions of the link I’m sharing. I’d post the link to pretty much anywhere else if I could, but X‘s walled garden doesn’t play well with others. But I felt like if we were grabbing lunch, this is the thing I’d be gesticulating at on my phone, Mitch. I had no idea what clipping was, or just how lucrative posting excerpts of videos could be. Slice up a stream, repost it with some bait, and if it gets traction, the source will pay you money. It’s trickle-down influencer economics, and it’s being automated rapidly thanks to AI. I went down a bit of a rabbithole here, and came up for air realizing I’m old and don’t understand the video market at all. Maybe you’ll do better.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• Canada’s Most Promising Startups? – Matt Glossop – LinkedIn. “Chalk this up as another piece of evidence supporting my increasingly panicked view of Canada’s innovation/commercialization failures, and our diminishing future if we don’t solve them.” (Hugh for Alistair).
• The Secret Origins Of ‘Conspiracy Theory’ – Jesse Walker – Reason. “A history of, perhaps, the dominant epistemological underpinning of our time.” (Hugh for Mitch). 
• The Best Response To AI Slop, Infinite Advice, And Online Noise Is From Robin Williams – Jay Acunzo. “I really feel like how my old buddy, Jay Acunzo, is coming into his own with his writing style and approach lately. I know there seems to be this strange dividing line between those who love working with AI (like you do, Alistair) and those who do not (like, Jay). I straddle the middle… understanding and loving and marveling at technology while, at the same time, thinking that it could never replace me. I often find myself toiling with the keys and enjoying it much more than trying to edit some of the outputs I get out of these large language models. Spitting out content is not the same as having the ability to articulate a truly lived experience with words that capture someone else’s attention. Our unique lived experiences (and ability to express it) is what makes our work and voices truly valuable in a noisy world full of endless advice that is increasingly being generated by AI but trying to fool us by humans who struggle to put their thoughts into text, images, audio and video.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• My Uncanny Night Watching One Of The Legendary Group’s Last-Ever Shows – Luke Winkie – Slate. “Speaking of lived experiences into words… no AI could come up with or tell this story. And as I age, I always question whether or not I want to go see these classic bands play live. Not because they might be missing original members, but because I often just want to remember the music and the powerful way it was created… and not in how it iterates over time. I’ve been in the audience for countless concerts like the one described in this article, including a concert for this exact band. Often, in the end, you don’t feel the nostalgia or love for music, but rather disappointment and sadness, and that’s never a good place to be. “ (Mitch for Hugh).

If one of these sticks with you, pass it on… and let us know what earned your attention this week…

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