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…

• The “Everyone Is Twelve” Theory – Mark Manson – YouTube. “This explains everything. And the top comment says it best: ‘Most people don’t grow, they just have more complicated arguments for why they’re acting like children’.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• The Future Of Creativity On The Internet In A World With AI – Jack Conte – YouTube. “This is simply the best take I have seen on AI and creators. And Jack Conte is the perfect person to give it—as a genre-defining creator (Pomplamousse, one of the breakout YouTube stars that proved indy music and MP3s could work) and startup founder (Patreon, which is trying to get creators paid while pointing a giant middle finger at Big Tech). It tells an amazing story through epochs of career-destroying tech (talkies, synthesizers), the carnage they wreak, and what comes after. Like Jack, I find myself both angry and excited, and I’m arriving at the same conclusion as him: Art is what’s interesting, and what’s interesting is hard. This is a simply masterful talk that is itself risky and creative. I watched it all the way through twice.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• Voyage To The End Of The World: Floating Lab To Explore Life In Arctic Adrift In Ice – Karen McVeigh – The Guardian. “There are still amazing adventures to be had in this world.” (Hugh for Alistair).
• Latent Space As A New Medium – Kevin Kelly. “Kevin Kelly (of course) has one of the most profound takes on AI I have read in a while. Knowledge compression, latent spaces, and the artistic/creative spaces between.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• A Remote Indigenous Community Built One Of Canada’s Fastest Fiber Networks – Rachel Berkowitz – IEEE Spectrum. “File this under ‘things I didn’t know that all of us should know’. The Western James Bay Telecom Network built a fast fiber-optic internet in a remote Cree community in northern Ontario. They faced many challenges (obviously) but succeeded by owning and managing their own network (which is wild). This project improved internet speed and inspired other Indigenous communities to build their own networks. We should get these folks to speak at StartupFest. The most fascinating part? It outperforms Starlink…” (Mitch for Alistair).
• The Accidental Architect Of The Internet’s Brain – Carson Griffith – The New Yorker. “Hugh and I have a huge softspot for all things Wikipedia. And it’s been that way since it first went live and online. And, of course, as AI proliferates everything, we know that the hyperscalers scaped everything and anything it could from Wikipedia. So… meet Steven Pruitt… the most active editor on Wikipedia. He has made over six million edits to the site. His work helped build the data used by many AI chatbots. I wonder what he imght have done differently (or not done) knowing this unintended consequence of trying to be helpful and giving… such a great read…” (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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