Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (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 decided that every week the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person “must see.”

Check out these six links that we’re recommending to one another:

• The SG-1 – Weber Workshops. “I feel a tremendous sense of cognitive dissonance these days. Climate change ravages cities around the world, while Burning Man attendees tout their resilience in the face of an inch of rain. Inflation is forcing people to choose between food and medicine, while products like the SG-1 exist. And while I’m a fan of superb, minimalist design, the endgame of scarcity has to be a $75,000 coffee grinder, one unit available.” (Alistair for Hugh).
• Dilla Time – The Ethan Hein Blog. “James DeWitt Yancey, aka Dilla, transformed modern pop music. In writing a review of Dan Charnas‘ book Dilla Time, Ethan Hein tries to explain why Dilla’s iconic rhythmic ‘sloppiness’ works: ‘But why does it sound so good? I am trying to figure that out.’ Mitch, you’ll probably love this deep-dive into microtiming and rhythms.” (Alistair for Mitch).
• Morality is for Promoting Cooperation – Mark Alfano Interview – Jason Chen – YouTube. “Mitch, Alistair and I had lunch the other day. A big focus (of course) of the conversation was AI. I was particularly interested in where human’s value-add advantages reside in a world of increasingly sophisticated and human-like AI (my theory is roughly something like: problem identification/framing will continue to be a space humans will exceed). This talk somehow feels parallel to the AI question — though maybe that’s a tenuous reach (?) — but the question of ‘what does morality mean’ seems existentially important in our increasingly polarized times. This model posits that morality exists to encourage/support collaboration. This leads me down a path thinking about human value as comprising of three things: Our ability to abstract time (ie to consider the far past and imagine the far future), our ability to identify problems to which we can apply creative solutions, and a moral underpinning that supports complex collaboration spanning abstracted timeframes. Not sure where that leaves me!” (Hugh for Alistair).
• The Roots of Identity Politics – A Conversation with Yascha Mounk – Making Sense. “Count me among the left-leaning middle age white men deeply uncomfortable with the current intellectual climate around certain issues (race, gender, colonization, western civilization). I have two big criticisms about where we stand: 1/ the lost space for conversation and debate about many of these issues, and 2/ (somewhat related, since we’re not really allowed to talk about them) the uneasy feeling that many of the solutions proposed cause more damage than good. In any case this (quite balanced) conversation was helpful in shedding light on the intellectual history of some dominant strains of current progressive political positions, as well as the some of the impacts that might not be apparent to those of us paying less attention.” (Hugh for Mitch).
• Yoel Roth warns new X CEO about Elon and company status – Code 2023 – The Verge. “There is (and will continue to be) a lot of conversation of how X (formerly Twitter) fits into the media landscape and the general way that social media and our conversations flow. The other day at Code 2023, drama unfolded. First, there’s this. A very last minute addition to the event was conversation with Yoel Roth – former Head of Trust and Safety at Twitter, who was interviewed by Kara Swisher (who just happened to be on stage an hour before Linda Yaccarino, current X CEO, took the stage). I’m cheating a little here with a second link, because below is also the interview with Yaccarino, who is (clearly rattled by what Roth said and/or was greatly unprepared to answer very general questions about her role, vision and path forward for X). And, as the world turns, we get another glimpse into what’s been happening at X and where this all (might) lead? If you’re interested in tech, media and general business leadership, please spend the time to watch these two interviews.” (Mitch for Alistair).
• Mark Zuckerberg: First Interview in the Metaverse – Lex Fridman Podcast #398 – YouTube. “Let me caveat this week’s choice with this: What you are about to watch is a parlor trick. There was a lot of work and technology that happened behind the scenes to make this look like Meta made a huge leap forward in virtual communications. Bodies were scanned, code was written, and more. This is not ‘off the shelf’ and can’t (currently) be done by the rest of us. They’re also not trying to fool anyone, either. In this conversation, they go through what it took to get them both to this point. Now, with that… wow. Sure, there are glimpses of the uncanny valley and it’s hard to reconcile that this avatar tech will be the future vs. something more video-based. Still, if this is what it looks like on YouTube, I can’t even begin to imagine how incredible the experience must be when you’re ‘in it.’ Now, along with the magic of how quickly this tech is evolving (and, what exactly the metaverse might be), you also get a great conversation lead by Lex Fridman about what the next few years will look like from Meta, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and beyond. Still, I readily admit, that I was challenged to ingest the content, because I was so mesmerized by the tech.” (Mitch for Hugh).

Feel free to share these links and add your picks on Twitter, Facebook, in the comments below or wherever you play.

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