B2B Wins #11: I know you miss me. Here’s something to make you smarter, wealthier, and more attractive while you wait
10 reads/watches for your holiday downtime
I’m outta here!
Like many of you, I’m taking time off this week. I know you’ll be bored pining for the next issue. While you’re lounging around the house in your pajamas swilling gin and tonics, further tickle your brain by reading these ten pieces of content that span a few genres. You’ll definitely be smarter. The rest is up to you.
The Ethics of AI: Kris Kringle Edition
Is Santa Claus Real? The weighty topic of AI ethics is wrapped up in an age-old parenting conundrum. When is it right to tell the truth? What lessons should we let machines learn about truth-telling? Will they kill us while learning those lessons?
The Future of AI: Humanoid Robots…soon
While another top 10 list can be a bit of a yawn, this one got my attention with a discussion about running out of data to train large language models, which means we’ve chewed through everything written by people, ever, and by positing that humanoid robots are coming soon. What could go wrong?
The Past of AI: Things moved fast.
Generative AI is the story here but that’s only because generative AI was pretty much the whole story in AI during 2022. Things moved fast this year. Strap in.
Themes, Not Resolutions (podcast)
Intro to Yearly Themes-The talented CGP Grey and Myke Hurley have a system for thinking about self-improvement in the coming year. We all know resolutions are crap. Themes are the solution. As Myke points out, “yearly themes are guiding principles, they are ideas, they are not actions like a resolution might be..my yearly theme [is] my north star” You don’t have to listen to the whole thing. But it is gold. The first 15 minutes cover what themes are and the rest gives you some context about how themes actually work for these two. You can also check out their 2023 Themes podcast.
My 2023 Theme: The Year of Figuring It Out.
A Deliberate Life (video)
A Deliberate Life is a film written and directed by a buddy of mine, Matt Smythe. Matt made this a few years ago and it illustrates the journey of five individuals as they sought to be more intentional about getting on with the things that mattered in their lives. It’s a powerful story of transformation set in Idaho along the banks of a storied river. And it includes plenty of fly fishing which makes it even better.
Know thy enemy
Why has Russia underperformed expectations? Why have the Ukrainians exceeded expectations? It turns out our expectations of Russia having a first-world army were way too high. And the Ukrainians? Nothing but respect. From the New York Times.
Strange Stuff (Advertising, figures)
The had me at Velveeta martinis. Well, had me is not quite right. More like evoked a vague wave of nausea. That said, it got my attention. Apparently, the coming year will have even more attention-getting advertisements. Why? Why do we do anything we do? Because it works.
Power powers everything
I haven’t made the leap into a battery-powered vehicle yet. The good news is that as a global shortage of batteries appears on the horizon, US manufacturers are cranking up capacity to make sure all those electric motors continue to hum along the highway.
NFTs. Meh.
I still think that Web3 tech has the opportunity to upend online identity. Trading cards? Puhlease.
Space continues to amaze
We think we know so much and then we find out that an entire universe exists within a speck of our observable universe. Science is awesome.
Bonus: Do not write a book as a New Year Resolution
Should you write that book? (I’m looking at you, Tim.) Not write that book? Say you’re writing the book while not writing the book. Say you’re writing the book while you are writing the book, yet procrastinating endlessly. Find out in this fact-filled essay.