NOTE: I’d been working on this piece on and off for a few weeks while trying to move to NYC and settle into my new apartment, and just as I was about to publish it, Elon rate-limited Twitter and so, sensing a moment of weakness, Meta pulled up its launch date for Threads to yesterday. This piece doesn’t cover Threads directly, nor does it talk about the rate-limiting fiasco. It’s focused on why I…
A second year of the pandemic passed in which I didn’t attend any film festivals in person. I miss it. My viewing output of is lower than usual but still much much higher than that of the median filmgoer. Film is one category of media in which human recommendations still feel superior to algorithmic ones. It is notable that none of my favorite Netflix movies this year came via their…
It feels as if we're at the tail end of the first era of social media in the West. Looking back at the companies that have survived, certain application architectural choices are ubiquitous. By now, we're all familiar with the infinite vertical scrolling feed of content units, the likes, the follows, the comments, the profile photos and usernames, all those signature design tropes of this…
I promised one final piece on TikTok, focused primarily on the network effects of creativity. And this is that, in part. But it discusses a bunch of other topics, some only tangentially related to TikTok. All the points I wanted to cover seem hyperlinked in a sprawling loose tangle. This could easily have been several standalone posts. I've been stuck on how to structure it. Some people find my…
In my previous post on TikTok I discussed why its For You Page algorithm is the connective tissue that makes TikTok work. It is the bus on its motherboard that connects and closes all its feedback loops. But in the breathless rush to understand why companies might want to acquire TikTok, should ByteDance be forced to divest itself of the popular short video app, the hype around its algorithm has…
I often describe myself as a cultural determinist, more as a way to differentiate myself from people with other dominant worldviews, though I am not a strict adherent. It’s more that in many situations when people ascribe causal power to something other than culture, I’m immediately suspicious. The 2010’s were a fascinating time to follow the consumer tech industry in China. Though I left Hulu in…
Now that everyone is spending many of their waking hours in Zoom, a lot of people are laughing at, and then asking me about, my Zoom setup. It’s actually not all that elaborate. I know many people with much more elaborate setups. Still, for a simple upgrade to the mic and camera that come with your laptop, here are the two pieces of gear I use. For a microphone, I use a Blue Yeti USB mic . I…
NOTE: I'm going to start cross-posting individual stories sent out in my newsletter over here on my blog. The versions here may contain additional side notes, and often as I bring them over I'll do some light word-smithing or additional copy-editing because I can never stop editing my own copy. If you want to be the first to read things I publish, your best bet is to sign up for my newsletter ,…
“Si vis pacem para bellum” translated “If you want peace, prepare for war” I hadn’t planned on seeing John Wick 3 - Parabellum , but out for a walk in Stockholm in May, I got caught in a sudden downpour without an umbrella. I was in Sweden for the first time thanks to an invitation from the Spotify product team and had decided to spend some of my downtime seeing the city. Sweden, by the way, is…
I believe mass entertainment suffers from a bit of format rigidity due to the natural inertia from structural ossification in the music, film, and publishing businesses, to name the most prominent. One of the ways this manifests is in the one-way broadcast nature of much of our entertainment despite the fact that several billion people own internet-connected smartphones now, and even though they…
HBO’s Watchmen is fantastic, as many have noted. It may be one of the most polished first drafts of fan fiction to ever appear on the silver, errr, OLED screen. DC may lag behind the Marvel Universe in box office and audience acclaim, but it feels like DC is starting to find its footing with a different approach. Rather than having its directors conform to the ultimate vision of Kevin Feige, as…
“When a judge walks into the room, and everybody stands up, you’re not standing up to that guy, you’re standing up to the robe that he’s wearing and the role that he’s going to play. What makes him worthy of that role is his integrity, as a representative of the principles of that role, and not some group of prejudices of his own. So what you’re standing up to is a mythological character. I…
Sorry for the long hiatus. I've been doing some formal advisory work and a bit of angel investing these past months, and so more of my writing has been private. More than that, though, the Internet, with all the status games and incentives I wrote about in my last post, began to feel like an obligation that started whispering in my ear from a permanent porch on my shoulder. I needed a break from…
Editor's Note 1 : I have no editor. Editor’s Note 2 : I would like to assure new subscribers to this blog that most my posts are not as long as this one. Or as long as my previous one . My long break from posting here means that this piece is a collection of what would’ve normally been a series of shorter posts. I put section titles below, so skip any that don’t interest you. My short takes are on…
"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." - Sun Tzu My first job at Amazon was as the first analyst in strategic planning, the forward-looking counterpart…
I was in Taipei the past few weeks working on a documentary with friends. Because of a busy schedule, it wasn't like my usual travels abroad for fun, it felt more like a work trip. Still, even if I'd been there purely for vacation, I would've wanted to try a different mode of travel, one less focused on eating at nice restaurants or visiting notable tourist destinations and ticking them off the…
In a conversation with Matt Levine , Tyler Cowen asks: COWEN: Like you, I’m mostly an efficient markets guy, but when I look at initial public offerings I’m very baffled because investment banks take such a huge cut. If you needed to argue, “Well, they need the cut because they talk up the security, and in the absence of their efforts, no one would be interested, and it’s worth it,” maybe that…
It has been some time since I posted here. Outside of lots of meetings around the country and some trips with family and friends, a few creative projects have stolen the lion's share of my free time. While I won't publish some Medium screed on how spending less time on social media transformed my life, it is an unavoidable truth that one's free time is a zero sum game. For infovores, Twitter is a…
I don't know that I'm aware of enough entries in this category to even consider it one, but I'm a sucker for the union of political and film satire as embodied in alternate film commentaries. I was reminded of it when seeing The People's History of Tattooine which was first one of those spontaneous, emergent forms of Twitter humor that always brightens that otherwise dystopic landscape. JACOB…
It is hard for us humans to separate information from meaning because we cannot help interpreting messages. We infuse messages with meaning automatically, fooling ourselves to believe that the meaning of a message is carried in the message. But it is not. This is only an illusion. Meaning is derived from context and prior knowledge. Meaning is the interpretation that a knowledge agent, such as a…