Like millions of people, I really loved Daft Punk. Like millions, I was disappointed when I watched their Epilogue video . One thing I discussed with friends this summer was: what if they would have embraced their brand instead, and just find a pair of new people to replace Guy-Manuel and Thomas in their helmets? Imagine that scenario, imagine the potential. Which reminded me a concert of the…
Author Alvin Toffler once wrote: The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. I stumbled upon this quote while reading The Learning Game by Ms Fab. Oh boy does this apply to AI. Since we entered a world of constant change, adapting becomes mandatory. And if you'd need to adapt, unlearning might be the most…
👧👦 My other half - Mathilde - is launching her own project: a podcast + newsletter exploring the intersection of ‘parenthood x education x AI’ — I can’t reco. enough, it’s called: NewKid and here's the announcement: I am launching 'NewKid' . Talking about education: Let's only teach what's worth knowing . And what if we have it all backwards? Should this 👇 be the new education? The Age of…
Is it cheating? 😊 Nah. Action to be resumed as soon as... next week.
🔌 I haven’t met Sean yet but I’m a huge fan of his work and can’t recommend enough this interview of him by Edmond: Sean Thielen-Esparza and the analog revival . It's very thoughtful and I can assure you many nuggets of wisdom inside. For instance: The objects you wear—whether wired earphones or AirPods—say something about the tribes you belong to, the belief systems you hold, and how you…
Happy new year to y'all 🥂 Special thoughts to our LA friends. If you'd like to help, here's a list of places . If I had to wrap my 2025's intentions into one word only, it'll be 'change'. Only 2 weeks in, and 'change' I went through already. Which might be a good sign. Physically speaking, I changed flats. I haven't moved as far as I wished initially -across Ocean literally- cause I'm still in…
👩🎓 We need a Cambrian explosion in education. Period. I felt it as a kid, then student. I’m more convinced than ever now as a parent. Latham shared “some ideas on how we could experiment our way forward in education”: What will it take to revitalize education? We used to believe in education. We believed education would pull people out of poverty, free them from ignorance, and help them…
I kept the laptop away last week. The kids stayed with their grand-parents while my other half and I moved flats. We’re closer to the school, closer to friends, closer to the train station and still enjoy an incredible view on one of Lyon’s river. It’s pretty cool (at least before moving across ocean) 😊 Happy new year everyone 🥂 ☀️ I’ve been ‘touched’ by this ‘ sufi parable ’ — thanks a ton for…
☕️ I enjoy reading Franco every week. His words are full of wisdom. When he asked me to answer a few questions, it was an instant ‘yes’ (more like a ‘hell yeah, with pleasure’). He asked great questions. He made me think about my current feelings, the biggest lessons I learnt from my parents, or happiness as a whole. He’s obviously too kind with me but his words made me happy. So thank you 🙏…
☄️ Last week I’ve spent times with 2 great-grand-mothers -which is definitely something quite special. But it always makes me sad when I hear them being so pessimistic about the current state of the world. They were born in France right at the beginning of WW2 -one of them from a Polish -jewish- mother!- one of them looked her then boyfriend be enrolled for the war in Algeria -they were only 20-…
I haven't heard the 'work hard, play hard' motto for a while. I remember hearing it all the time back in the early 2010s. The 'work hard play hard' mentality seems to be a relics of the hustle culture. I've no idea where it came from initially but our kids started to watch the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV show from 1987 and while I was re-discovering the intro -and esp. Michelangelo's…
🌐 The title says it all: For The Love of God, Make Your Own Website . You know what to do then. To me, having my own website, even one I run as a business with my friends, gives me a degree of freedom over my own work that I’ve never had before. 🗝 I’ve been truly interested in are.na for a while, and been a fan of Cab’s ‘It’s Not Business, It's Personal’ series too. The fact that both of them…
As fas I remember I've been attracted by the whole co-living idea. First I grew up in a family of 6, then, during my studies, I lived in a flat of 4 right next to the campus -i.e. we hosted many parties and gatherings- and I continued to share flats in the beginning of my adult life. Like there were 5 of us in our incredible rooftop -probably still one of the best flat I used to live so far- in…
6 months ago I wrote about launching your startup while having very young kids . And I concluded that kids make you a 10x better entrepreneur. Right there might lie the secret about launching your startup later in life: very young kids act as a forcing function to focus. I recently came across a post from Nikunj on twitter that got me completely off track. It is so beautifully written -about…
🖼 I first saw Ian’s answer directly on Twitter. The whole thing sounds like poetry to me. Of course I’ve shared many of his influences growing up -starting with skateboarding- so I understand his language. Moreover, with Objet , we're allowing people to imbue their clothing with stories and memories. So the whole ‘storytelling’ part of this makes just total sense. Why Collect Digital Art? What Do…
🪩🗽🪡 aaaaand Mathilde did it again: this time with a behind-the-scenes from our latest Objet soirée in NYC -first one in the big apple, definitely not the last I can promise you. is throwing a party 3,800mi from home (vs 5,800mi) easier? let's find out 🛌 💤 latest instalment of the Objet column in Dirt with Erin Somers on sleepwalking, surveillance delusions, and the anxieties of adulthood: The…
🪩 Mathilde delivered another behind-the-scene from our Objet soirée n°2 in SF early Oct in the Objet journal: it's happening in about 48h! To get an idea of who we are (sometimes a bit crazy but lovely overall) and discourage you from throwing events 5 800 miles from home. 🍄🍳 The Obet column in Dirt never disappoints. Akosua on micro-utopias, going Matilda-mode, and embracing her consumerist…
🍄🦊 The Objet column in Dirt is getting crazier by the weeks. This time, Amelia shared with us her relationship with The Fox Skull and brought us on the thin veil between who we are and who we could be. 🌁 Patricia asked me great questions about the cities in my life and made me reflect on why San Francisco. Returning Home: Miracles and Ambition . Read more »
No-one can underestimate the global -and most probably long-lasting- impact of Facebook. 4 billion -with a b- monthly active users across Meta's family of apps -which includes Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. It's hard for the brain to grasp such numbers. The global population is around 8b. 3 billion -still with a b- daily active users! Can we imagine? It literally means 3 billion…
🍄🗡 The last object I was expecting when we talked about an Objet column in Dirt was The Sanrio Machete . But Michelle did it and it’s a banger. “Do you feel badass with your machete?” No, I thought, I feel like Simone Weil handling a firearm. Read more »
Ted Gioia -or The Honest Broker ; which I highly recommend- posted a few days ago: Nine Predictions for the Future of the Music Business . First I'd suggest a 10th prediction: a new cohort of companies cooperatively owned by the artists themselves, the workers and/ or the community. Two recent examples I'm very excited about: Hearing Things -or the next cooperatively owned Pitchfork [i.e. music…
This summer, I went to a nice space in SF named Founders, Inc. -in a quite amazing spot in the city by the way: Fort Mason; with a very 'San-Franciscan' view - listen to a live discussion between Ryan Hoover and Furqan. Something Ryan said stuck with me since then: 'adjacent 2nd order impact'. As a non-human bot gently detailed it for us: "Second-order effects, also known as second-order…
😇 Many things in this ‘30 values, beliefs, and other ideas’ by Jackson resonated: Things to Remember . It all comes down to love and gratitude. Happiness is love, full stop. 👧👦 Mathilde insisted I read that one and it’s a must-read indeed. Freya dug into ‘our broken homes’ and how it affected -more than we might think- an entire generation. The subtitle itself is powerful: ‘we simply don’t…
🪡 🌁 Last week was special with Objet -we threw our second soirée in SF on Friday and got lucky to see some great folks share the love. What Saumya and Colt are building is so important. Check their work out: Build IRL Newsletter #22 . And especially if you’re living in SF, they always share some cool events you can join. That’s how I knew about the new IRL Movie Club for instance and got to…
Let me tell you a story: I was wearing this white Ketchup t-shirt last Saturday during a 5k run in the Golden Gate Park. Julian might have been the first -definitely not the last- to come and ask me how much I like Ketchup. Later on while we were getting our morning coffee at Flywheel , someone came and asked me if I was also working at Heinz. That’s when I saw his sweatshirt -Ketchup related of…
San Francisco is great on all fronts but my personal writing. Objet n°2 is coming on Oct. 4th. If you want to embed memories into your clothing, RSVP here . ⏳ Since we’re talking about memories, handle them with care. Julia delivered a banger on Reboot: A Strange Kind of Memory . Our brains can’t store every observation, thought or perception that passes through and that isn’t a bad thing.…
⏳ Real long-term thinking is so underrated. I’d love to find a way to teach this skill to both our kids. Bill Gates framed it quite perfectly a while ago: “most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.“. Kyle delivered a banger here. I felt invited to reflect on my own life while reading the piece: Decades . Long-term thinking suddenly makes…
🎹 I’ve always loved a good brand story so when I received Waqas's deep dive on Teenage Engineering, I felt excited right away. Why Teenage Engineering is so Cool . This is exactly the type of opinionated company and brand we'd like to see more of. Which makes me wonder: why are there so few in the world? How can we empower more people to launch weirder and cooler things? Read more »
First and foremost, it's time to celebrate. I'm on my longest streak re: writing on this blog. I've been publishing every month since Sept. 2023, reaching a 13-month streak. The 2nd-longest was 'only' 11-month -I reached that mark twice in the past though. The best news still: I've no intention to stop. So I expect this 'record' to be beaten on a regular basis going forward -every month literally.…
🎨 We let disposable stuff put us -humans- in a state of disconnection and lack of meaning. Objects are evidence of human existence. This is why Ben’s piece Marks of Making resonated so much: Objects that expose their “marks of making”, or artifacts of how they were constructed, are a reminder that everything is made. Nothing simply appears. In a time when most people are wholly detached from…