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Claims have always needed resistance from the reader. For a long time, I thought I was providing that. I was not. I was nodding at what sounded reasonable One of my friends asked me after my last essay : “Can you actually show how you do the adversarial reading thing you wrote about?” Fair question. I had written about playing with ideas instead of just passively reading them. So I tried it. I…
I had the words but not the thinking behind them. I kept noticing the same problem. I would finish an article feeling like I understood it, confident I could use the idea. But when I tried to apply it to a different context, I couldn’t do it. This would happen with ideas that seemed clear while reading. Why index funds beat active funds, why network effects create monopolies. I would follow the…
We accidentally designed a world where we are more accountable to strangers than to ourselves. I'll work nights on difficult projects my boss assigns, but I can't finish books I buy enthusiastically for myself. This bothered me for a while because it didn't make logical sense. Then I noticed this pattern everywhere. I abandon online courses after a few lessons. I start side projects with…
What looked like a collapse at Dream11 was really a well-timed escape plan. When you can shut down an $8 billion "sports tech" company overnight and pivot to fintech, you were never a sports company. You were a gambling company cosplaying as innovation . The speed tells you everything. Uber, Ola, Rapido fought with government bans. They didn't pivot immediately. Also companies don't accidentally…
If ChatGPT/Claude disappeared I would feel like my IQ dropped twenty points. I got to my destination three minutes early yesterday and felt proud about it. Like I had accomplished something by beating the GPS estimate. Which is completely insane. This was a route I have taken probably a hundred times. I still opened Google Maps anyway. Not because I was lost, but to know if there was traffic, how…
I'm sitting in my kitchen watching my maid clean the counter. She's telling me about her son and something in her voice makes me stop everything. "He wants me to leave and go back to my dad's house," she says. "But I took care of him." That last part hits me weird. Earlier today, she told me a different story. About when her son was little and would cry all night. She didn't know what to do as a…
The actual learning happens when you read the book and reflect on your thoughts. The highlighting, the rough notes, jotting down ideas. Mortimer Adler wrote that the goal of reading is not just to know what an author said, but to understand what they meant and why it matters. But today's reading culture seems designed to give you the 'what' while completely skipping the 'why' and 'so what.' That's…
"Now enter AI. What happens when it's doing the writing—and not even the author has deep knowledge of what was written? That's like a compiled or multiple author memo no one ever actually read end-to-end. - Steven Sinofsky" Was reading this piece by Steven Sinofsky about how nobody actually reads anything at work. Even when he was sending big strategy memos to thousands of people as a senior exec,…
You think you are building a second brain, but you are not. You are engaging in intellectual masturbation. You have spent months building that perfect note system, but when did you last actually read any of it? What you have built is a write-only system disguised as a second brain. Every morning, the ritual begins. You stare at that daily note. Write down how you feel, what you think. Then the…
For years, I have been consuming content online either through blogs or Twitter. Consuming is easy, but real learning happens when one creates. With that goal, I am attempting to work on learning by creating this blog. I have been following a few people whose writing has got me impressed. Abhishek Asthana, who shares wonderful takes on humor and current affairs in Twitter. Will Larson, who shares…