Happy NYE y'all! I wrote about my best decision of 2021 here. Goal for 2022: transition Hunch from a pure licensing biz --> owning the inventory risk (+hopeful upside!). Hbu? What's your #1 goal for next year?

The links

1. 10 big opportunities over the next decade

2. What did I just watch (56 sec vid)

3. 2022 = celeb doctors run for office + more

4. How to ask good questions

5. Timeline of every food + recipe invented

80,000 hours: is the total # of hours you have in your career. 40 hours/week, 50 weeks/year, for 40 years. If you're thinking about what to do next, comparing career paths, want to find ways to have more impact, dive head first into this resource.

Goes w/o saying: if you're ruminating on an idea/trying to think thru a decision and looking for a soundboard/second opinion, plz let me know. Would love to help in any way I can!

GM and merry xmas to everyone celebrating! I've got covid again so no fam time this year unfortunately. Tori's been an MVP helping me tough it out, so pressure's on to pull thru with some sweet xmas gifts :)

The links

1. If only 100 people lived on Earth...

2. It's better to exercise in the afternoon

3. Turn scribbles into animations

4. Interesting thread on airline loyalty programs

5. The next big thing in 2022 is...

End of year listen: is this episode from The Knowledge Project podcast. The ep is a mix of the "best snippets" from their 10 most downloaded episodes of the year. I think you'll take away a few timeless lessons from this one -- I sure did!

Curious: what's the *best* thing you're gifting this year? My fave has to be Storyworth. The way it works is: it'll email 1 question/wk to [recipient] over the next year. Then, at the end of the year, it'll take all of their responses and turn it into a hardcover book!

Morning! Thank you to everyone who replied with your feedback last week. Let's get into it:

The links

1. What Apple's car could look like

2. Bugs are evolving to eat plastic

3. Physics is so weird!

4. Elon Musk's bio back in the day (1997)

5. 10 examples of one industry borrowing from another

Framework for new ideas: take things only rich people have and make them accessible for you and me. eg. eTrade = sophisticated stock trading but for everyone. Uber = private driver but for everyone. Instacart = private shopper but for everyone. What else? (@sulemanali)

Hey y'all- two quick q's for you: 1. on a scale of 1 (not my cup of tea) to 5 (must read), where does this email fall for you? 2. (optional) - how can I make this email more worth your time? anything I can be doing better/more of/less of? Plz be honest!

The links

1. How to get better at sleeping

2. List of things Tom learned in 2021

3. Search for any words said in a movie

4. Curators are the next creators

5. Inventing a new type of shelter

Job alert: my friends over @ Just Salad are hiring a VP of Marketing + PR Strategist. B/w pioneering the country's largest reusable bowl program to experimenting w/ emerging "planet-friendly" foods, love love love how they're thinking about building a durable, long-term brand.

Morning! Let's get into it-

The links

1. T-rex's are smaller than I thought

2. How an Excel Tiktoker is making 6-figs/day

3. New weighted apparel line

4. The economics of Broadway shows

5. South Korea is building the first floating city

Love this: tiny grants for ambitious kids.

Listen of the week: the three primary methods we use to fight cancer are 100+ years old. Novocure offers a fourth, using physics to fight the deadliest cancers with substantial impact. Not only is this the best 101 I've listened to, but it made me very optimistic about the future. Queue it up, you won't regret it.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone :)

The links

1. Thread of 21 free biz ideas :)

2. Why the iphone box is perfect

3. Clever way to spend $1M

4. Nike x Snapchat glasses

5. Naming chinese babies to pay for college

Q for you: what's the best/most interesting [movie you watched, show you started, book or article you read, tweet you found] over the last week?

Morning!! First - thank you to anyone who bought a copy of our new game. Truly helps us out a ton. Second - we're launching a lil holiday tiktok challenge. If you know someone with 1k+ tiktok followers who might want to make some extra moola, send them this!

The links

1. Turn any room into a beautiful space (woah)

2. Thread of controversial polls

3. Myspace is back...and just hit 300k users

4. Fitbit, but for tracking how food affects you

5. When you should go the f to bed

Fave find: a better brownie. Not perfect (looking at u avocado oil!), but much lower sugar and still super tasty.

Idea of the week: Spothero for gas prices. A dead-simple app that shows you the lowest cost gas/e-charger near you. The data could be 100% crowdsourced (like Waze) and you could make money by (a) selling the data and (b) selling ads. Call it GasHero. All credit to my bff and ATF reader Will Franco for this idea. If you wanna weekend hackathon this, lmk and i'll connect you with him!!

gm! And hi to our new readers - great to have you :) Each email = 5 interesting links I found this week + 1 thought to get your wheels turning.

The links

1. Christian Bale is committed to the craft

2. How "sleep sounds" are hacking spotify

3. Netflix: shows, movies ... and games

4. How to increase (effective) charity

5. "Your repetition is my opportunity"

This is so cool: SpinLaunch is developing a new way to launch rockets into space. The easiest way for me to describe the tech is a State of Liberty-sized "shot putter" (concept vid + test launch)

Hmmm of the week: i've been working outta this board game cafe and noticed something interesting: randos keep strolling in to use their printer. But! Turns out: the printers aren't owned by the cafe. Instead, it's a separate company that buys a bunch of printers --> puts them into high-traffic places. The sales pitch: "yo- if u let ppl print in your place, we'll let you keep $X per page." It's kinda like TouchTunes at bars- bars don't own the karaoke machine, and keep a slice of each song played. Which sparks next Q: in what other areas could a model like this work? hmmmm

GM and hiiii to our new readers! Pumped to have you here :) Each letter = 5 interesting links I found this week + 1 thought to get your wheels turning.

The links

1. From movie to tradition

2. A never-ending thread of fun facts

3. Why CVS self-checkouts = more Amazon sales

4. Great companies being built outside the US

5. This portfolio site is so cool

Thought of the week: 20 years ago, the avg person spent 18% of annual $s on food and 9% on healthcare. Today, the %s have flipped. More processed, assembly lined production = much cheaper, lower quality food = more health issues. We should plop container farms in every neighborhood. Easy 1-2 person operation producing fresh food right within your zipcode. No more 1000+ mile journeys from farm to grocer. (someone snag the backyardveggies.com domain!! :)

Morning fam! Soooo: Javi and I are dropping a new game in the next ~week :) This one is a fresh take on charades, and much more suitable for playing with the fam (no toe-sucking haha). As soon as I have a link w/ more info, y'all already know you'll be the first to know!!

The links

1. 1 Warhol mixed with 999 fakes

2. Most popular pizza brand by state

3. Find a meme, make it a template

4. Do LEGOs kill creativity?

5. The best place for layperson explanations

Idea of the week: reviews are one of the key drivers of success on an amazon listing. The best type of reviews are short text with a video or couple pics. I wish there was an easier way to get these. Some "amazon influencer" marketplace of sort where brands could easily source high res image and video reviews. Amazon has Vine, but IMO these don't move the needle.

Morning! Let's jump in-

Thelinks

1. Airbags for the elderly

2. How Cards Against Humanity bought an island

3. The new 5 hour energy

4. Fake = more real than ever before

5. The network of fictional tiktok stars

A different POV on gratitude: "When I was 20, I wanted to be a millionaire. Now that I’m a millionaire, I want to be 20." Being a time millionaire > cash millionaire.

Morning! Let's get into it-

The links

1. The biggest car-free urban area in the world

2. Many thoughts after seeing this

3. Getting into the dog ramp business

4. Asking better questions

5. The most popular stocks owned by Congress

Replacing beef with chicken is one of the best things you can do to lower your carbon footprint. If everyone modified their meat intake this way, however, it also means we'd have to kill many more chickens-- which has struck some chords with the animal welfare camp. Here's the thing: most people don't wanna go vegan, so until we can develop a (true) 1:1 lab-alt, this feels like a no-brainer rec. What do you think?

Morning! Some real winners in the lineup today:

The links

1. List of 14 design secrets

2. Global progress on child mortality (click play)

3. Wow

4. How much would Bach make on spotify?

5. Why physical mail still exists

Life hack: how to opt out of all junk mail

Idea: think about all the times you've been early on a song, youtuber, artist, trend etc before it/they popped off. "I found this song monthhhs ago" "i've been subscribed to him since he had ~1k subs" but NADA to show for it but our word. There's something around this idea of signaling you're early on [something] as its own product. And then maybe tying early support/conviction to rewards of some sort. IDkkkk but something here hmmmm

What's the coolest thing you discovered or stumbled upon this week? I wanna see!!

Ayyyy! Married, honeymooned, and back to reality :) Feels great. Excited to share some of the best links I've stashed over the past few weeks.

The links

1. Getting closer to curing cancer

2. Who's moving with me to Telosa?

3. The longest walk you can do on land

4. Drones are finally useful (beyond nice pics)

5. Most popular netflix shows and movies

Bonus: putting time in perspective

I read: the Almanack of Naval Ravikant last week and it's the first book in a while I'd consider a "must read." It's broken into two parts: (i) how to get rich without getting lucky, (ii) why happiness is a skill that can be learned and how to learn it. It's probably the most "efficient" book I've read too - <200 pages, and most sentences are highlight-worthy.

Hey familia! This'll be the last letter from me before a lil hiatus. Ya boy is getting MARRIED (!!) next weekend, then off with the MRS (!!) to the honeymoon :) Speaking of honeymoon: hoping to get some reading in while we're away. What's the best book you've ever read?

The links

1. Cool google trick

2. Underrated: make .ppt templates

3. Find new jobs w/o your boss knowing

4. Interesting POV on building social networks

5. Good intentions, unintended consequences

Thought of the week: boxing was a dying sport until Logan + Jake paul revived it. It desperately needed storytellers to captivate a new gen of viewers, and the Paul bros filled that gap. I wonder what other sports could use a creator-led revival? Poker feels like it could be a good fit. The Olympics also need a biggg refresh- or maybe someone just needs to make a new, better Olympics altogether

Morning! Sorry for missing last week's letter - our venue told us their AC wasn't working 24h before our Sat vid shoot. So Fri was a biggg problem solve day... haha anyways! Let's get into it:

The links

1. The fastest growing restaurant is a ... cookie chain

2. Google's idea graveyard

3. Captivating thread on the cause(s) of obesity

4. Tiny homes

5. The next big appliance will be a composter (mark my word)

Longer but great read: on why people are spending a ton of money on jpegs. "Social networks reward early adopters, and a social network with money baked in gives early believers a double-whammy. [...] for the love of god, don’t be one of those older folks that scoffs at NFTs."

Idea of the week: in the last year, I've got hit with two OUTRAGEOUS medical bills. The problem here is two-fold: (1) the actual cost was crazy high and (2) I had zero idea how much i'd be in for until getting the bill. How is this acceptable?? There isn't a SINGLE other product or service customers say yes too without seeing the price tag upfront. It blows my mind this is how healthcare functions today. SO while #1 requires legislative change, #2 feels like something solvable today. Maybe by referencing a tonnnn of previous bills, then letting people type in [provider type] + [your insurance] + [type of service] and it outputs an estimated bill?? Not sure exactly how but needs to be built.

Good morning fam! We're prepping for another video shoot next Sat (Aug 28). If you're in NYC and around anytime between 11-6p, lmk!! Would love to have you :)

The links

1. Robots doing parkour now

2. Follow the money, politician edition

3. Sunscreen - good or bad? (scroll to "Health")

4. Mario Party(ish), but IRL

5. List of useful sites

Thought of the week: the majority of food purchasing happens in grocery stores. Bc of this, brands need to (i) produce enough units (ii) to have enough economies of scale (iii) to make profit selling there (v slim margin). This leaves ZERO room for failure -- if customers don't like for w/e reason, [brand] still has a shit ton of inventory they have to sell! On top of this, grocers give zero data to brands - brands don't know who's buying their product, how often, etc. These are why shelves are dominated by the same old, sugar-heavy incumbents. Idk what the solution is, but we need a new type of grocer that levels the playing field so we can get healthier foods on shelf!

Morning everyone! Off to MA with Tori for her bridal shower :) 5 weeks out from the big wedding! Let's jump in:

The links

1. Remember ringtones?

2. Robotic cafes

3. Trauma cleaners can make bank

4. Where should you move next

5. Write code with plain english

Our life: is shaped by our mind. Think accordingly. (list of reminders)

Idea of the week: plastic-free fishing baits. This one's from my buddy Ian. Surprised this doesn't exist already, but such a DUH!

Happy Friday y'all! Quick progress report: First & Last is off to a hot start Thank you so much to everyone who bought a copy. We've got <300 units left on Amazon, so if you want one, def snag one before this batch sells out!!

The links

1. The nicest place on the internet

2. You won't find better book summaries than here

3. American Airlines offers free wifi to watch tiktok

4. Getting paid to visit websites (~2 min vid)

5. Amazing list of "fast" accomplishments

Words to live by: if it costs your peace of mind, it's too expensive. (@sovereigneur)

Drop of the week: PartyBid - a new site that lets you start/join online chat rooms and bid on art with total strangers. The project is interesting for two reasons imo: (1) seeing everyone else's cursors on the page at the same time is a humanizing experience - it feels like I'm here with other people. (2) Public auctions with total strangers is a promising use-case for crypto. No private back rooms or expensive intermediaries - if you're part of the winning bid, you automatically get your piece of the prize.

Goooood morning! We just got the greenlight from our partners - game #2 of the summer officially hits NEXT WEEK Truthfully, Javi and I are wayyy in over our heads trying to give proper TLC to two new titles at the same time, but if parents of real human twins can do it... haha. CAN'T WAIT to show y'all this one. (might be the new fave child .. )

The links

1. Chart of how money moves in music

2. The pill that kills

3. Keeping the combustion engine alive

4. Loops that cause creative struggle

5. Cameo, for songs

Contrary to popular opinion: the % of Americans who evaluate their lives well enough to be considered "thriving" reached 59.2% in June, the highest in over 13 years. HELL YA!

Idea of the week: venmo for peer-to-peer betting. If 1v1me can legally facilitate bets around video games, why can't something like this exist for all the things? Something dead simple that lets 2+ people wage on the outcome of an event, then auto-distributes $$ to whoever made the right pick.