Skip the shiny objects and read some "Lindy" blogs first
Edwin's do-it newsletter
Hello everyone,
Shiny object syndrome and FOMO is depriving us from valuable insights. New does not always equal novel or good. In fact, there’s a correlation between the current life-span of something, and how much longer it wil last. If a book has been accepted as great for 50 years, the “Lindy effect” states that it’s probable to remain great for another 50. For this reason it’s a lot more likely that you’re getting value from something that’s stood the test of time.
There’s some amazing blogs out there which prove this point. Blog posts are an underrated format because of their information density. Long enough to clearly explore and contextualise the depths of the idea. Yet, short enough to consume without a significant time-investment.
My favourite blogs/essays
1. Paul Graham - paulgraham.com/articles
Keywords: Start up’s. Business. Self learning & development. Programming.
Summary:
Paul Graham is a programmer, writer, and investor. In 1995, he and Robert Morris started Viaweb, the first software as a service company. Viaweb was acquired by Yahoo in 1998, where it became Yahoo Store. In 2001 he started publishing essays on paulgraham.com, which now gets around 25 million page views per year. In 2005 he and Jessica Livingston, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell started Y Combinator, the first of a new type of startup incubator. Since 2005 Y Combinator has funded over 3000 startups, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Reddit.
2. Nick Zsabo - Unenumerated.blogspot.com
Keywords: History. Cryptography. Legal. Money. Computer Science. Philosophy.
Summary: Nick Zsabo isn’t often in the limelight and doesn’t have much of a public persona but his work and thoughts are fascinating. He’s practically birthed the blockchain field with his work on cryptography and smart contracts. His motives are innovation and philosophy driven as opposed to profit driven. Nick Zsabo is also one of the most likely suspects to have built Bitcoin (Satoshi Nakamoto).
3. Brett Hall - Bretthall.org
Keywords: Reality, Reason, and Rationality. Science. Knowledge Theory. Philosophy.
Summary: In my opinion, the most solid and in-depth analyses of how the world works out there. Spanning science, knowledge theory, and philosophy. Brett Hall explores and comments on works of prominent thinkers such as: David Deutsch, Nick Bostrom, Karl Popper, Steven Pinker and Sam Harris.
🚨 Announcement: Life Goals OS launch
Next week on Sunday the 14th I’m launching a Notion template for personal goal management. Make sure to read this post and reply if you’d like to receive early access and some hefty benefits!
4. Tim Ferris - Tim.blog
Keywords: Health, wealth and happiness. Learning. Financial freedom.
Summary: Tim Ferriss is an early-stage technology investor/advisor (Uber, Facebook, Shopify, Duolingo, Alibaba, and 50+ others) and the author of five #1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, including The 4-Hour Workweek and Tools of Titans. His blogs on being effective in all aspects of life are topnotch and very accessible.
5. Vitalik Buterin - Vitalik.ca
Key words: Technology. Ethereum. Life extension. Economics. Blockchains. Government.
Summary: Vitalik Buterin is a Canadian programmer and writer who is best known as the co-founder of Ethereum. He’s become less involved in Ethereum, and more prominent as a public thinker in recent years. He politicks on fixing societal problems and pushes innovation.
That’s a wrap
I’d love to hear what your favorite blogs and essays are. Leave a comment on substack sharing your thoughts. Alternatively, drop me an e-mail!
If you'd like to see more insights in the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter → https://twitter.com/Edwindoit
See you next week!
Edwin